Well, I didn't mean to imply ruthlessness. I meant to argue proportion. But I do believe that greed exists--do conservatives think not? No, I think that narcissistic fantasy goes further to explain extreme excess than greed or ruthlessness ever will. Despite that one may easily observe that some wealthy people don't work too hard, or that some of them clearly do, anyway--economic success still feels good, still looks good on the resume, requires less explanation than failure, still makes choices seem sort of validated, eases self-doubts, still preys on the social and--perhaps--moral ego.

   In short, the idea of the market rewarding good behavior is not exactly a belief, and can't quite be accounted for that way. It's a suspension of disbelief.

   And it helps explain why conservative leaders sometimes wind up saying things that don't quite mean anything.

Proportion. Whatever we believe, we do know what happens when we do not place limitations on market driven "productivity". We know we have labor unions because of what happens when we don't. We know why we have to have child labor laws. It's not theory, it's reality, it's history, it's again and again. Do we still have to act surprised at each version of the same story? Still, today, we can't buy an orange without serious moral concerns in the bargain.