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Over on Facebook today, I got into a brief debate about the merits of capitalism. Fitting too, as the topic du jour (Healthcare) is at its core, a tug-of-war between the "have's" and the "have not's." What bothers me most is the false belief that capitalism is a zero sum game -- that for some to win, others must lose. This is theoretically and in reality, a false proposition. It assumes that resources are finite, which they are not.
Consider real estate. As Mark Twain once said, "Buy real estate, they're not making it any more." Well, we have found ways to make more of it -- lots more. Just ask the Japanese or any city dweller. It's called going vertical. Or how about the finite nature of energy? We will likely eventually replace fossil fuels with something else before long. France for instance, now powers about 85% of its electrical grid with nuclear energy.
In terms of capitalism, it's primary fuel is currency. Every nation on earth creates more and more of it every year through debt and inflation. So currency supply is NOT finite. Therefore one man's gain is not necessarily another man's loss. This is not to say that there aren't economic winner's and losers in society, only that capitalism itself is not the deciding factor on who wins or loses.
What anti-capitalist thinkers are really decrying is the fact that there are such large disparities between the have's and have not's. This cannot be denied but they falsely seek to indict the capitalist system as the culprit. The truth is that to a large extent these disparities are the simple result of the natural order. Some people are taller than others, some smarter, some stronger and some faster. These inequalities cannot be diminished through any man-made, social construct. Of course the Marxists among us believe the inequalities of outcome forged by these disparities can and should be diminished through communism. The only thing that ends up being diminished however is the human spirit and the standard of life for everyone.
Man was not born to be slaves to a social construct. That is the beauty and truth that underlies our political system which cherishes freedom and promotes capitalism. Redistribution of wealth (one of the prerequisites of nationalized healthcare) is a fundamental paradox to the American way of life. It is only now, that we stand at the precipice of financial ruin caused by redistribution policies that people are now standing up en masse to say, "enough is enough".
Is this greed or simply self-preservation? Can you really blame those who have labored so hard to build their own economic freedom, only to see more and more relinquished year after year, object? Make no mistake, the political class who seeks to take from one man's labor and give it to another is not doing it out of some sense of higher purpose. They do it for the sake of political power. For class warfare is one of the oldest political manifestos in history. Today, the Democrats are strumming this fiddle with great intensity. "From each according to his ability and to each according to his means," said Marx. And now, we have elected a leader in Barack Obama and a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi who embrace this philosophy for their own higher purpose: political power. This, above all else, is the greatest threat to our national security.
What will save us is the "Patriot class". You are seeing them now, finally, stand up in Town Halls and protests all across this land. They are powered by the sense of longing for a nation which truly governs with the consent of the people, not the coercion of the people. They are driven by the economic virtue of, "to each from his labors." These values we hold more dearly than any other people on earth. This is not a romanticism with our past but merely the acknowledgment of the values which have allowed our nation to prosper above all others. Americans who do not believe in these basic truths do not stand with us, they stand against us.
