John L. Plough

“Capitalism” is a word coined by Karl Marx to label a social condition where the “means of production” are controlled by a limited number of people who by hook or crook have compiled large sums of “capital” that they use for acquiring political power. Once, the politicians have been used to create laws to eliminate competition and further consolidate the means of production, those who live outside the “capital” class are essentially enslaved because the laws protect large concerns at the expense of the individual.

Many “Conservatives” think capitalism is a good thing, or even a desired thing. Capitalism as described by Marx and presented above is essentially the system we have in place in the United States today. Having said that capitalism IS NOT, the social system that built the United States, and didn’t even exist in the United States until after the civil war. Capitalism began in earnest in the United States with the trans-continental railroad, the first American “Public Private Partnership”. From the 1860′s on Capitalism has slowly edged out the social system set up by agreement of the “people”, with the US Constitution.

Capitalism as described above does in fact contain all the evils that Marx described, it does in fact lead to consolidated power in the hands of the few, for the exploitation of the many. Marx proposed a solution to ills of capitalism which sought to eliminate the private “ownership” of the means of production in exchange for the communal ownership of practically everything. The general idea is, if everybody is equal “rich” or “poor” no combinations of capital can exist to corrupt the political process, thereby ensuring a higher level of happiness among th highest number of people. The main problem with Marx’s communist (socialist) system is that it just doesn’t work. Marx discounted the power of human nature to be self-serving. Though he did account for the fact that 30% of the population would never submit to a collectivist regime, he solves this problem by murdering them. Once the people who believe in private ownership are out-of-the-way, the rest of ‘us’ can live in collectivist utopia, that was his theory anyway.  However in reality, once you eliminate the 30% a sort of “political capitalism” begin to form. Instead of cash or capital being used to consolidate political power, murder is used. Murder becomes the new capital. If you take a look at the great socialist societies you will see this as true.

Having stated that, the next question is if capitalism sucks and socialism is worse, what should we do, how should society be organized to create the maximum benefit for the most people?

The reality is; ‘Humans are so screwed up, we can’t be organised for maximum benefit’. Any social system that is imposed will eventually devolve into the ‘capitalism’ as described by Marx. The only real solution, to the problem of organising society is to NOT, organise it. All that is needed is a general agreement about what is acceptable behavior and what is not. These should be basic ‘common law’ style guidelines. Other than that people should be ‘FREE’. It is not the accumulation of cash that creates the social ills described by Marx but the USE of cash to accumulate political power. Think of this, two men meet on the street, one man has a sack of cash and the other has 2 bucks, in a free society is one more ‘powerful’ than the other?

The answer is NO, so long as the bigger sack of cash can’t buy political power. It’s not the cash that creates the oppression, but the political power that cash buys. If I can create laws through the use of my cash to enslave you then I’m dangerous, but if the LAW protects both you and me equally the fact that I have a bigger sack of cash becomes irrelevant. The real cause if social ills is not therefore te accumulation of capital in the hands of a few, but rather the accumulation of political power.

The social system set up in the United States, began as one of strictly ‘limited’ political power. If you take the time to read the US Constitution, you will clearly see it is a document that seeks to fetter political power. Power in the United States was meant to be diffuse so as to maximise individual freedom, thereby eliminating the enslaving effects of unfettered capitalism.

To maximise the potential of every individual thereby allowing the best standard of living for the most people, we need to maximise ‘freedom’. The only way to do that is to ‘minimize’ government.

A government that is so weak it is NOT worth corrupting, will never become corrupt. The real solution to eliminate the ills of capitalism is NOT to create a socialist mega-government, which incidentally will become MORE corrupt the more power it consolidates, but rather to eliminate the parts of government that can be corrupted. The answer to the enslaving tendencies of capitalism as defined by Marx is NOT to shift the slavery to a mega government, but to eliminate the political power that makes the enslaving tendency of capital possible.

In short Freedom is the answer.