Liberty – and its interpretation

Over the past years, Capitalist Culture has been a regular feature of Executive, so what better occasion than this 100th anniversary issue to look back at the column, and more particularly at the themes it has tried to raise in looking at Lebanon and the Middle East. A persistent aim of Capitalist Culture has been to address those issues somehow fitting into a broader context of free markets and free minds. The assumption has been that capitalism in its cultural manifestations encourages, or should encourage, openness, the free exchange of ideas, minimal state-imposed restrictions, an embrace of globalization, and, in some absolute way, the pursuit of human liberty. The column has always considered in an implicit way that the state is, at best, a necessary evil — an often clumsy barrier to naturally free flows in the human marketplace. Has the column been successful in getting the message across up