By Willem IV- Actual capitalism, not its gross mischaracterization or misappropriation, is glorious and would lead to universal opulence if actually achieved.
We don’t rail against the gross imbalance of the distribution of wealth as an indictment against the rich, unless we can identify and prove actual unethical and/or illegal activities.
Our focus is on the inherent threat such imbalance poses to the stability of society and on lifting up the disadvantaged so that prosperity is the universal norm almost everyone obtains.
Our focus is also on the individual’s right to access the market in order to obtain wealth and success through serving and being served by others in a voluntary free exchange.
Finally, our focus is on identifying and constraining injustices and both structural and systemic biases or hindrances to wealth creation by and for the least among us.
We firmly believe actual capitalism is bounded by the ancient and sacred moral standards of the Kingdom of God and the righteous and just standards of Yeshua. But this has always been the case: capitalism, even before it was named, was always based on the ethical orthodoxy of historic Christianity and a Judeo-Christian worldview. The aim has always been to lift up the low places and to help the disadvantaged and left behind.
The misappropriation of capitalism by modern versions of feudal lords who render workers and customers serfs is baneful to economic justice. And economic justice is one of the pillars of capitalism as understood by such foundational thinkers as Adam Smith. The use of a false form of “capitalism” to perpetuate the fears and utopianism of state controlled economics is a dishonest, bad faith opposition. The “capitalism” they oppose, cronyist oligarchy, is also, ironically, opposed by the principles and standards of capitalism.
The aim of capitalism predates even the use of the word capitalism. Our aim is universal opulence, bounded by voluntary moral and ethical standards that affirm life and human dignity, starting with lifting up the most disadvantaged among us. Anything short of that we oppose.
Wealth isn’t finite. We don’t need to take from the upper 5% to make things equitable for the lower 40%, as an example. What we need is to raise the bottom 40% up, through capitalism bounded by Judeo-Christian ethics, which will change the overall distribution of wealth without merely reducing the wealth of the few in order to simply redistribute the same pie without increasing wealth overall.
If the rate of wealth attainement increases among the lower ranks in terms of wealth and income at an even higher rate than those at the top, then less extremes of wealth inequality will be obtained. If opulence is universal, it won’t matter how rich any group of people are, a wealthy society which has few poor and which has the means to ensure nobody is left behind is a stable society.
Our goal must not be to simply ask bureaucrats to use the police if need be to take from the most wealthy and pass that back to the disadvantaged, with strings attached, but only after the bureaucracy gets its cut and politicians use it to buy votes. This is terribly inefficient and leads to corruption and its net effect is a decrease in total wealth and the general distribution of poverty among more and more people.
Do not heed the siren call of state control of the economy, through massive taxes and regulations, regardless of their bogeyman fears or utopian promises. Do not equate capitalism with the baneful acts, like worker exploitation or consumer fraud, that it opposes!
Seek prosperity. Seek capitalism.
Capitalism is glorious and even in its limited form, encumbered by the two evils of cronyist oligarchy and state controlled economics, it has exceeded any economic methodology known to human civilization. True and complete capitalism would produce universal opulence without a morbid imbalance of wealth, especially without a government that cotnrols over 27% of all economic activity and whose policies tend to concentrate private wealth into the hands of an oligarchy.
The collusion of cronies and politicians and their support by bureaucrats and the un-free press isn’t capitalism. Call it whatever you wish, but capitalism, when fully actualized, would lack any of these negative characteristics.
Capitalism is free, equitable, fair, and just and generates wealth for all from the bottom, up, and not from the top, down. In true capitalism, wealth EMERGES from people far from the top and trickles upwardl to reward the most innovative and to provide funding for the public good.
Everyone cannot be a millionaire, but almost everyone in every demographic and community throughout the whole land can and will enjoy opulence and those who fall on hard times or cannot care for themselves will not be left behind.
In capitalism, when we achieve it fully, there is more than enough wealth to ensure that nobody needs to go hungry, lack housing, be unsafe, endure abusive policing, suffer medical crisis that they cannot afford to pay for, lack education, face structural or systemic discrimination, or be left behind due to falling on hard times or not being able to fend for themselves.
Neither cronyist oligarchy nor state controlled economics can even come close to delivering on such a promise. The glory of capitalism is that it alone can deliver its promises and all we have to do is nurture it and get out of its way!