Capitalism; The fuel of Compassion and Freedom…

Too many politicians demonize the capitalist system as greedy and ruthless but that characterization is stereotypical and dangerous. It is stereotypical in nature due to the overexposure greedy executives get in movies, in particular “Wall Street”. It is dangerous to demonize capitalism because it is the engine of freedom, and without the profits and charity of successful businesses and individuals, we don’t have the funds necessary to protect our country or fund our benevolence.

The simple reason capitalism is successful is it harnesses the power of individual human nature to survive and compete. When this quality of human nature is incentivized within a framework of laws it unleashes unbridled dreams and passions that individuals have to provide a prosperous life for them and their families. It is only when the laws of this system are broken do we see the greedy aspect of capitalism. Greed is the exception not the rule. The ability to make and keep profits is the reason we work so hard and are so compassionate. If we were not able to keep the reward of our labor there would be no reason to work. You could be forced to work to eat and have a roof over your head as many a socialist system has, but this is counter to human nature. It fails everywhere it is tried. We as individuals do everything for our own benefit. Now this may seem counter intuitive to compassion but compassion cannot exist without first satisfying our basic needs. And capitalism satisfies those basic needs quickly and fully which fuels our ability to be benevolent.

In my mind it is simple so why do politicians continue to bash the system that feeds so much benevolence? Envy is the answer. Capitalism is an objective system that doesn’t care what demographic group you come from; it simply rewards and punishes behavior. It rewards people that work hard, create needs in a market, fulfill that need, and have the ability to change when the market does. It punishes laziness, bad ideas, and businesses that stagnate and become obsolete in the marketplace. It is the fairest system in the world. Although politicians claim to support fairness they actually thrive on creating a false sense of envy. They harvest the emotion of envy to fuel their own interests most often to get and stay in elected office. They take the fairest economic system in the world and claim it favors certain groups more than others. They ignore the hard work it takes to be successful and suggest that these people are only successful because they have an unfair advantage over others. It is completely false but for many people that don’t want to do the work or haven’t been as successful they embrace that argument and support programs that punish success; including their own.

If we want to remain the most benevolent, prosperous, and free nation in the world we must support capitalism. We must work as hard as we can to make as much money as we can so we can share our success with the causes close to our heart. The government has no heart and the more programs government creates to be “benevolent” the less benevolent people become and the more people are destroyed by these government programs.

Don’t be fooled by the stereotypes and mis-characterizations of people that are successful. It is a ploy that must be recognized and ignored. We are compassionate because we are successful. We should be proud of that in America. And it is only possible because of capitalism…