"America" stands for
"capitalism."
"Capitalism" means "liberty."
The whole world knows that capitalism works and socialism is a
failure. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet
Union shout
this truth across the globe.
- Capitalist countries are free and prosperous,
- Socialist countries are enslaved and impoverished.
And yet, virtually everyone in the United States has been
trained in government schools and by a government-dominated media
to believe that socialism is better than capitalism, and that no
economy can succeed without some socialism.
This is what makes this
campaign so controversial: we are working to eliminate all
socialism and establish pure "laissez-faire"
capitalism.
Why
is Capitalism Hated?
Most Americans over 50 were taught that “capitalism” was
better than “socialism,” and that America was “capitalist.”
More recently, “capitalism” has fallen out of favor. The
ostensibly conservative Richard Nixon
famously quipped, “We are all Keynesians now,” by which he
meant, nobody is a “capitalist” anymore.
Few people today are willing to identify themselves as defenders
of capitalism. Capitalism is not trendy in our day. A
self-identified “socialist” is far more likely to get a
teaching position at a major university than one who openly
defends “laissez-faire capitalism,” ceteris
paribus.
In the last few years I have been studying capitalism in more
detail, by reading the works of those who defend
it most passionately. This study has been an eye-opening
experience. I believe “capitalism,” rightly understood, is
more compatible with Christianity than socialism in any degree.
That little phrase “rightly understood” is the whole
enchilada.
The story is told of the six blind men who offered descriptions
of an elephant. Each was viewing only a part of the animal, one
feeling the trunk, another the tail, another the huge legs, etc.,
and their varied descriptions of “an elephant” reflected their
limited investigation.
Most descriptions of “capitalism” (particularly by those
who attack it) are as far from reliable as those of the blind men.
More ironically, the blind critics of capitalism are not only
viewing only a part of the economic animal, but they are actually
describing themselves,
with one socialist critic of “capitalism” describing his own
leg, another socialist critic of “capitalism” describing his
own ear, etc. In other words, most criticisms of “capitalism”
are criticisms of policies which are completely un-capitalistic,
or they are pointing to problems created by socialism, not
capitalism.
The name “capitalism” was
coined by Karl Marx, a vehement opponent of capitalism.
Capitalists have adopted Marx’s term as their own (without
accepting Marx’s content, of course). One of the most
comprehensive defenses of capitalism is George Reisman’s
treatise on Capitalism.
It is a huge book, but easy reading, and full of insights. I would
now put him among my top ten favorite writers.
After a good deal of study, I offer this definition of
capitalism:
Capitalism
is a social system based on
the rejection of the initiation of force or violence against
others.
This definition will surprise many
who attack capitalism. Ask a critic of capitalism to define “capitalism”
and the critic’s definition will not even be close to this
definition.
Nevertheless, I do not know a single self-described defender of
capitalism who would disagree with this definition. In fact, most
would agree it gets to the
very heart and soul of the dispute between capitalism and
socialism. For the benefit of those who doubt, I would be happy to
supply the quotations and footnotes from the writings of
self-conscious defenders of capitalism to buttress my claim. The
quotes would be many and lengthy. I would quote Ayn Rand,
George Reisman, Milton Friedman,
Ludwig von Mises,
F.A. Hayek,
and many other defenders of capitalism.
As an example, the Libertarian
Party, unquestionably the political party most vigorously
committed to capitalism, requires its members to sign this pledge
in order to join the party:
I
do not believe in or advocate
the initiation of force
as a means of achieving political or social goals.
That is the full extent of the Libertarian Party membership
pledge. It is widely viewed as the sine
qua non of libertarianism. It is often referred to by
defenders of capitalism as “the principle of non-aggression.”
(Of course, anyone can vote
Libertarian, without taking "the Pledge.")
This is not just an abstract academic debate. Socialism
rationalizes violence. Socialism has meant slavery and death to
hundreds of millions of human beings. Too many on the left who
claim to be for peace defend The Welfare State (welfare
socialism), which turns out to be window-dressing for The Warfare
State. To oppose capitalism is to oppose the only economic system
that repudiates the initiation of all violence. To wrongly define
capitalism as a system that “exploits” the poor or in some
other way initiates force against others is to pull the plug on an
effective force for peace.
Rightly understood, then, an attack on capitalism is an attack
on the heart and soul of Christian ethics. To say “I am not a
capitalist” is to say “I support the use of violence to
get what I want.”
Again, this is based on the definition of capitalism offered by
the most scholarly defenders of capitalism, not
those who attack it.
Find someone who is called a
"capitalist" who uses the violence and coercion of the
State to crush his competitors and exploit the poor, and you have
found someone that every self-identified defender of
capitalism would say is not a
"capitalist."
| This is the issue: Is there any human activity that is
more efficiently carried out under threats of violence
and force than under liberty? |
- Is it the case that human beings cannot be trusted to
produce milk and bread for the children unless they are
threatened with prison terms by "the government?"
- Is it really true that Americans cannot manufacture and
distribute computers, clothing, housing, groceries, without
"the government?"
America became the most admired nation on earth because it
stood for the proposition that capitalism (liberty) succeeds and
socialism fails.
Throughout this website we have discussed over 200 areas of
human endeavor where it is often alleged that Americans could not
succeed without government regulation. But all you have to do is
look at the things you have and enjoy, compare your life with that
of most people living in socialist countries, and ask, "If
the federal government were to be abolished, would entrepreneurs
and businessmen make sure that I had access to the best quality at
the lowest price?"
If you answer no -- for example,
"No, businessmen are greedy and immoral and would only
manufacture shoes of low quality and sell them at rip-off
prices, unless bureaucrats were regulating them,"
and you added,
"And consumers are stupid, and would always buy low
quality at a high price and wouldn't care for their family
unless federal bureaucrats were making sure families paid
attention to the most
important things."
-- then you have a religious faith in the State and its
regulators, and believe that when greedy businessmen and stupid
consumers are elected to government positions by their greedy and
stupid peers, these newly-elected human beings suddenly lose their
greed and stupidity and become altruistic and intelligent
overseers of others. "Statism" is a religious belief in
the depravity of human beings and faith in the sanctified state.
History tells us that where there is "Liberty
Under God," you and I will work hard, with creativity and
integrity, to provide goods and services which benefit the lives
of others. We will find ways to produce better goods than our
competitor and will bend over backwards to do so at a lower cost.
In our efforts to get the business of others, we will improve the
lives of our customers, because we know that where there is
liberty, our customers have the freedom to shop elsewhere, and
other Americans have the freedom to start a business which will
sell what consumers demand.
History proves that capitalism works and socialism fails. The
great economists have explained why:
- Ludwig
von Mises, Human
Action, Yale Univ. Press, 1949, 885pp. + index
- George
Reisman, Capitalism,
Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books, 1998, 998pp. + index
- Thomas
Sowell, Knowledge
and Decisions, NY: Basic Books, 1980, 383pp. + index
Mises in particular, and his Nobel
Prize-winning student, F.
A. Hayek, conclusively proved that without the price mechanism
of the free market, socialist planners can never allocate
resources in the most efficient manner. Mises’
work has never been refuted:
Kevin Craig accepts as a matter of unchanging economic law the
fundamental inefficiency of centralized government planning over
free market decision-making. The reader can turn to the bibliography
below for a nearly complete defense of the concept.
Some
Fundamental Insights Into the Benevolent Nature of Capitalism
If socialism is a violation of basic economic laws, then our
concept of "the government" must be repudiated. The key
to a well-governed society is "Liberty
Under God," not "the government." The key to
prosperity is capitalism, not socialism. Every action of "the
government" is the imposition of socialism. We must eliminate
every trace of socialism from America.
Socialism
is immoral.
But what about crime?
OK, you concede, capitalism builds better and cheaper cars than
the Kremlin. But what about crime? If we abolish the government,
crime will break out and capitalism will collapse into
"anarchy" (chaos).
This too is statism.
This is the belief that you and I are basically criminals in
waiting, and only politicians can be trusted to keep us in line.
Of course, you and I and other criminals in waiting are the ones
who will "vote" for these sanctified and benevolent
overseers, who will keep us from acting out our criminal
proclivities. Although in every other area of our lives we are
"depraved," when we vote we are wise and
community-oriented. Once criminals like you and I "vote"
for our fellow criminals, they become sanctified protectors of law
and order and keep us from our depraved ways.
If you own a business, you cannot be trusted to hire a security
agency to guard your store. Your insurance agency isn't smart
enough to tell you to hire a protection service in order to
continue your insurance coverage. And I must be forced to pay for
your security service with "taxes," because I am too
greedy and you are too stupid to make sure your business is safe.
Here are the links to prove that this statist thinking is
unrealistic:
- Check the "Crime" article
in the pull-down
menu.
- Check the "sanctions"
article in the pull-down
menu.
- The Founding Fathers believed that "the
government" could never be powerful enough to prevent all
crime -- and we shouldn't try to make it that powerful. Read
their warnings.
- Most businesses today rely on capitalist security agencies,
because socialist police forces have
given up on preventing crime. They only arrest some of
the criminals after the crimes have already been
committed and the damage has been done. If the government were
taken out of the crime-prevention business, capitalists would
scatter to provide high-tech crime prevention services that
would dramatically reduce crime.
- Socialist courts have no competition, and no incentive to
become increasingly just and fair. There is no reason why
competing courts
provided by the Free Market cannot adjudicate disputes and
provide redress of injury.
- The history of the "Lex
Mercatoria" is a history of the conquest of crime by
Laissez-faire Capitalism
- Murray Rothbard
has applied the ancient wisdom of the Lex Mercatoria to contemporary
criminal and legal issues.
- * "Laissez-faire"
comes from a French phrase meaning "let us do," or
"let us work" -- let us do what we do best.
- Let Henry Ford make cars so efficiently and at such a low
price that even the poor can own one.
- Let Bill Gates make software that enables even the most
machine-shy to operate a computer.
- And let Sam Walton establish a chain of stores to sell the
products of capitalists in every American town.
Socialism could never have done these things, so we say to
socialists, "Laissez-faire!" [back]
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