Capitalism works because it is a system entirely based on equality. The starting point is that all men are equal, regardless of social standing, race, gender, or anything else you can think of. The only requirement for success is that you engage in trade with your fellow man, and the possibilities for that trade are nearly endless. You can devote yourself to a profession and offer your services in exchange for what you value, or you can apply your mind to a problem and offer your solution for the same. Whether you'd like to be a manual laborer or a brain surgeon, your personal outcome is based entirely on what you value and how you engage in trade for those values.
And so, naturally, we see inequality in each man's personal outcome. Some men are more ambitious than others; this is simply a statement of fact. Some men value time with their families over time spent studying a profession. Some men value the creation of wealth over having a family at all. To say that we should see equality, across the board, is tantamount to saying we should control men's livelihoods, their dreams, and their goals. If that's your stance, then PM me. I'd be more than happy to burn some frequent flyer miles sending you to the paradise of your choice. Cuba, N. Korea, China, take your pick.
Where capitalism fails is where government begins to interfere with it. Witness welfare, for one. The idea was that all men should have their fundamental needs met, regardless of any effort they put forth for them. But no one ever stopped to define how those fundamental needs should be met. Should we prepare a bowl of gruel, three times a day, so that these poor men can eat? Should we build them a 10'X10' room to live in until they can provide for themselves? No, instead, it was decided that we should just give men money, because they need it. Nevermind where that money comes from, and the work that was required to produce it. We'll suspend the rules of capitalism based on great need. And then, shockingly, we come to find that these poor men still have no motivation to work or produce in order to provide for themselves. Instead, we've created an actual welfare state within a "capitalist" system. Why should anyone be surprised? These poor men were not motivated in the first place to provide for themselves, so why should it be any different when someone else is providing for them? We've forgotten that need should be a motivation to achieve, not a reason to steal from others. We've denied human nature itself.
Witness, as well, the fiasco in the financial industry. Huge banks and corporations made awful, awful decisions regarding risk and reward. We can detail the history that may have prompted those decisions, but I'd rather look at the final outcome. Instead of simply acknowledging their plight and waving goodbye as they went under, we propped them up, funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into their operations. And why? Because they needed it. Because they're "too big to fail." Because think of the poor people who would lose money if they went under. Complete and utter garbage. Think of the poor people who don't have the chance to step into these bloated behemoths' places.
Capitalism, properly allowed to operate, is the only system that benefits all men, at the expense of none. This mixed-economy, trollish, mockery of capitalism we currently have is responsible for the opposite. It benefits the lazy and incompetent at the expense of the producers. It rewards poor decisions and lack of ambition and punishes the opposite. You can thank government interference for each and every gripe you have about capitalism, and you can thank your own misguided notion that men's economic standing should be "more equal" for giving rise to that government interference. All men start on equal footing in a purely capitalist society. There is nothing more moral than that, and there is hardly a worse evil than the idea that men should be robbed so that others can receive something they never lifted a finger for. Witness the oppressive, tyrannical society prevalent in any "people's state" you can think of. Witness the fact that America went from new-born babe to economic superpower nearly overnight. Witness the fact that China began turning its economy around by relaxing government intervention and allowing for "a little more capitalism here and there." The evidence is all around you, PatriotLady, and yet you continue to rail against the only system that's ever been proven to actually improve men's lives. And your complaints are against the forced perversions of that system, as if capitalism is responsible for any of your woes.
