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Some of the most successful companies in recent years have been founded by such un-Puritanical figures as Sir Richard Branson (Virgin), Steve Jobs (Apple) and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (Ben & Jerry’s). High-tech companies such as Google have no difficulty in combining the profit motive with the ethos of a campus. But in one area Mr Bell was prescient: he worried that consumerism was encouraging people to borrow more money than they could reasonably hope to repay.
He was even more prescient about what might be called “the cultural contradictions of the welfare state”. This was the subject of passionate debate in the pages of the Public Interest, a journal he co-founded in 1965 with another poor-boy-made-good, Irving Kristol. The welfare state cannot last unless someone creates the wealth to pay for it. But interest groups demand ever more from the state, and politicians jostle to promise more goodies. As the welfare state expands, it can eventually undermine people’s willingness to take risks or look after themselves.

Different strokes for different folks
One of Mr Bell’s most provocative insights ran throughout his work. This was the idea that, contrary to what economic determinists such as Marx said, different “realms” of society could operate according to different principles. (Always wary of the neoconservative label that Kristol embraced with such enthusiasm, Mr Bell described himself as a “socialist in economics, a liberal in politics and a conservative in culture”.) Capitalism might co-exist just as happily with Chinese authoritarianism as with American democracy, he reckoned. In this, one hopes that the great polymath was wrong.

A. 어휘
figures 인물. profit motive 이윤추구동기. ethos 정신적 특색, 사회정신.
prescient 先見之明(선견지명)이 있는, 미리 아는.
subject 주제. passionate 열렬한. jostle 밀어제치고 나아가다, 어깨를 떠밀다.
goodies 과자. undermine 토대를 침식하다, 해치다.
provocative 도발적인. contrary to ...와는 반대로.
determinist 결정론자. realms 분야, 국토, 왕국. wary of 愼重(신중)한, 주의 깊은.
neoconservative 신보수주의자. embrace 채택하다, 포옹하다.
liberal 자유주의자. authoritarianism 권위주의. polymath 博識家(박식가).