George Saunders

Yes, I'm a big believer in capitalism now.

I think it's totally holy.

No, I mean, I think it's actually – honestly, if you have some success, it actually makes a better vantage point to see the unfairness of the whole thing.

So I think in my lifetime, capitalism has gotten much meaner and much more beautiful.

I had a friend, the writer Michael Herr, who wrote the – Dispatches.

Yeah, Dispatches.

We were friends, and he said one time – he had this kind of beautiful 60s way of speaking.

He said, man –

When the fascists come back, they're not going to wear the jackboots because they already saw that that doesn't work.

So capitalism now is gleaming.

It's as if it's coming from within us.

We all buy into these strange fictions like shareholder value.

So I'm much more, I mean, I'm as aware of it.

And I think in some ways, if you're doing okay, it'll harder to be aware of it because it's very human to mistake good fortune for virtue.

So, yeah.

Well, it's not a fiction, but it's not as important as people think it is.

I mean, it seems to be, to me, it seems that we use that to excuse a lot of bullshit that we wouldn't put up with normally.

I don't know if I can articulate this, but it seems to me in our time we've become very comfortable with a certain mental move.

And it's something like, I know what the right thing is.

Wait there.