Monday, September 13, 2010

The Communists Hated Capitalism Too

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Some liberals are willing to admit that they hate capitalism, but usually they refuse to admit it because such a proclamation is patently absurd, partly because it is the free market system that has made this nation prosper for over 200 years, and partly because it is capitalism that enabled those very same liberals to reach the success they currently enjoy. In fact, in some cases, I believe that many of those liberals are even unwilling to admit to themselves their disdain for capitalism. However, their policies scream that capitalism is the enemy, and the free market is (according to liberals) the enemy to "fairness."

Conservative policies are based on equal opportunity. The opportunity to pursue one's goals must be through a system that enables opportunity equally through as little governmental intervention as possible. Less taxation, and less governmental restrictions, according to conservatives, results in increased business activity, and ultimately a growing economy. However, by its very nature, there will be winners and losers in a system like this. Of course the losers are encouraged to get back on the horse, and continue to pursue their dreams, by once again taking advantage of the opportunities offered to them.

Liberals believe in using government to try to force equal outcome. To the liberal the losers should be entitled to what the winners have earned, even if they didn’t work as hard or risk as much. As far as the liberals are concerned, those that miss success failed because of those that succeeded, and the winners achieved their wealth on the back of the unsuccessful.

Capitalism does not provide for those that fail, don’t work hard or are not willing to take the same kind of risks that the achievers take. In fact, that kind of risk taking is something the liberals hate as Obama has proclaimed when demonizing Wall Street. Problem is, it is those that succeed in a free market system that the liberals need to tax in order to fund their system that, essentially, punishes achievement. So, as they destroy the opportunity for becoming wealthy, they also are chipping away at the cash cows they are so intent to milk. Eventually, their system will fail simply because they will, as Margaret Thatcher put it, "run out of other people's money."

By demonizing the achievers, the liberal left also encourages class warfare. They proclaim the wealthy reached their status because of greed and unfair practices. This is the Left's way of presenting themselves as the champions of "the common man," or "the worker."

Systems that preceded the American system of the free market would have appreciated something like the idiocy the liberals push because pre-America Europe was set up very differently. The wealthy were born into nobility, and their wealth. They did not earn their wealth, and believed that they were entitled to it simply because of who they were.

Free Market Capitalism changed that, for the most part, enabling anyone to achieve what had been out of reach before. This is not to say that some folks are not born into wealth, but at least in most of those cases it is because their parents earned that wealth in the first place. It had nothing to do with nobility, or societal castes.

Interestingly enough, the liberal champions of the common man, while attacking the wealthy, are also attacking the very people that are also business owners, and the creators of jobs. So, by refusing to enable the achievers of the country to pursue free market capitalism, and by punishing achievement with a higher tax rate for the wealthy, the Left is literally hurting the growth of businesses, and in turn disabling their ability to hire more people.

The enemies of capitalism ultimately destroy the opportunity to achieve, creating a system of haves, and have-nots, that is quite similar to the very pre-American system of nobility that imprisoned so many people in lives of poverty. Such a collapse of an economy, which ultimately does promote equality (because everyone becomes equally miserable) also failed in communist Russia. Yes, that's right, the Soviets hated capitalism too.

China avoided the same demise by inserting principles of capitalism into their system. . . and as a result of adding free market principles, China's economy has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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