For the better part of the last 100 years the United
States, the heart of capitalism on earth, has been making itself and its
citizens the most comfortable, most liberated, wealthy people in the world.
Other nations that have rejected capitalism and chosen socialism have become
consistently poorer and increasingly in a state of want, the most extreme
example of which being Venezuela, one of the most oil-rich nations in the
world, which is starving to death under socialism and whose leader/dictator last
week declared that the population would be force-assigned to do agricultural
work in order to feed the population and keep its unprofitable crops from
rotting in the fields.
The best reason for the United States’ success in a
generally failing world was expressed by British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher
when she warned and under Socialism you eventually run out of other people’s
money to spend. During the twentieth century the United States became
increasingly more wealthy because it was private money, not public (tax derived)
money that created the wealth, employed workers and built things. During the
last 25 years or so, and definitely during the last 7 years of the Obama
administration, the government has tried to establish national wealth via
handouts and giveaways, and has failed miserably. When people take care of
themselves and their families there is no end to what they can accomplish for
themselves via efforts to make profits and to compete to make better products
or services, but when government pretends to create wealth by taxing those with
wealth and giving that wealth to those who don’t work or produce, the
government itself consumes so much of the wealth that individuals created, that
the whole system begins to fail and shut down.
When you add the liberal tendency to promise stuff to
the “taking” class in exchange for their votes and the continued election of
liberals to office, it doesn’t take long for the wealth “making” class to stop
working, and the takers sink further into poverty and become nothing more than
slaves to the liberal rulers, who continue to promise more stuff in order to
get the takers’ votes, and poverty becomes more pervasive.
Liberalism/socialism is unsustainable because it
depends on someone else to create the wealth that provides the takers with
their meager living standards, and the inefficiency and corruption of liberal
government assures that what little wealth there is will be destroyed, leaving
the takers with nothing, but still dependent on government, which will fail
when the makers stop producing or just leave for more favorable climes.
Capitalism is sustainable because every person,
whether CEOs or hourly workers, create their own wealth via work, thrift, investment
and living within (or preferably beneath) their means, and trusting to the future
for a final financial reward for their thrift. As long as the government doesn’t
step in and pass legislation or issue regulations that halt the creation of
products or services, capitalism always comes up with ways to accomplish its own
sustainability. Government will always be on hand to halt abuses of overly
active companies, as was described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and wise, sustainable regulation of business only makes
products and services better and extends the sustainability and survivability
of all businesses as they toe the line of sensible, corrective and non-punitive
regulations.
Sustainability is further improved upon under
capitalism because the selfishness of entrepreneurs assures that their products
and services, food or clothing, lumber or electricity will continue to be available
and profitable, and they will therefore be better stewards of their piece of
the world. The government, on the other hand, cares only for votes and nothing
for products and can’t possibly make a profit because it makes nothing itself,
so everything in government’s realm only performs worse and becomes more dilapidated
as the maker class dries up.
Whether the subject is liberty, food, the environment
or just plain stuff, there’s always more of it under capitalism, and its
quality is much better because the many and numerous participants assure their
own continued prosperity and freedom. The more products or services a society
makes increases the number of jobs, and greater profits for a competitive corporation
increases the pay of the employees that make the products or provide the
services.
