Capitalism

 

http://capitalism.org/category/capitalism/

What is capitalism?

When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. — AYN RAND

 

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

Under capitalism the state is separated from economics (production and trade), just like the state is separated from religion.

Capitalism is the system of laissez faire. It is the system of political freedom.

What is the purpose of government under capitalism?

It is to protect rights that governments are instituted. A proper government's only responsibility is to protect the rights of the individual, by banning the initiation of force, thus making all relations between men peaceful, i.e., free from the threat of violence and fraud.

In a political context, freedom has only one specific meaning — freedom from the initiation of force by other men. By initiation I mean those who start the use of force to achieve their ends, i.e., a bank robber. Only the initiation of force against a man can stop his mind, thus rendering it useless as a means of survival. Only by the initiation of force can a man be: prevented from speaking, or robbed of his possessions, or murdered. Only through the initiation of force can a man's rights be violated.

 

Suggested Reading:

The Nature of Government by Ayn Rand

What is a capitalist?

An advocate of laissez-faire is known as a capitalist, e.g., novelist Ayn Rand is a capitalist; e.g., though economically Engels came from a wealthy background, politically he is recognized as a socialist/communist because of his ideas; e.g., billionaire Warren Buffet and George Soros are not capitalists as they do not advocate capitalism, but variants of statism. Soros like Ted Turner is a "socialist at heart."

What is the foundation of capitalism?

Politics is not a primary. Politics is the application of ethics to social issues. One's politics depends on one's ethics; and one's ethics depends on one's metaphysics (studies the nature of reality) and epistemology (studies the nature of grasping reality). In other words ones view of what is the proper social system for men to live together in, depends on how one views man, and the world he lives in — that is one's view of politics is shaped by one's underlying philosophy.

Capitalism is a political system that if based upon the wrong philosophical base, is like a towering skyscraper, built on quicksand.

A philosophy today that provides a proper foundation for capitalism is Ayn Rand's philosophy: Objectivism.

Suggested Reading:

What Philosophy Is, and How to Study It
by Leonard Peikoff

Historically, has a pure capitalist society ever existed?

No. A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a "mixed economy": a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy.

Isn't capitalism utopian (unpractical)?

Capitalism is not utopian, but it is entirely practical theory.

A utopia is some ideal which cannot ever exist in reality, i.e., it is too good to be true.

Capitalism is not a utopia — it is entirely something of "this world", based on facts observable in "this world".

The fact that laissez faire capitalism has never existed, does not mean it cannot exist, or that it will not exist in the future; laissez faire capitalism is a definite metaphysical possibility.

Isn't Capitalism a bad theory, that works in practice?

Capitalism is the best — the ideal — theory, because to the extent that it is allowed to work, it always works in practice.

Isn't Capitalism responsible for children working in factories?

Children working in factories was only a transitory stage between early feudalism and capitalism. Prior to working in factories, before capitalism, many of children (and their parents) used to die and starve, as evidenced by the high infant mortality statistics before capitalism. Observe that is was not until families left the "country" and went into the "cities" that they were able to produce enough food to eat. The clearest evidence of this is population and infant mortality statistics: population did not go up, and infant mortality did not go down, until the Industrial Revolution. If life was so great before capitalism in the "country", why was infant mortality so high and population numbers considerably lower before capitalism? Answer: because life was not so great until Capitalism.

Throughout history the parents of most families could not produce enough to support their families without having their children work also (such was the case of my father in India). It was the accumulation capital by the industrialists that made the labor of parents more productive, that children had to stop working in fields or factories. In poor non-capitalist countries they are still working in fields and factories.

Contrary to leftist rhetoric passing child labor laws in these countries will not solve the problem, but will only lead to mass starvation — which is why the "poor" themselves resist such laws (it is only to the benefit of the leftist "rich" "humanitarians" who cry out for them).

Isn't capitalism, which is based on individualism, opposed to man living in society?

Individualism is not opposed to a man living in society, so long as he is free from the initiation of force by others.

Individualism is only opposed to man living in society as a non-individual amorphous member of a collective, i.e., a slave. Individualism holds that it is much better for man to live on a deserted island, than to live in a society where he is nothing more than a pawn ready to be sacrificed to the altar of the "public good."

Why is capitalism so despised, maligned, and misrepresented by the intellectuals in our universities?

The intellectuals despise Capitalism because it is completely in opposition to their basic, philosophical principles.

Capitalism is the system of individual rights; the intellectuals on all sides are for some form of collectivism. Capitalism is the system of individualism, self-interest and happiness; the intellectuals are for altruism, self-sacrifice, and misery. Capitalism is pro-reason; the intellectuals are steeped in mysticism and subjectivism. Capitalism is is a social system for living in reality; a reality which the intellectuals despise, or whose existence they deny.

No wonder the bulk of the intellectuals who infect today's universities are against Capitalism — it represents the antithesis of everything they stand for. How could they not be?

 

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