Day 88 of 1000
I subscribe to Hillsdale College‘s free monthly speech digest, Imprimis. It is a pamphlet size publication that advocates for conservative principles. I think I must have signed up for a periodic email titled “In the News” from them because one of them shows up in my email box every now and then. The last one featured an article titled Occupy Wallstreet Crowd Blind to Benefits of Capitalism by Gary Wolfram that was reprinted from the Media Research Center‘s Business and Media Institute blog. It made reference to a funny Monty Python bit about how the Romans had not given the people they conquered anything but sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, and peace.
Wolfram goes on to explain the reason that capitalism works so much better than socialism and why so many people are confused about capitalism in similar way to the Monty Python skit:
The Occupy Wall Street movement has shown a lack of understanding of how the market capitalist system works. They appear to think that the cell phones they use, food they eat, hotels they stay in, cars they drive, gasoline that powers the cars they drive and all the myriad goods and services they consume every day would be there under a different system, perhaps in more abundance.
But there is no evidence this could be or ever has been the case. The reason is that only market capitalism solves the two major problems that face any economy-how to provide an incentive to innovate and how to solve the problem of decentralized information. The reason there is so much innovation in a market system compared to socialism or other forms of central planning is that profit provides the incentive for innovators to take the risk needed to come up with new products.
My mother never once complained that we did not have access to the latest Soviet washing machine. We never desired a new Soviet car. The socialist system relies on what Adam Smith referred to as the benevolent butcher and while there will undoubtedly be benevolent butchers out there, clearly a system that provides monetary rewards for innovators is much more dynamic and successful. The profit that the Occupy Wall Street protesters decry is the reason the world has access to clean water and anti-viral drugs.
My thought was that capitalism came out of a Christian worldview as did so many other incredible innovations and inventions. I want my kids to understand that.
A FB comment from my father: He is beginning to voice his 77 year old opinion… I love my dad!
History has shown that succeeding in bringing down the business sector and private institutions is usually a portent to bringing down a government. Think of Russia in early 1900’s and Germany in the early 1930’s. For them it was the only way to bring down the system and start over and we now know how that turned out. Most of the problems countries have presently are caused by a government over r…eaching, over regulating, over re-acting, not enforcing present laws, providing loopholes around regulations for friends and donors and essentially interfering with individual rights.
Fortunately for the United States we have elections every four years that enable us to revamp and replace government without bringing down the economic system that enables the freedoms we enjoy. The OWSers are blind of this fact and only desire some form of equality. For each it appears to be different: forgive debt, get a high paying job, all things that will make their life better without the struggle necessary to achieve those things.
Those of us that have been through and met most of the challenges the OWSers are not willing to face, have little sympathy for their plight. Everyone wishes we could get ‘free stuff’, have all our debts forgiven and be ‘equal’ to others we possibly envy, but that’s not how life is played. Too many are being taught there are ‘no losers’, so why am I losing? Too many are being taught that everyone is a winner, so why am I not winning? Once ‘grown up’ you realize life doesn’t work out that way. Both winners and losers are self made. No one but yourself can determine your particular outcome in life. Persistence is the key. If you persist in winning you will become expert at it. If you persist in loosing you will become expert at it. Bitching and moaning about your lot in life is paramount to becoming a lifetime loser.
Awesome comments by your dad. This describes my feelings about all this better than I possibly could. The big issue for me is now to inoculate myself and my family from the “loser” attitude of entitlement and victim-hood. I think a spirit of thankfulness plays a role in here somewhere, too.