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Capitalism: America’s Secret Guilt

By Tyler West

The American industrialist is both admired and hated, not only in this country but abroad as well. People admire his wealth and enjoy the use of the products he creates, whether it is an automobile or the latest and fastest computer. The paradox is that while they want him to keep producing, they make it ever harder for him do so. When I say "they" I mean those who have bought into the idea that the producer is obligated to produce and his goods are public property. The government passes more and more laws and regulations to choke the life out of him and demand that he work harder, yet we wonder why his industry either dies or moves out of the country. Look at what government regulations did to the railroad industry. We talk about consumer rights yet we are unafraid to trample the rights of the producer because he is a product of the "C" word. Capitalism.

America is the product of capitalism and although it is a politico-economic system which has allowed us to become the world’s economic super-power, it is also our secret guilt. This is because capitalism is seen as not having a moral leg to stand on. After all, capitalism is a system for the selfish and greedy men who have no sense of social duty whatsoever, is it not? This is what we have been taught all of our lives and it is a notion that is rarely challenged. This is a notion that must be challenged, however, because I believe that capitalism is the only moral politico-economic system suited to the life of a man.

Those who oppose capitalism claim that capitalism is evil. Why? Capitalism is based on two underlying principles; freedom and reason. By freedom I mean that man is first and foremost an individual endowed with certain inalienable rights as stated in our constitution; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A man has the right to life. In other words, a man has a right to own his life. His life is not the property of others and he has no right to claim the work, effort or mind of another man. His life is given to him but the sustenance of that life is not. A man’s life can only be maintained and extended by his own effort or he must live off the effort of others. A man must hunt his food, fish it, grow it, or trade for it. A man may trade a product of his own work, such as shoes, to another man who has already hunted, grown, or fished the food. This is a trade of value for value in which both men enter into the trade of their own free will. How many fish is a pair of shoes worth? It depends on how badly the fisherman needs a new pair of shoes and how hungry the shoemaker is feeling. Is this the evil that the socialists, fascists and communists speak of and denounce? Did the fisherman trample the rights of the man who did not catch the fish, or did the shoemaker commit injustice against the man who could not or would not craft the shoes? A man must have the right to keep the fruits of his labor, for without that fundamental right he is unable to support and extend his life.

A man has the right to liberty. One cannot gain liberty unless there is something from which he must be freed. In the case of the human condition, man can only enslave his fellow man. This can be done in a physical sense such as the enslavement of the Hebrews in ancient Egypt or America’s own shameful systematized institution of slavery in the past. A man can also be enslaved by another man’s moral code, which can be as hard to break as any iron chains. The moral code of the altruistic liberal says that man must submit his will to the "will of the people." Of course the will of the people is never clearly defined except as that which is opposite to what the individual man wants. A man’s "selfish" desires must be squashed so that the public good is served; the public good being whatever is good for others but not for one’s self. Food in the belly of another is a virtue but food in your own belly is a sin. To work for the benefit of others is a virtue but to work for your own benefit is selfish. The public is everybody and nobody as long as it is not you. A man, in essence, enslaves himself by whatever degree he accepts the code of the left wing, whereby self-immolation for the sake of one’s neighbor becomes the highest of virtues. If liberalism sounds like socialism and communism, this is because they all share the same moral code of altruism. Socialism is just a milder form of communism, just as liberalism is a milder form of socialism. They differ only to the extent in which they are willing to deny man his rights as an individual (i.e. freedom and property rights). Liberty means that a man recognizes no power (whether it be a dictator, a king, or an elected legislature) that demands that his body, mind and effort are to be used for any other purpose than his own rational self interest.

A liberated man is not a sacrificial animal for the cause of whoever lays claim to his life. For those believers of sacrifice, you need to come to terms with the true meaning of sacrifice. A sacrifice is the trading of something of value for something that has no value. We say that a person may make many sacrifices to achieve a goal such as an education or a new job but this is not a sacrifice in the true sense of the word. A person who decides to study for his final exam instead of partying all night does not make a sacrifice if he values graduating more than a party. He merely makes a decision based on his values and chooses that which holds the higher value for him. It would be a sacrifice if he studied instead of going to the party if he valued a party more than his education. It is not a sacrifice to defend one’s country against the threat of a tyrant like Hitler if one values one’s freedom and the freedom of one’s family more than living as a slave under the yoke of a dictator. It is a sacrifice if one is the sort of man who would accept any injustice against oneself and one’s family as long as one is able to exist in one form of another. This is the true nature of sacrifice.

The liberated man is liberated from a philosophy and politico-economic system that goes against the very nature of his being. The liberated man is free from accepting a moral code that benefits him nothing or that which will destroy him. If you want a practical example of political philosophies which are anti-man, then look at the state of being of countries like the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Communist China or Communist Vietnam. Look at how you live and then look at how they live. Ask yourself how a country as rich in resources as Russia cannot afford to feed all of its people. How did they arrive to such a condition? Who brought them there? What moral code did they use to accomplish their task? The practical results of those who adopt the collective mentality and socialist policies are evident.

A man has the right to the pursuit of happiness. The key word is “pursuit”. Man does not have the right to happiness. Some may say that everyone has the right to happiness, and I will ask them who is to provide that happiness? By what standard does one judge happiness? If I claim that I am not happy, then is it the government’s responsibility to make me happy? What if I claim that a new house and sports car are what I need for happiness? Never mind the fact that I have no means with which to purchase them. The pursuit of happiness puts the responsibility on the individual to decide what will make him happy and then to put forth the effort to achieve that happiness. As long as one does not violate the rights of another or the laws of the land, one should be able to do anything one believes will make him/her happy. A citizen should be allowed to do anything except that which violates the rights of other individuals. A government official in the execution of his official duties, however, should not be allowed to do anything except that which the law permits.

In pursuing one’s happiness it is also possible that one may fail. Happiness is a state of mind, and sometimes the values we seek do not bring us happiness. Again, the responsibility is on the individual. Why would the founding fathers of The United States include the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental right? Because they knew that happiness is the successful state of life. Our emotions are barometers of mental health just as pleasure and pain are signals of physical health. A man who seeks non-contradictory values feels a sense of achievement and joy. A man who seeks his happiness in the drunken stupor of alcohol or drugs soon finds that death and self destruction are the only goals he will achieve. He does not extend his life, he shortens it. It is not joy he attains but rather a state of self-hate and pain. Happiness is not a fleeting moment of pleasure followed by hours of pain and depression. Happiness is a state of consciousness to be achieved by a rational man whose values work for his benefit, not his destruction. His actions transform those values into being, bringing body and mind together to mold material reality to his purpose and desires. For those who believe that values are arbitrary whims to be determined by the masses, I say you should check that premise. A value, by definition, is something to be sought or kept. A thing has no intrinsic value of its own but is given value by living organisms. A tree values the nutrients in the soil, the sun for photosynthesis and the carbon dioxide in the air. A man cannot plant himself in the ground and expect to sustain his life. He must seek those values that are proper to the life of a man. If men want to live together, then they must cooperate, learn from one another and follow a moral code that is suited to the life of a man. His politico-economic system must be geared to work for man and it must be true to man’s nature and allow him to seek and obtain the values that will sustain his life. In other words, man’s values are not decided by the arbitrary collaboration of a mob. A man must live his life as his nature dictates, as man qua man.

Socialism, communism and left wing politics (the politics of the altruist) are not geared to the proper life of man but rather force man to give up property rights and the right to the product of his effort and his mind. Do not point out that the people of communist countries in Eastern Europe are still living, albeit underfed and poorly clothed. Avoiding death is not the same as living life. Pain and suffering are not man’s natural state of being, much less a condition to be sought and glorified. Do not point out that we still have the right to property in the United States. We have the illusion of ownership. Refuse to pay your property tax and the barrel of a gun is your final ultimatum. Do not speak of a civilized society when brute force is the rule of thumb. Reason ends where a gun begins. Since man’s nature requires him to work to extend his life, income tax is immoral by its very nature; it takes advantage of the human condition. We might as well have an air tax for the oxygen we breathe. The Spanish have a better word for taxes: "los impuestos." Impuestos mean that which is imposed. Imposed means against one’s will or better judgment. I don’t mind paying for services rendered or for the services that are a proper function of government such as the police force, the armed forces and the court system, but I do mind paying for unneeded social programs and laws that are devised to make it ever harder for me to produce. The proper function of the government is to protect man’s rights, not to annihilate them. Since the government is the only institution authorized to use force against its citizens, its power must be limited due to the nature of the institution it is.

The second leg of capitalism is reason. Reason allows us to perceive our world through our senses, integrate that knowledge, form concepts, gain knowledge and guide our decisions through logic. Man has no great strength of limb, our teeth and nails are weak and our sense of smell and hearing are not acute. It is man’s mind that is his tool of survival. With his mind, man learned to make fire, fashion a spear, harvest crops and construct a house. Animals have instincts that help them to survive; man has few such instincts. A spider will spin a web, a bird will build a nest, and a man will seek shelter by instinct, but a man will never take raw materials and build a house without a process of thought. When a man abandons his mind and allows another to think for him, he throws away his tool of survival just as surely as if a bear were to rip out its own claws and teeth. True capitalism protects the property rights of man and thus protects his mind and the products of his mind. Many will yell of the injustice of the past when property was gained and kept by warlords and tyrants. Capitalism does not allow the use of force to gain property. How many slaves died to build the pyramids of Egypt or the coliseums of Rome? How many men died to build the skyscrapers of New York? The constructors of skyscrapers were paid for their work. They went home and fed their families. They supported their lives by the best means they knew how and profited from it. Some from the left wing will say that the greedy capitalist used them to get his skyscraper built but without someone to finance (and take the risks) the project, there would have been nothing to build.

Emotions are not tools of cognition and, as such, are invalid means to guide man’s actions. It is man’s reason, judgment, and moral code that must guide his actions toward the values he seeks. Man needs morals because he has no automatic sixth sense to guide him to that which is good. Morality , or ethics, is a code of values that helps man to guide his actions and defines the course his life shall take . If a man chooses incorrectly, he suffers the negative consequence, the ultimate of which is death. Man is neither immortal nor omnipotent If man were immortal there would be no values for him to seek for nothing could harm him or help him. Because man’s actions result in consequences that could destroy him, he needs guidelines by which to judge his actions. This is why he needs morals and an objective set of values by which his reason may operate for his good. I define the good as that which benefits man and the evil as that which harms him. It is only life that makes the concept of good and evil possible because life is self generated and an end to and of itself. For those who claim that good and evil are only points of view and that the capitalist and the socialist just have different views on how to distribute natural resources, I say let objective reality be the final arbiter. Talk to any Cuban who is lucky enough to make it to the US shores about his life under the control of Castro. I suppose it was only his point of view that it is wrong for him to only be allowed a handful of eggs and a ration of milk every month. It was just his point of view that it was wrong for him to be denied the right to own his own house (even though he paid for it) or speak out against the government for fear of his life. I suppose it was just a whim that put him in that raft to risk his life to gain freedom. When I say that capitalism is the only moral politico-economic system suited to the life of a man I mean that capitalism is pro-life, pro-freedom and pro-man. If this is true then what is socialism?  Socialism is immoral or anti-life. Therefore, it is anti-man.

Capitalism cannot thrive in a liberal dominated society since they are opposing philosophies. It is important that intellectuals champion the cause of capitalism on moral grounds and take pride in being capitalists. In the past, no one has been willing to stand up for capitalism or the industrialists who have made our way of life possible. The liberals believe that by seizing the products of the producers that they somehow will achieve the virtue that made production possible in the same way that a drug dealer believes that by obtaining man’s money, he somehow obtains the respect of those who give money its value.

Observe how many men go into public office and retire as millionaires. They do not own factories or produce anything. This is because they do not trade in goods but in favors. They look at the private sector where money is being made, and they use leverage and power to loot the producers. What happens when the drug dealer and the looter run out of victims? Who will give that paper money any value then? We, the people who give that money value, must stop allowing our greatest virtues to be used against us and we must not disavow the system that makes our production possible. If we lose America, it will be by moral default.

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