Is Capitalism really the root of all evil?
Understanding capitalism- vice and virtue
Capitalism today has become what the eggs are in the food-health industry. Is it good for you or is it not? There are countless debates with people vehemently taking one side or the other. You’d find the Right, the Boomers and the employers or owners as supporters of Capitalism whereas, the Left, the Gen Z, the job seekers, the LGBTQ community are dead set against it.
As always, when two sides fiercely criticize each other, the truth lies somewhere in between.
Capitalism can be broadly defined as a societal or economic order that focuses or works on the principle of profit rather than social welfare. A system where each person is responsible for his own and must earn his fair share rather than be entitled to it.
Rather than going into further details which can easily be googled I’d like to go straight to the fact about why it works or why its proponents claim that it works — Greed. They say that greed, or the human desire to want more is the reason why capitalism fits perfectly for the economic system.
Broadly I agree with this, but the statement is a poor reflection of human desire. It’s not greed but rather ambition that drives the human mind. Ambition is closely linked to our identity. A desire to become the CEO of a company or to open your own business can hardly be called greed but is an ambition. And this is precisely why Capitalism works.
Capitalism allows you to dream.
Dreams are the incentives for hard work. It’s the lubricant for the economic engine. The fact that if you work hard (and smart!), you can make it big, is the reason why people toil day and night to achieve their dreams.
Take this away and it all falls apart.
If doing hard work isn’t going to result in making more money or achieving a sense of pride, then nobody would put in effort. If nobody puts in effort, then the quality of the product or service deteriorates.
This is one of the reasons why any government product or service is sub-par than its private competitor.
But should there be any limits to the dream?
This is where Capitalism fails.
Just because a company wants to make profits, does not mean that they can use any underhanded means to achieve them. The kind of capitalism that is prevalent today, unfortunately, is made up of majorly such kinds of companies that use underhanded means to increase profit, eliminate competition, and maintain monopoly.
Insulin is a classic example. The researchers who worked on the cure sold the patent to the University of Toronto for 1$. The same insulin, however, is used as a commercial profit-making cash cow which is only produced by 3 companies in the US.
This isn’t the basis of Capitalism similarly as politicians gaining all the power isn’t the basis of Democracy but that is what it has evolved into.
We need more regulations to make sure that political or economic power does not consolidate into the hands of a few companies and individuals.
Socialism is a good alternative to this, but it lacks and fails on all the good aspects of Capitalism. It doesn’t allow you to dream and thus lacks any incentive resulting in poor quality services.
What we need is a blend of both! Where the basic necessities like healthcare, basic food, and clean water can be an entitlement whereas everything else can be treated as something that you have to earn. Individuals should be allowed to dream but that dream should not become a nightmare for somebody else!
A new system that is neither too far left nor extreme right albeit a centric one is needed that promotes growth and healthy competition while at the same time protects the individual and provides easy access to the necessities. A system that incorporates the opportunities that capitalism offers for individual ambition and economic growth but also has safeguards against the consolidation of power.
