Source; Sent from a friend...
“Marx initiated modern socialism. The Marxian dogma of the inevitability of socialism was based on the thesis that capitalism necessarily results in progressive impoverishment of the immense majority of people…Facts belied this prognosis no less than all other Marxian forecasts…the masses are the main consumers…to infer that socialism will be better than capitalism is wrong, there is nothing to support such a conclusion other than the arbitrary pseudo-theological surmises of Hegel, Comte and Marx…The comparatively high standard of living in the capitalist countries is an achievement of free-market capitalism. Neither theoretical reasoning nor historical experience allows the inference that it could be preserved still less be improved under socialism…The prevailing trend toward the servile state will certainly not be reversed if nobody has the courage to attack its underlying dogmas.”—Ludwig Von Mises
Socialism is a derivative of the militant, feudal type state. Like militarism, socialism involves the development of centralized control, the extension of government power, the decay of initiative and coordination of the individual. It produces a community of human ants and bees, and arises slavery far more monotonous and hopeless then that occurring in non-socialist environments.
"Economic power is more basic than political power and is able to bend even the forms and principles of political equalitarianism to it's on purposes…The Marxist ideology is a kind of slave revolt. It exults not the virtues but the estate of the unsuccessful. It is really an apocalyptic vision.…The whole experience of Western industrial nations negates Marxian ideology…The attempt to control nature in human history is untaken by setting the forces of nature against the impulses of nature. But if power is needed to destroy power, how is this new power to be made ethical? The powerful state socialism must create necessitates a dangerous concentration of political power in the hands of a few individuals and a few small groups. And this concentration of power will resist being ethically or socially restrained. Idealism is no guarantee against the abuse of power, especially as people who consciously seek the position of power supplant the purer idealists… The question of whether the reorganization of society can reform human nature sufficiently (as Marxist ideology not only preaches but fatalistically responds to all those who apply it) has been answered every time it's tried, from the graves and gulags where the millions and millions who suffered under it resided…The highest mutuality is achieved were mutual advantages are not consciously sought as the fruit of love. For love is purest where it desires no returns for itself; and it is most potent where it is purest. Complete mutuality is therefore most perfectly realized where it is not intended but where love is poured out without seeking returns.”--Reinhold Niebuhr
“Socialism is envy: they want something which we have...It is not the leaders that must be feared, but those lower down, who think that by a revolution they can escape the subordination which is the natural result of their incompetence and sloth.”—Friedrich Nietzsche
“The end of communism in the USSR did not begin at the center but on the edges, in Poland…the Polish opposition was in large part due to the support, but open and covert, of the Catholic Church…the full weight of that support would not have been brought to bear were it not for…the Polish cardinal…John Paul II…who consistently stood against communism…during his years as cardinal, he helped nurture—at great risk---what became the democratic movement…as pope…he mobilized the Catholic Church as a powerful opponent of communism.” D. Yergin & J. Stanislaw
The collapse of communism in the late 20th century caused the believers in it to retreat to European and American universities, where their ideas became institutionalized.
"Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are collieries. Liberty, and its corollary of free competition, allows the monetary order to be shaped by the preferences of consumers rather than the planners. The outcome is orderly, sophisticated, and well-behaved. All the evils popularly ascribed to capitalism are almost always caused, necessitated and made possible only by government interference. No other subject is ridden with so many distortions, misconceptions, misrepresentations and falsifications.” --L.B. White
"In a closed political system, envy & dissatisfaction is directed at the rulers. In an open one, it is directed at the market."--Milton Friedman (Nobel Laureate)
"Sometimes it seems as if liberals have a genius for producing an unending stream of ideas that are counterproductive for the poor, whom they claim to be helping. Few of these notions are more counterproductive than the idea of 'menial work' or 'dead-end jobs.' Think about it: Why do employers pay people to do 'menial' work? Because the work has to be done. What useful purpose is served by stigmatizing work that someone is going to have to do anyway? Is emptying bed pans in a hospital menial work? What would happen if bed pans didn't get emptied? Let people stop emptying bed pans for a month and there would be bigger problems than if sociologists stopped working for a year. ... Many low-level jobs are called 'dead-end jobs' by liberal intellectuals because these jobs have no promotions ladder. But it is superficial beyond words to say that this means that people in such jobs have no prospect of rising economically. Many people at all levels of society, including the richest, have at some point or other worked at jobs that had no promotions ladder, so-called 'dead-end jobs.' You don't get promoted from such jobs. You use the experience, initiative, and discipline that you develop in such work to move on to something else that may be wholly different…Notions of menial jobs and dead-end jobs may be just shallow misconceptions among the intelligentsia but they are a deadly counterproductive message to the poor. ... Liberals who encourage such attitudes may think of themselves as friends of the poor but they do more harm than enemies." --Thomas Sowell
Let’s start by calling out a couple of fundamentals. First, let’s be honest with ourselves and ask whether each of us, individually, would be able to discover how to grow our own food, invent the wheel, a lever, an induction coil, medicine, a generator, electronic devices, heating or cooling systems, etc? Obviously the honest answer is a resounding no. OK, based on that now decide if men of ability, called Capitalists, who found out how to do these things that provide us so many wonderful benefits, and taught us how to do them too, ask if they are the self-interested exploiters whom the collectivists proclaim live off the fruit of our labor? Now, again be honest, isn’t it possible instead that it’s the result of the very same self-interest being exhibited by the critics of Capitalism, displaying what J. B. Stewart described as: “There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well-being & judgment as to see a friend get rich.”
Next now ask where it is stated that it’s the assumed task of any political form, in particular Capitalism’s, to guarantee us a state of happiness? The fact is that people do not toil and trouble to attain perfect happiness, instead they do so in order to remove, as much as possible, their discomfort or some felt uneasiness and thus become happier than they were before. The truth is that nature is not bountiful but stingy. It displays powers and elements damaging to human life and endeavors. It is only through mankind’s skills, employed by the human intellect and cooperating under Capitalism's system of the division of labor, that humans have created all the things, which let us prevail over nature. The mistakes liberal utopians make is that they perceive those very things as free gifts of nature, that all are equally entitled too, regardless of their effort to create, earn or maintain them.
There has always been, and probably always will be, attacks on the role of self-interest in mankind’s progress, especially when it pertains to economic matters, or to another’s success. Yet, as Richard Epstein points out: "Successful people contribute to their culture as much as, if not more than, they take from it...In many cases the most important element for the success of a business is cooperative effort, which depends heavily on attitude and morale. These are often the most difficult elements to explain to an outsider, especially after the fact." For clarification, this motive under attack, Capitalism, is defined by Joseph Bast as: “…a process rather than an institution. It is a series of rules, about property rights, exchange, and the use of force, with no one person or organization designed to speak on its behalf.”
The attack is usually originated and fueled by a lack of understanding that it is Capitalism that propels mankind’s improving conditions. This mistake results in people ascribing to an erroneous belief that all progress is due solely to science and technology. They fail to grasp that what truly improves the living standard is increasing the productivity of a society, aided by, not the cause of (an important distinction), better tools and better use of them. That is most efficacious when employed in the combined political and economic forums with software that allows the proper functioning of the mechanisms of autonomy, innovation and diversity. That software takes the form of Capitalism. It is plainly incorrect to believe that any form of organizational structure will accomplish the task of improving man’s lot. G.J. Stigler addressed that saying: "What is seldom addressed, or even understood is how Capitalism forms its creative, productive possesses, or how they are destroyed. What is typical addressed is only how to administer the existing situation. The critics of Capitalism tend to paint the options as either state control or social disintegration...Neither fraud nor coercion is within the ethics of the market system...With choice comes responsibility for the selection, which gives some angst.” That angst, by the way, is an underlying tenet in the historicism that Marx based his philosophy of communism on, one which we continue to suffer from under the guise of neo-liberalism.
In order to present the case for Capitalism, it is first necessary to define its main ideological opposition. That opposition supports significant restraints on the free-market, either through state-ownership, or excessive regulation amounting to the same. It believes that the state should increasingly control individual behavior in society through state-imposed constraints on political processes. It combines this control with a significant “welfare state”, which is oddly enough, inversely supported (but not controlled) by individuals. This is taxation without representation.
It is under the intoxication of those aforementioned perceptions that the anti-Capitalists, and almost all liberals, strangely forget, lose sight of or ignore, in their rush to their mythological perfect world, that only Capitalism has been successful in eliminating disease, pestilence, hunger and gross poverty. That Capitalism has been the only ideology to deliver better treatment to women, racial minorities, the handicapped, criminals and the insane. That Capitalism has won every intellectual, moral and real "battle" there is to win. Or that it has succeeded in far outpacing the social bases and alleged problem-solving appeals of all its ideological adversaries.
Yet Capitalism everywhere is under siege. In Europe Capitalism is denied with taxes and regulation. In Latin America it is resisted with instability and corruption. Asia tries to stifle it by using tradition coupled with anti-freedom values. In India, it is the same, primarily through class barriers. Africa, stripped of its infant democratic institutions by its own leaders, hopelessly lacks the necessary conditions. In America Capitalism is battling a combination of junk-science, property-seizing government officials, trial lawyers and Ponzi scamming politicians pandering to voters with the false promise of a free-lunch.
Perhaps Paul Johnson hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that: “A common criticism of Capitalism is that the successful grow, meaning that the sheer size of modern businesses produces reactions that spring from deep emotional fears...it's as if the higher the value of services performed by a company, the greater the prejudice against it”. That goes a long way towards explaining why Capitalism faces endless disingenuous, often vicious attacks. When one proceeds to criticize based on feelings and emotions rather than fact and logic, its easy to believe your version of utopia is possible, and therefore its a short step towards justifying the use of force, fraud, lies, plunder, expropriation, enslavement even murder if necessary. Concurrently, once you’re convinced of the righteousness of your cause, and you’ve undertaken strong action to secure it, the last thing you want to incur is doubt of your belief. Consequently the anti-Capitalists tend to believe they've no need to inquire and attempt to understand the source of wealth and prosperity. Therefore what the anti-Capitalists are actually rebellion against is an open market of ideas, where feelings are not accepted over facts and reason, where ideas are expected to demonstrate their validity, risk is great and reward is justified.
Still, Capitalism will not die. As Paul Johnson found: “The truth is that capitalism can always be relied upon to deal with any obstacles to its long-term growth and general health. It is a self-critical, self-correcting entity, which survives all its supposedly terminal threats.” Why? For a number of reasons. First, because it allows the individual to freely decide which needs and desires it ranks as important to itself and which to seek to obtain. Certainly a difficult task for people who have gotten use to being told what they must want, need and desire, and what they will be allowed to obtain.
Capitalism protects rather than violates human rights and is open to all people. Capitalism is profoundly egalitarian since it distributes rewards based on each participant’s contribution to satisfying the needs of others. Without that moral foundation, like freedom, it wouldn’t survive.
Capitalism penalizes parochialism, cultural isolation and rewards those who expand their horizons and harmonize diverse preferences to a degree virtually impossible in the political sphere. It is because the market is impersonal that it displays its greatest strength.
Capitalism regards competition as superior because it’s the most efficient and effective method by which our activities, such as getting production and distribution organized, and establishing prices as standards of comparative value, can be adjusted to each other, all without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority. Capitalism puts a check on greed through trade. Capitalism encourages people to voluntarily do what is in the social interest. Capitalism develops socially responsible behavior by providing an incentive to care for and maintain one’s possessions. It helps alleviate the cost, for both present and future generations, of abusive use of resources. And most importantly, it restrains and minimizes the potential abuse of coercive power, so easily deferred to when power is concentrated in the monopoly of the state.
Under Capitalism the virtues prized and necessary for a free society; honesty, self-discipline, responsibility, family, loyalty and pride of one’s work, are all allowed maximum expression, growth and incentive. The alternatives have all failed. Proof of this is found all around us. History also confirms that replacing the "free market" (superseding the plans of hundreds of millions of “consumers”) always results in the subordination of freedom, drive, ambition, innovation and success to the arbitrariness of elites or small groups who have monopolistic power, backed up by the overwhelming coercive force of the government.
Economic liberty cannot be untangled from liberty of other kinds. Yet, as I have attempted to identify here, the most common reason for not believing in economic liberty is that free markets are unfair. As if the production of wealth defies the very rules that create it and allows it to, at the same time, generate unconscionable poverty. As if there is a fixed amount of wealth. As if wealth is not based on productivity, as every freshman economics student quickly learns. In Capitalism’s “free markets” the rich do NOT get richer if the poor get poorer. There is no evidence of this in history, as very freshman student in economics should know. Rather it is when government intervenes excessively in the natural processes of the market that poverty occurs. Governments must love poverty; they produce so much of it. Perhaps it is because poor people make such easy targets for demagogue. It is easy to play on the emotions of a naïve public and convince them that we can dabble in freedom, allowing a few of its liberties and leave the “restraint of choice” in place. The folly is to think that we can fool around with the free market, tuning it to our visions, skipping the costs and getting all of the benefits anyway. Yet nowhere is there sound proof that that desire works in practice. Actually, we have been presented with evidence to the contrary, yet it is ignored for the sake of the utopian ideal.
Put another way, Milton Friedman concisely noted that there are only 4 ways to spend money:
1. You spend your money on yourself.
2. You spend your money on others.
3. You spend other people’s money on yourself.
4. You spend other people’s money on other people.
Only Pts 1 & 2 define the free market. Pt 3 defines government corruption. Pt 4 defines government interference in your life, the taking of the fruits of your labor. That in essence is what is at the core of the Anti-Capitalism movement, and its alternate solution, socialism and all its various manifestations. In the end, if you don’t produce goods (or wealth), to reach Pt 4 you must redistribute goods (wealth). Take away the euphemism of redistribution and define it in the way it actually occurs and the procedure becomes abhorrent to those who cherish the freedom and what it entails. For example, try restating redistribution as follows: People have a right to my food; a right to my house; a right to my possessions and money; a right to my job and my pay; etc. without any responsibility or compensation to me for it. That’s what redistribution in its entire true nakedness means.
The fact is that free markets allow people the freedom to seek happiness and prosperity in their own way rather than having them being told how to live. The logic is that most people are better judges of their own interests. And that the freedom to make their own choices enhances the freedom of all. That logic is only found faulty when one believes that people other than them are too stupid to determine their own well-being or are incapable of operating in a voluntary sphere. That belief winds up requiring surrendering one's freedom to a monopoly of power, big government, justified always on some vague notion of community. Which is always run at its core by only a few. A truly "civilized" society requires a respect for individual autonomy and the individuals' ability to run it.
So, in order to summarize, Capitalism is:
-Based primarily on voluntary agreements and exchanges that give rise to mutual advantages
-The establishment of a legal system that protects ownership and the realization of contractual agreements.
-A moral code that considers the effects of one’s conduct on others
-An ethical content that is suited to an increasingly urban prosperous human community
-Just because it protects human rights and freedom, through the rule of law (general, negative and permanent), and distributes its fruits to all.
-Efficient, reliable, precise, productive and objective to remain in existence. To do such one must specialize and diversify to bring into being mass markets that deliver products and services that create a higher standard of living for everyone in society. Which releases mankind from forced bondage of physical needs and limitations, from drudgery, boredom and the harsh vicissitudes of survival.
Capitalism, with its attendant Classic-liberalism, though not perfect (what is?), is morally, materially and mentally superiority to the inherently destructive forms of all the alternative ideologies. Or as Milton Friedman said: "Self-interest is not selfishness. It is whatever interests the individual, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue."
"What many young people today don’t realize is that socialism is a machine for empowering insiders. Few insiders have ever been rewarded more assiduously than the nomenklatura of the Soviet Union. Few governments have been as gray—in every sense of the word—as the Brezhnev regime. A vast expansion of the American government, as imagined by today’s Democratic Socialists, would create its own privileged elite….From its inception, by contrast, Capitalism was designed for outsiders. Its original apostles, such as Adam Smith, argued that entrepreneurs needed freedom from the royal regulations that limited trade and the formation of new enterprises. When the government controls decisions to work or to start a business, political pull becomes a prerequisite for success. The whole point of economic freedom is that all people—not just the connected—can use their talents to help themselves and, potentially, to change the world.”--Edward Glaeser
“I did very little. All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it…in the long run the aggregate of decisions of individuals, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster.”---J. Cowperthwaite, overseer of 2nd half 20th century Hong Kong, before China took over
"Capitalism is the greatest system ever created for alleviating general human misery! People often ask, 'Why is there poverty in the world?' A silly question. Poverty is the default human condition... The proper question is 'Why is there prosperity here but not there?' The answer is capitalism, rightly understood. That is: free markets, private property, and the spirit of entrepreneurialism and that the fruits of your labors are your own... In large our affluence is capitalism. Yet some hate what has given so much to humanity. The average working-class person today is richer, in real terms, than the average potentate of 300 years ago. His food is better, life longer, health better, menu of entertainments vastly more diverse and toilette infinitely more civilized. And yet we constantly hear how cruel capitalism is while collectivism is more loving because, unlike capitalism, collectivism is about the group, not the individual... Meanwhile, billions have ridden capitalism out of poverty and collectivism imprisons billions. And yet the children of capitalism still whine." ---Jonah Goldberg
“Today, thanks to capitalism, less than 10% of the world subsists in extreme poverty, but 200 years ago, 90% did. 250 years ago, 33% of children in the world's richest countries did not live to see their fifth birthday. Today, less than 6% of children in the world's poorest countries die before they reach age 5. For most of human history, life expectancy was around 30 years old worldwide. , it is more than 70 years old and in most developed parts of the world ,it's over 80.”—Steven Pinker
“Quite a bit of effort, employing the welfare-state concept, is required to create a system in which government will not leave people better off. Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else. We’re all interested in money, just that some of us are not interested in earning it…In the difference between poverty and plenty, the problem is poverty, not the difference. Wealth is good. It is a tool to a better life. And like all tools, it’s what you do with it that makes the difference.”---P.J. O’Rourke
Further reading:
https://www.aier.org/article/remembering-the-soviet-nightmare-that-ended-thirty-years-ago/
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