If you listen the ruling class or main stream media (MSM), you would certainly think that capitalism is a dirty word. Why does capitalism get such a bad rap? The reason always seems to do with unequal wealth distribution and that life isn’t fair and capitalists don’t seem to care. I will address these reasons one at a time.
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION
What is the goal of those that believe that wealth must be redistributed to relieve the suffering of the poor? How much redistribution do they think is needed? How much richer is one individual allowed to be relative to another individual? Is the only fair distribution when everybody has exactly the same wealth and/or poverty? In this case would everybody be said to be middle class? But, if there are no rich and there are no poor how do we know what is middle class? And isn’t that called communism? Is communism the ultimate goal of our liberal/progressives ruling class? They would never admit that communism was their ultimate goal; but they can not give us answers to these questions. All they can say is that our society has a moral obligation to help the those less fortunate. Americans are among the most generous people in the world. So I ask, are government forced charitable contributions moral? What is the moral that allows one group of individuals to lay claim to the earnings of another group of individuals?
” 90% of the wealth is in the hands of 10% of the people”. A common refrain and I would have to say it is an accurate observation. The liberal/progressives/socialist believe that with more and more social programs that they can alter the distribution of wealth in a more just manner. Well, that is exactly what they have been doing for the last 100 years; hows that been working out? Obviously it hasn’t worked out. Can they point out one example of a socialist or communist country that doesn’t have as bad or worse distribution of wealth? They can not.
So, the ruling class and the rest of so called progressive/socialist believe that they are on the moral high ground. They believe that capitalist are greedy cold hearted bastards. Of course, we all probably have a few choice words to describe our attitudes toward them. Let’s skip that futile exercise and let’s take a close look at the reality.
How do capitalist view reality? If you’ve never visited The Capitalist Site, I highly recommend it. If you decide to visit the site, clik on the “tour”. It is very well done. I’m going to use a number of quotations from this tour for the following discussion.
“Reality is absolute”
“ Reason is man’s means of survival, Reason is the only means of knowing reality, upon which his survival depends.”
Nothing outlandish here. Reality is was is and man use the ability to reason to recognize the reality and uses reason in making choices in life; his well being depends on the choices he makes.
“As reason is solely an attribute of an individual, and mans thinking determines his choices and actions, then each man is the master of his own destiny.The individual is sovereign.”
Now that’s what a capitalists believes! THE INDIVIDUAL IS THE MASTER OF HIS OWN DESTINY. THE INDIVIDUAL IS SOVEREIGN. But we individuals live in a society of many individuals. How does that work for capitalists?
“To live in society, man needs rights.”
“Man requires rights to those actions necessary to support his own live. The most fundamental right being the right to life, from which all other rights including, the rights of liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, derive.”
“Rights are moral principles”
“Rights are inalienable_ they may not be morally infringed upon”
Do you lefties hear that? It’s immoral to infringe on some one’s rights.
“Rights are not guarantees to things but guarantee the freedom of action ( right of liberty ) and guarantees to the results of those actions ( rights to property ).”
The guarantees to the results includes, I would say the right to fail because our actions may not always lead to prosperity. So that is what we need as individuals to live in society but what do capitalist need from government?
“Governments purpose is to protect the rights of the individuals.”
”In order to protect the rights of individuals, the government needs three things: An army to protect against forgn invasion, a police force to protect against domestic criminals, an a court system to settle disputes, enforce contracts, and to punish criminals according to objectively predetermined laws.”
“The purpose of a constitution is not to grant unlimited power to government or to limit the rights of individuals; but to limit the power of government to its only valid purpose, the protection of individual rights.”
Personally, although I believe strongly in limited government, I think we need a little bit more. I would say that a society of individuals would want three things from government: Protection of our rights as described above, A stable monetary system, and an adequate infrastructure to facilitate commerce. How’s that work for you?
The last part of the tour of The Capitalist Site is my personal favorite.
“Capitalism is the progressive ideal, because it is the only system that leaves man free to pursue and achieve his own happiness.”
“Capitalism is the ethical ideal, because it is the only social system that leaves man free to be moral _ to live by the use of his own mind.”
“Capitalism is the objective ideal, because it is the only system that is true, both in philosophical theory and economic practice.”
Aren’t those beautiful descriptions of capitalism? Hey lefties, can you now see who really has the moral high ground? No, you don’t see and you’ll never see until you take your collective heads out of those dark ans smelly places.
Capitalism may not be perfect, but it is orders of magnitude better than whatever is second best. Capitalism fits mans’ nature. Man by nature is individualist and capitalism is the only social system that allows man to follow his nature.
So are we, as the leftest/liberal/socialist say, cold hearted bastards that care nothing about the poor and less fortunate. Of course not. We do have empathy for these people. But in difference to the ruling class and their so called progressive followers who want to make them dependent on government for their survival ( slaves to the state), we want to provide them the best opportunities possible to make their own way in the world. If free market capitalism were given a chance ( its been nearly 100 years since we’ve had anything approaching a free market capitalist system in the U.S.) to work, America could have the most competitive business climate in the world and the highest paid work force. All that’s needed is to get government out of the way.
But, if we are serious about down sizing government, reducing the cost of government and, thereby, our taxes, and re-establish the original Constitution with its Bill of Rights as the true law of the land; then we need to move on from generic arguments and start developing some concrete and detailed plans on how to get where we want to go.
I follow a large number of conservative pundits and conservative blogs. We’ve got some really smart people out there and I’ve learned a lot from them. But something seems to be missing. It’s not enough to just lambaste the left and point out the errors of the ruling class and to make generic calls for for reducing taxes and down sizing government. I’m not hearing any clearly defined plans to achieve our goals. Sure we’re calling for the next Republican controlled Congress to repeal Obamacare and that’s great; but that only prevents government being even worse in the future. That’s not enough. We’ve go to turn this beast around and we need some well thought out plans on how we are going to do that. I’ve got a couple of ideas and I’m betting that you do too. I believe that we common citizens from every walk of life can come up with some very good ideas. We can’t just wait for the mysterious some one else to do it for us. It’s my hope that Conservatives on Fire can become a platform for throwing ideas on the table where we can discuss them and brain storm over them. In this way we will come up with good ideas that we promote to our elected officials and to Tea Parties and thereby put America back on track for good.
