Capitalism is the best form of a social system as it collectively holds the most just ethics and effective economy. "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others [or their property]. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control." A social system is a standard for which laws are in place. Many different types of social systems exist, from Anarchy to Dictatorship; therefore, in order to maintain brevity, we will emphasize the superiority of capitalism mainly through comparing it with one of today’s most revered and popular social systems: democracy.
To begin with, ask your-self, “What should and should not be legal?” After you have a basic idea of what you think should and shouldn’t be legal, think about the foundation of your beliefs. What is the underlying premise that ties your laws together? Think about it, and then continue reading.
Was your premise “What is right should be legal, and what is wrong should be illegal”? If so, are you saying that you believe that you should be a dictator and make things legal or illegal based off of your own opinion of what is right and wrong? If so, in what way you believe the dictator should be appointed? Kinship? Lottery? Majority vote? Do you believe that all dictators will hold valid opinions on what is right and wrong? Or do you not believe in dictatorship, but what should be legal and illegal should come from what the majority believes is right and wrong? This is democracy.
Firstly, the ethical foundation of the social system of Capitalism is far superior to that of democracy. In order to best illustrate the beauty of the ethics of Capitalism, I will first point out the ethical flaws of Democracy, and will then compare both social systems.
Under democracy, the function of the government periodically changes, as the majority holds state-power. Democracy has one major flaw in its system: Just because the majority believes something to be right does not make it right. Once rights become influence-able by the majority, the potential for unethical acts to occur increases infinitely, as the amount of rights that the majority has the power to strip become endless.
As founding father Benjamin Franklin once said, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” Franklin was not the only founding father who was appalled by the concept of democracy. Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%." and John Adams said, "That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the world." Democracy opens the door for minorities to be stripped of their individual rights and to be made into involuntarily self-sacrificial slaves. Consider the following: If the majority of the people in a nation voted that African-Americans should not be able to have a complete set of rights, do you believe that they should have the power to make this so?
Some may say that the reason why such decisions should be left up to the majority is because there is no way that they could make such a preposterous decision – but this is not the case. Today, the majority in most states of the United States believes that homosexual couples should not have the right to marry; therefore, today, homosexual couples in these states do not have the freedom to marry. The case of homosexual marriage is just one case out of many where the rights of minorities are being unethically stripped because of the opinion of the majority. The rights of individuals, which do not infringe upon the rights of others, should not be influenced by the personal preference of the majority.
As stated above, under Democracy, the concept of inalienable rights is completely destroyed and the amount of individual rights that the majority has the power to strip becomes endless. Democracy is a subjective, unjust, and minorit-ist social system.
On the other hand, Capitalism is the fairest type of social system possible, where the boundaries of potential unethical acts to take place are extremely smaller than those of democracy. The boundary of “unethical” acts that can legally take place under Capitalism is the passive act of not giving, whereas with Democracy, the boundary is endless. Capitalism protects all individuals from becoming involuntarily self-sacrificial as under capitalism, the government’s only function is to protect a inalienable set of objective individual rights; these allow all individuals to live as they please, as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others (using force upon others or their property).
Acts such as homosexual marriage would be acceptable, regardless of the majority view, as they do not infringe upon anyone’s rights. Acts such as stealing or physical violence would not be permissible (regardless of whether it is carried out by a human or by the government), as it would infringe upon an individual’s rights (imposes force upon them unwillingly).
Capitalism makes sure that individual rights are inalienable and that the majority opinion cannot strip anyone of their freedoms. Capitalism ensures that each individual is in charge of his or her own happiness. The greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people (the foundation of democracy and utilitarianism) doesn’t matter – what matters is that each individual has the freedom to have his or her increased effort, industry, and skill be rewarded accordingly (foundation of capitalism). Every individual deserves to have the freedom to use what he or she earns in whichever way he or she chooses, unless it imposes force upon another. Happiness is different for every individual, and a beauty of Capitalism is that it allows each individual to pursue his or her own happiness as long as it doesn’t impose force on another. Capitalism ensures that all individuals are free to pursue their own self-interests and are treated equally under the law: Capitalism’s ruling principle is justice.
Aside from capitalism’s superior ethical foundation, it also holds an economic system that dominates that of democracy. We will again first observe the economic result of democracy, and then compare it to the economic result of capitalism.
To begin with, lets observe a model. Consider a difficult American history class. In the class, there are 30 students: 4 students achieve A-grades, 5 students achieve B-grades, 11 students achieve C-grades, 6 students achieve D-grades, and 4 students achieve F-grades. The teacher holds a vote where the students have the option to select whether each student should receive the individual grade that he or she achieves, or that the average class grade should be distributed evenly amongst all students. All students who achieved A’s and B’s (9 students) vote that all students receive the grades which they achieve, but all students with C’s, D’s, and F’s (21 students) vote that all of the points be distributed until all grades are equal. The majority vote was for the second option, therefore now an average grade is distributed to everyone in the class regardless of each individual’s personal success. Those students who had earned an A, must now distribute their points to those with B’s, C’s, D’s, and F’s, and the B students must distribute their points to the C, D, and F students, and so on, until all students have an equal average grade (lets say a C). Now, what would be the incentive for a student to try to get an A if he or she is going to end up with the same grade as everyone else? Every student's individual effort and grade will drop, therefore the class average will drop from a C, to a D, and so on. This type of grading system, which stemmed from a democratic vote, inevitably doomed this class to failure. This example is a microcosm of the concept of democracy.
In 1787, founding father John Adams said, “Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”
In democracy, politicians aim for power by appealing to the short-term interests of the majority. Politicians boast their promises to provide the majority with benefits that allow them to work less hard and receive more benefits: some examples include providing free healthcare, free education, and an overall larger safety net, usually consisting of the redistribution of wealth. It is inevitable that democracy will gateway into a socialistic economy: one where property and wealth are controlled by the government and are distributed relatively evenly. This fosters an economic environment where the improvements to the quality of life come to a halt.
Being “productive” in an economy holds an equivalent meaning as “benefitting others”: providing something that others demand. When individuals are not rewarded for being productive, the incentive to be productive reduces, and therefore the amount that people benefit others sharply decreases. Socialism rewards individuals for accomplishing nothing rather than being productive hard workers who benefit others and make the nation and world a better place. If humans were enslaved by a socialist system from the beginning of human existence, we would most likely still be living like cavemen –surely without technology like electricity, automobiles and penicillin. Sure, there are those minute few who are naturally driven to produce because of sheer curiosity, self-satisfaction, or desire to help others, but alone they could not be responsible for virtually any percentage of the technological and medical advancements in the world today. Just as Henry Ford created the automobile because of the opportunity for reward, the same is true for the vast majority of all other innovations.
Overall success of a nation stems from, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” meaning the protection of the ability for all individuals to be naturally rewarded by the free market and to have control over their rewards. An amazing aspect of capitalism is that it naturally rewards individuals according to how much they benefit others. Capitalism also creates economic competition, which causes all parties to try to become even more beneficial to others (i.e. provide higher quality at cheaper prices). It is common sense to understand that a nation with an economic system that rewards every individual based on his or her benefit to others will progress much more rapidly than one that rewards every individual regardless of how beneficial he or she is to others. It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of innovations that help millions of individuals around the world were born in capitalistic economies.
“Capitalism obviously doesn’t work. Just look at America’s history.”
America is not a complete capitalist nation; it has a capitalistic mixed economy. Initially, there was not an evident philosophy supporting the system, which therefore allowed the foundation of the constitutional republic to be compromised, and consequently destroyed. Because there was no evident philosophy behind the system, it was eventually made possible for the government to be able to change the constitution (the standard of judging legality), destroying the foundation of the system and the concept of inalienable rights. Once a standard is contradicted, a new standard erodes the old: in this case, once the capitalism standard (do as you wish as long as you don’t impose force onto another) was initially contradicted by suddenly allowing certain rights to be voted away, there was no concrete reason why other rights now couldn’t be voted on as well. Once the standard is contradicted, it becomes ineffective. This led to the state having the power of allowing people to be able to vote on certain individual rights of others. It is evident that this initial blow to the foundation of the USA’s socioeconomic system has initialized our trip towards socialism. From this example, it is evident that compromises to the standard of freedom cannot exist. Once a standard is contradicted, a new standard is set. No other can measure up to the positive effects of capitalism. Freedom cannot be sacrificed; any contradictions to this standard will initiate a new and unjust standard to be set.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
- Abraham Lincoln
