Arguments Against Capitalism
by A discussion of several common arguments against Capitalism and how they are wrong.
There are many people opposed to capitalism, however it seems that their arguments against it aren’t very strong. They don’t have the necessary data to support their conclusions. Some of their arguments against capitalism include the exploitation of the poor, racism and sexism being inevitable, pollution of the environment and susceptibility to monopoly.
Enemies of capitalism say that it hurts the poor, while rewarding the rich. They say that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. One example of this is in the movie, Capitalism: A Love Story directed by Michael Moore. He gives a very bias view of capitalism, making it seem like a bad thing by ignoring all the good that has come of it. The fact that people try to make as big a profit as possible and therefore lower costs is not a way to exploit the poor. For instance, since capitalism has been in existence the purchasing price of the poor population has gone up significantly. During the industrial revolution, poor people spent basically their entire budget on needs, whereas now they have plenty to spend on wants. Capitalism really rewards the poor, because they’re able to purchase things they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. The rich would have been able to have those things regardless, so they’re not really being rewarded. In order to prove this first argument true, there would have to be data showing that people spend a larger portion of their budgets on needs now than in the past, and that is simply not true.
Racism and sexism is something that is inherent in people and is not caused by capitalism. In fact, capitalism helps eliminate discrimination. People living in a free market society are more likely to cooperate with each other, no matter what skin color or gender they are, in order to increase their profitability. Clearly, the United States has moved away from a discriminatory society since its founding. Thanks to capitalism, people can be looked at by their value as a person, and not by how they look. For instance, it’s beneficial for a firm to hire the best qualified person even if they’re not a while male. Not doing so would be fiscally irresponsible, and the company would most likely lose money on that decision. Just looking at the gender/race distribution in the job market shows that this is true, and therefore the argument that capitalism is racist and sexist is wrong.
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Post CommentAnarchoRationalist
On December 10, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Aw lame, I was hoping that you would posit some valid arguments against capitalism.
Here is the problem with your defenses of Capitalism: Capitalism is an ideology, not reality, the map is not the territory.
Capitalism is based on praxeology, maps of human behavior within given circumstances. Like all models of human behavior, Capitalism is simplistic, it asserts that people will always act in their self interest, or that the ones that do will be more efficient and profitable than the ones that don\’t. Unfortunately reality has no concept of self-interest, we don\’t act in our self-interest, we act reflexively according to our instincts and our unique experiences of trauma and validation. Humans are inefficient, ignorant, lucky, or even moral.
The real world is messy, in the real world Capitalism doesn\’t abide by it\’s own rules, it has involved theft of land, slavery, exploitation of economic disadvantage, consumerism, the de-stabilization of the eco-system and the human economy, cartelization, monopolization, mass murder, and even buddies up to the government and fascism. In short, Capitalists have done all of the things that Capitalisms detractors have criticized it for. There is a reason that they associate Capitalism with these societal problems: they are watching it happen.
Capitalism, in it\’s most basic sense: private property right, is morally inoffensive and is probably necessary. Anything beyond that though is dangerous, and we should never excuse people for behaving immorally with ideological apologetics.
If you make less than your employer, then you are being exploited, and they are doing Capitalism wrong.
(note: I do not advocate statism or violence based regulation of the economy. I am simply arguing against the ideology of Capitalism)
peace, love, and lollipops
John Schell
On January 2, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Fact check: Russia’s economy is capitalist.