I mostly enjoyed Andy Bernstein well supported case in defense of the Creative Minds and the Inventive Period. History has condemned the most productive minds of the XIX century. As humans, they were not perfect but sure were no "Robber Barons". As productive geniuses we should take their example of the only proven way to quickly improve living standards for all.
The Capitalist Manifesto uses the Inventive Period and its creative minds as an historic framework to explain the philosophical virtues of Capitalism. A typical error that Andy addresses here is the temptation to compare life in the late XVIII to XIX to the present. People didn't have the choice of the down of the Industrial Revolution and today standard of living, their choice was a miserably poor life in the countryside. People migrated because the conditions were much better than their alternative. Current conditions are the result of the accumulation of Capital that started almost three hundred years ago.
Highly recommended book for those in need of arguments to defend freedom from the its enemies.
