You’d think capitalism would be an easy sell. It’s not. The individuality at the heart of free market capitalism makes it the only system where freedom to help your neighbor is exalted, and the motivation for corruption decreases. It’s time for conservatives to collectively stand up and praise the virtues of individuality.
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13 replies on “In Praise of Individuality: Freedom to Help Your Neighbor is the Heart of Capitalism”
You discuss taking away hours of peoples’ lives with taxation. That would be a good meme from The Princess Bride. “I have just taken away one hour of your life. How does it fee?”
to quote a very famous and beloved economist “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellowman. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellowman.” Walter E. Williams——-the only problem for a great many today is that the word “serving” means “work” and that is just anathema to them.
Capitalism is neither good nor bad. Capitalism is not an ideology, despite the highly successful marketing by Marx. Capitalism is just a tool. Hunter-gatherer societies have no need of capitalism. Once people evolved to an agrarian society, farmers practiced capitalism. To the first farmers, capitalism was knowing how much of their crop to set aside to plant the next season. Generically, capitalism is just collecting resources so that you can address a future need.
It’s not capitalism vs socialism, but rather freedom vs socialism. Capitalism exists in both free and socialist societies. For example, the soviets beat the Americans to launch the first satellite and first humans to orbit the earth. The soviets had a brilliant bureaucrat, Sergei Korolev, who used capital from other parts of the soviet empire to beat the Americans. Had he not died of cancer, the Soviets may have put the first human on the Moon.
In Socialism, capitalism typically fails, because your typical bureaucrat administering and placing capital is spending other people’s money, so has little incentive to be efficient. In contract, in a free society, capitalism thrives, because capital has an owner and that owner is involved in the placing and monitoring how the capital is used.
So yes, Bill and Zo are correct that in a free society, people are willing to give some of their capital to help their neighbor.
I think the word you were looking for was ‘muzzle’.
In the 1930s Jews lost their individuality when they were required to wear the yellow Star of David. The first thing other saw was the Star, not the person wearing it. They became non-persons, and it was made legal to deny service to them and refusing to do business with them.
We are seeing the exact same thing happening today. We see the mask rather than another human being. When they get done with their ‘vaccine passports’ and their talk of allowing businesses to deny service to non-vaxed people we will have come full circle.
my thoughts are this. if you believe in individualism that’s ok… unless of course you are a white male. if you’re a white male then you need permission from a woman to live your life as you see fit. naturally she won’t be granting you that so your choices are now limited to either supporting the globalist anti-white male paradigms or death by hanging in the town square.
One of the main vulnerabilities of a Capitalist system is Capital itself. You don’t hear this discussed very often by Capitalists when discussing Capitalism.
Unrestrained, totally open free markets follow Capital. Because of that, Capital can be a weapon used against Capitalism.
China knows this very well.
For example; in an unrestrained open and free market enterprise will cater to the market which provides the greatest yield. Doing otherwise would be counter to free enterprise. If, as in the case of the entertainment and sports markets that market which provides the greatest yield happens to be China — Then enterprise will cater to the Chinese market. This is dangerous, especially in the case of entertainment because entertainment is very easily dual purposed as propaganda.
We see this happening today. If the Chinese government doesn’t like some aspect of entertainment or the public statements made by sports personalities, the Chinese Communist Party will throttle capital returns from China to that market.
This is especially dangerous as the sports and entertainment venues are a means of recouping capital from China. A lot of U.S. Dollars flow to China as the purchase of goods. Some of that money flows back to the US in the form of royalties, fees and ticket purchases in China. The Chinese Communist Party is willing to allow that return flow of capital if they can control the content that capital purchases. The movie and television industries in America are all too happy to accommodate the Chinese government by avoiding the exposure of negative aspects of life under the Chinese Communist Party.
That is one of the negative aspects of unrestrained, unlimited Capitalism. It’s an important one.
If the goal is maximum individual liberty then objective truth is the actual goal not unbridled Capitalism. If we are willing to accept deception and lies of omission in order to cater to a market, that market has influential sway over individual liberty. If through control of Capital the obfuscation of facts becomes an acceptable state, then Capital is a weapon being wielded against individual liberty.
Any master beyond the control of The People is dangerous and Capitalism is as dangerous as any other master.
I’m not saying Capitalism itself is bad and I’m certainly not advocating for another system like Socialism. I’m just pointing out that Capitalism is a false god that can be as detrimental to individual liberty as any other falsehood.
I’m saying that unrestrained, unbridled rampant Capitalism is an extreme as dangerous as any other extreme.
The fact that Capitalism can be a fickle mistress needs to be acknowledged and understood by Conservatism. The methods for defanging Capitalism as a weapon against personal individual liberties need to be explored by Conservatives.
I think Donald Trump understood all of this on some level; conscious, subconscious or instinctive. We certainly do want the return flow of Capital from China and his policies of forcing China to “play fair” and to de-incentivise the undesirable application of Capitalism were firm steps in the right direction.
The word “collective” should not be a word used by conservatives. The collective demands obedient followers who obey their master without question.
Conservatives are individuals who assemble to conserve our constitutional republic and deal with specific issues that may arise. Individual liberty is always paramount.
Even the collectivists know it is a lie or why would they even have hero’s of the revolution? Marx, Mao and all the rest still have followers even though the very act of following an individual is antithetical to their supposed beliefs.
We have left the age of Willful Ignorance and have transitioned to the age of Willful Stupidity and the ones who take advantage of it.
A facet of this is: When there is no individualism then we’re all in this together. Which means that when something goes terribly, horribly wrong, there is no one to hold responsible, because we’re all in this together. You can’t blame government because you (collectively) voted for them. You can’t blame a Nazi prison guard because he is just doing as he was told. You can’t blame a doctor, teacher, architect because they’re just following directions. Just try to find a doctor that can think for him/herself instead of being controlled by the patient’s insurance company, or a teacher who is allowed to tailor instruction to a student having difficulty. (sarcasm:) We’re all the same. We’re all in this together. It’s only fair.
The Little Red Hen (americanliterature.com)
I have a friend who often asks, What tax rate would be fair? Give me a number.
They can’t. As soon as they get a tax rate increased to X, they’re out saying “it’s not enough” and demanding it be increased to X+n.
Their whole, veiled political motivator here is “The haves still have, and the have-nots still have less, therefore we must take more.”
Have you read this?
It shows that they really think that the individual does not exist, only groups of oppressed and oppressors.
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody: Pluckrose, Helen, Lindsay, James: 9781634312028: AmazonSmile: Books