If not capitalism, then what?
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Is Capitalism really that bad?
Is Capitalism really that bad?
Whenever there is a protest about something that deserves to be protested against (U.S. foreign policy, assaults on civil liberties, etc.), I never feel I’m totally in line with some of the other protesters who take the opportunity to espouse their virulently anti-capitalist worldviews. In the recent stirrings on campus against George Bush’s inauguration and U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci’s visit to the law school, and in the responses in the Obiter to David Rosner’s editorial about the protests, it seems like it is almost taken for granted that everybody should be “against” capitalism.
I am a bit of a lefty, disgusted with gross inequalities in incomes between developed and developing countries, and between the super-rich pals of political leaders and Joe Sixpack. I can’t stand the oil companies that make billions of dollars and fight tooth and nail for every cent they have to spend cleaning up an oil spill. But I don’t have a big problem with capitalism or the market economy. Mainly, that’s because I haven’t heard of anything better. Yeah, it needs some fixing - money politics, industry lobbying, weak competition laws, etc. - but as a way to organize society, it seems to make sense. As long as you take as a given that not everybody is an altruist, and that most people like individual freedom, what [other economic system] works better?
Don’t get me wrong, I think capitalism has some serious problems. To misappropriate that Winston Churchill quote about democracy: “[Capitalism] is the worst form of [economic system] except for all those others that have been tried.” I have a fairly negative impression of human nature, and capitalism’s ability to generate socially beneficial outcomes (employment, taxes, goods, services, etc.) by harnessing everybody’s self-interest seems to be the only way to accommodate that sometimes nasty human nature on a big scale. And it allows us to become rich enough that we’re not at a subsistence level anymore, so we have the luxury of not having to be completely self-interested. Ask the subsistence farmers in North Korea if they’ve got any spare change to help out with your charity.
Capitalism allows us to be free to do what we want. It’s a system that has room (and creates enough surplus wealth) for the Marxist Greenpeace activist, the hardworking entrepreneur, and the nineteen-year-old guy who is saving up all his money to buy those ridiculous self-spinning hubcaps for his souped-up Chevy Cavalier. The point of this article isn’t so much to wave the flag of capitalism as it is to question the seemingly unquestioned notion of “capitalist = pig.” If you’re against capitalism, what are you for?
I have a friend who wishes we’d build enough robots to do all the work for a modern society so we could all spend our time writing, painting, making movies and music, hanging out and enjoying each other’s creative output. I’m absolutely in favor of that economic system, but I have a bad feeling it’s never going to happen.
I am a bit of a lefty, disgusted with gross inequalities in incomes between developed and developing countries, and between the super-rich pals of political leaders and Joe Sixpack. I can’t stand the oil companies that make billions of dollars and fight tooth and nail for every cent they have to spend cleaning up an oil spill. But I don’t have a big problem with capitalism or the market economy. Mainly, that’s because I haven’t heard of anything better. Yeah, it needs some fixing - money politics, industry lobbying, weak competition laws, etc. - but as a way to organize society, it seems to make sense. As long as you take as a given that not everybody is an altruist, and that most people like individual freedom, what [other economic system] works better?
Don’t get me wrong, I think capitalism has some serious problems. To misappropriate that Winston Churchill quote about democracy: “[Capitalism] is the worst form of [economic system] except for all those others that have been tried.” I have a fairly negative impression of human nature, and capitalism’s ability to generate socially beneficial outcomes (employment, taxes, goods, services, etc.) by harnessing everybody’s self-interest seems to be the only way to accommodate that sometimes nasty human nature on a big scale. And it allows us to become rich enough that we’re not at a subsistence level anymore, so we have the luxury of not having to be completely self-interested. Ask the subsistence farmers in North Korea if they’ve got any spare change to help out with your charity.
Capitalism allows us to be free to do what we want. It’s a system that has room (and creates enough surplus wealth) for the Marxist Greenpeace activist, the hardworking entrepreneur, and the nineteen-year-old guy who is saving up all his money to buy those ridiculous self-spinning hubcaps for his souped-up Chevy Cavalier. The point of this article isn’t so much to wave the flag of capitalism as it is to question the seemingly unquestioned notion of “capitalist = pig.” If you’re against capitalism, what are you for?
I have a friend who wishes we’d build enough robots to do all the work for a modern society so we could all spend our time writing, painting, making movies and music, hanging out and enjoying each other’s creative output. I’m absolutely in favor of that economic system, but I have a bad feeling it’s never going to happen.
-- ALASTAIR McNISH, Obiter Dicta (2004-2005), Issue 19
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posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 14:00
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