Capitalism, or the market system, is realistic and eminently applicable, because at its core it is so much simpler than socialism, and is free of the perverse incentives of socialism. It goes back to the simple elements of exchange with which Adam Smith began his analysis. Market activity derives from the very human propensity to “truck, barter, and exchange.” In a primitive society, as in a modern, complex one, an individual begins with the simple intention to get something to eat, something to wear, and a place to sleep. He will do that, perhaps, by making and growing these things for himself. But that is difficult for a normal individual because he (and I will say it here but leave it respectfully implicit hereafter) or she may not have the time or the skills to do everything the comfortable life requires. Thus, people quickly learn about specialization and develop a system featuring a division of labor. A person skilled in growing vegetables can grow more than what is personally needed, and the excess vegetables will be exchanged (perhaps through the convenience of money, so the inconveniences of barter can be avoided) for clothing, a roof, furniture, meat and possibly even such things as stamps for a stamp collection.
Having produced something others want, the creative individual can be expected to exchange his output for other products and services. This will be greatly facilitated by the introduction of money. Thus, superimposed on a system of free exchange, we will have a market economy. Note that this economy is neither intended nor designed to solve the social problem of finding healthy and lasting personal relationships with others. Nor will it solve other problems such as acquiring education, enjoying cultural activities, pursuing charitable projects, enjoying religious associations, and many other non-commercial, personal and private interests. Those things are left to the individual’s personal tastes, aspirations, and desires, and are a part of the private sector left to the enjoyment of free individuals in a free society.
In a research stay in East Germany, when it was still under communist rule, I had an interesting host at a University of Economics in East Berlin. He had labored his entire career as an academic for the East German government training the managers of corporations. He was involved from the early, difficult days of building socialism in East Germany after the Second World War, and he had sacrificed much willingly to build a governmental and economic system in the spirit of Marx. He often talked with me about life there and my life in America. Living in a socialist country, he was aghast at the thought that the economy of the United States performed nothing more than commercial functions. Americans, according to his perception, could pursue nothing more in their professional or work life than strictly materialistic ends.
What my friend failed to recognize, being a socialist, was that all the other humanitarian activities outside pure commerce or economics can be done by private parties in the private sector. Socialists fail to recognize that free individuals can organize and implement cultural, social, religious, educational, charitable, and other activities and projects on their own without the state’s assistance or direction.
Socialism from Marx on has always wanted to manage and control all aspects of life. Socialists want to organize all traditional activities that guide citizens in their entertainment, in their leisure time, in their educational pursuits, in their worship (not religion, of course, since they are convinced that all good Marxists and moderns are atheists, required only to worship the noble socialist state), and the state wants to direct all other activities you can think of.
The socialists of today want no less control of their subjects’ lives than the East German communists did. True socialists are prepared to invest their whole lives in establishing a new social order. After having struggled to obtain power, they are prepared to battle to keep it. They will not permit some political personality or political party to push them out of office and throw over the whole social system they have fought to establish. The Soviets, for example, followed the Marxian advice of setting up power under the vanguard of the Party in order to retain power for the dictatorship of the Proletariat by means as ruthless as necessary. As long as their subjects followed faithfully and quietly, the Party did not bother them. But if anyone stepped out of line, seeking to represent other ideas than those of the Party, or objecting to the Party’s administration of socialist justice, whatever the Party held that to be, the rebellious would be subject to quick correction. If you have not read Solzhenitsyn (whose name and history would justify a brief trip to Wikipedia), you cannot imagine how severe Soviet punishment could become. Deaths under Stalin’s watch made Hitler’s record of human destruction seem quite modest.
Thus, in short, capitalism is a system of commercial freedoms designed to help consumers and businesses arrange their own affairs successfully as they work and prepare diligently during the work day. When that ends, they can return to their homes and freely pursue all the cultural, educational, charitable, religious, sports, and entertainment activities and projects they choose. Because free people are motivated, they can build an affluent society that is beneficial for themselves and for their poor and disadvantaged children, neighbors, and friends. They will generally be taught morals and ethics in their schools, rather than socialism, safety, and self-concern, so that there is no necessity to learn socialism’s hate and hostility.
The “values” of an ideologically oriented political party are not the same as those of a cultural or social grouping of free people. The ethics and morals once casually introduced to children as they began their school years has been tragically dropped from America’s classrooms. They have been replaced by the “values” demanding that incomes be redistributed and that political “deplorables” be silenced. Rather than teaching individual responsibility and charitable concern for other human beings, our children are being taught to reject longstanding social traditions e.g., marriage, families, respect for the normal human genders, fair play, personal responsibility, etc. Of course human understanding, tolerance, and acceptance of ethnic and social diversity among people are highly desirable traits that may not have been so strongly emphasized, but were certainly welcomed in America’s past.
The Social Order of the Past. Our youth should be taught personal responsibility and that they have personal equality before the law. The fundamentals of citizenship in the institutions of federalism should be taught as they are laid down in the constitution. The mirage of “democracy” as a system of the ideological domination of a political orientation imposed upon free citizens is what we have developed in the United States in recent decades. The constitution was designed to protect the individual, establishing individual rights against the rule of men as may be imposed by an intolerant majority or by the government itself upon the free individual or upon political minorities.
The Social Order of the Future. The socialist vision is of a society in which political power devolves upon the forces that would suppress the “exploitation” of the working class by commercial forces. It is of a socialist world determined to achieve equality and the elimination of poverty through confiscation of the excess wealth of those who have it, redistributing such wealth to those who are ideologically qualified to receive it. The vision appears to be of a society which requires of individuals no participation in the production of commodities and services, but ideological qualification to pursue a life of leisure and sensory titillation. The political leaders of such a society are bent on making the decisions that will take effective control of the lives of citizens who are less capable of effective, personal decision making. The socialist attitude is that those rebellious citizens who wish to manage their own resources in defiance of social protocols should not be permitted to stir up anti-social sentiment with open criticism of social mores. Their silence will be secured so as to establish social consensus and social order.