|
25A039 Capitalist Compassion by Jim Davies, 9/30/2025
Worshippers at the religion of Statism, especially those in pews on the Left, are fond of demeaning capitalism as heartless; a system without a safety net, no better than a jungle or ruthless competition. Rubbish, as this Blog will show. First, let's define that term (which they almost never do) because it has become an all-purpose pejorative, like "fascist" or "Nazi". They are all words the Left uses to refer to anyone who doesn't agree with them. One absurd example is to call Zelensky (who is Jewish) a "Jewish Nazi"; an oxymoron, because the distinguishing characteristic of Nazism is its hatred of Jews. "Capitalism", similarly, is used to describe an incestuous relationship between businesses and government. The former bribe the latter (with "campaign contributions") to enact laws that favor their firms. That is actually one variety of fascism, occurring today in most developed nations and strongly promoted by Benito Mussolini in the inter-war years. A good name for it would be "Musso-Fascism." In reality it has nothing to do with real capitalism. Capitalism is what will almost certainly result when the State has been abolished so that everyone is free to buy and sell without restraint. It consists of exchanging skills for money, then saving some of the earned money for investment - in any business, including one's own. That investment grows the individual's wealth. It's the only economic system that has proven to do so, and is the definition used here. Understood thus, capitalism is morally neutral - being inanimate, it can be neither compassionate nor heartless. It is just a way to make poor people rich, if they so wish. Nonetheless, providing a way to make poor people rich certainly has the same effect as conscious, loving acts of help - if not more so, because as people use it they learn to use it more, and so are motivated to get richer yet; and we know the old principle that while furnishing a fish to eat is kind, teaching someone how to catch his own fish is much kinder yet. There's a second way in which unfettered capitalism increases compassion; as people save and invest and increase their individual wealth, they become better able to use some of it to help those who lack the ability to help themselves; to give away part of their wealth in that way. I've known a few rich people and notice that this happens a lot. This is real, purposeful, human compassion at work and it springs from human nature itself. Humans are compassionate! If it were not so, there could be no discussion about how to arouse it. 
Notice how very much better this individual compassion is, than the pretended compassion shown by government welfare. If a million people have acquired by capitalist actions a surplus of wealth and make decisions about how to give some of it away, those million decisions make the odds high, that recipients will truly deserve and appreciate it. In contrast if instead the same amount were stolen from them by taxation and then given away, one decision is made and one set of disbursements are executed and they are termed "entitlements" - which they are certainly not; nobody is entitled to stolen money and no disbursing bureaucrat is exercising any compassion of his own. By facilitating such individual compassion, free capitalism brings one other big benefit: to the giver. It's well established that donating help to someone who needs it brings pleasure to the donor. Perhaps that's why humans are compassionate; it raises our self-respect and enjoyment of life. Compelling it by law robs therefore both the recipient and the giver. Restoring those will be yet another benefit of the coming zero government society.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
