Capitalism

Capitalism promotes choice. It promotes the ability of people to decide what they want to buy, how much they want to buy, where they want to live, where they want to work, and so on. With statism, choices are limited. The government decides, for example, what kind of light bulb is available, how much water a toilet can use, the minimum factory efficiency of an air conditioning system, and more. The removal of simple choices reduces freedom. The removal of all choices is slavery. The direction of statism is towards slavery. The direction of capitalism is towards freedom. Capitalism is morally superior. Capitalism Promotes Cooperation If I want a new air conditioning system installed in my home, I call a contractor. We have to agree on a price where I consider it better to own the new comfort system than to keep the money it costs. Likewise, the contractor considers it better to take the money paid than to keep the equipment in inventory (or pick it up from the supply house) and perform the installation. We have to voluntarily cooperate and agree on the price. Next, the contractor must elicit the labor of his employees to perform the installation, in return for compensation. Then, he must cooperate with the supply house or distributor regarding the purchase of the material and equipment. The distributor must buy it in turn from a manufacturer who builds the equipment as the outcome of thousands of acts of cooperation upstream. An excellent video describing the cooperation that results from free markets and capitalism is I Pencil: The Movie, based on the essay by Leonard E. Read. Take a few minutes to watch it. Statism denies cooperation. Central planners make decisions that are forced on people. Statists eschew cooperation because left on their own, people make decisions the statists disagree with. An example is the imposition of any type of wage and price controls like the minimum wage. If you want to hire a high school student for a few hours after school to clean your shop and help stock your trucks at the end of the day, you and the high school student should be able to agree amongst yourselves on the right compensation. Because the high school student hasn"t learned good work habits, has no experience, and will require close supervision, you may decide that the student is not worth the required minimum. Because the state forces you to pay more than you can justify, you must find another way to get the work done and the student is denied both pocket money and the more valuable work experience that will lead to greater pay in the future. Cooperation is more moral than force. Capitalism is again, the more moral economic system. Capitalism is More Optimistic Capitalists live in a world of opportunity. They constantly survey the landscape looking for possibilities to gain, to build, to expand, to create. Statists, on the other hand, focus on scarcity. They see a world of limited resources, which gives them reason to ration and allocate. What the statists overlook is the unlimited power of human ingenuity. Time and time again, statists have predicted the world would be unable to feed itself. Yet, agricultural innovations result in more food production on the same or less land. Statists scared the public with peak oil and limited fossil fuels, yet thinks to the combination of horizontal drilling and fracking, the U. S. alone sits on a 200 year supply of oil. There is a moral aspect in play. Focusing on limits and living within them becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The statist suppresses man"s hopes and prospects. Capitalism again, is more moral.