Should we end capitalism? Or embrace it.

"Capitalism ... has been, blamed for various ills, from poverty and income inequality to pollution, inflation, child labour, and war. ... Capitalism is misunderstood because it is often confused with today’s mixed economy that combines varying degrees of economic freedom and statism. Statism gives the government unlimited power that it uses to tax, regulate, and subsidize individuals and businesses and to hand out favors (government contracts, lower tax rates, subsidies) to companies that make political contributions and do the government’s bidding.

"Because of this confusion, people blame capitalism for problems caused by the mixed economy and statism in particular.

"Consider poverty and income equality. Poverty is most persistent in countries where the government deters wealth creation through high levels of market controls, taxation, and corruption that constrain economic growth, entrepreneurship, job opportunities, and people’s ability to work themselves out of poverty and improve their incomes. The same can be said of child labour (a consequence of poverty), inflation (caused by government manipulation of the money supply, not by business seeking to maximise profits in a free market), and war (caused by government invasion of another country).

"Capitalism does not cause the problems it is blamed for but provides solutions by safeguarding freedom. ...

"In Ayn Rand’s definition, “capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.” In such a system, the government’s role is limited to protecting individual freedom ... by deterring and punishing the initiation of physical force against others ... Under capitalism, the only way to get others to collaborate is through persuasion and voluntary trade.

"Although pure laissez-faire capitalism has never fully existed ... some historical periods and countries have approximated capitalism ... [Northern] America during the 19th century (the longest uninterrupted period of peace); England, France, and other European countries during the Enlightenment (that brought about the Industrial Revolution); Hong Kong (before China’s takeover); and smaller countries like Estonia (that liberalised their economies after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

"Capitalism is good for people and their environment because it produces and protects freedom, the social condition that human flourishing requires. ... [C]apitalism did not create today’s problems but has helped solve or reduce them. ...

"If we want human flourishing to increase, we must not reject and banish capitalism but embrace and defend it ... "

~ Jaana Woiceshyn from her post 'Should we end capitalism?'

"...whatever people wish to be true, is true, whatever people wish to exist, does exist - provided a consensus says so."

 

"[O]ur mixed economy is the literal, faithfully carried-out product of Pragmatism - and of the generation[s] brought up under its influence. Pragmatism is the philosophy which holds that there is no objective reality or permanent truth, that there are no absolute principles, no valid abstractions, no firm concepts, that anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb, that objectivity consists of collective subjectivism, that whatever people wish to be true, is true, whatever people wish to exist, does exist - provided a consensus says so.
    "If you want to avert the final disaster, it is this type of thinking - every one of those propositions and all of them - that you must face, grasp, and reject. Then you will have grasped the connection of philosophy to politics and to the daily events of your life. Then you will have learned that no society is better than its philosophical foundation."

~ Ayn Rand, from her article/talk 'The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus' [collected in her book of essays Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]