capitalism myth and fact

[Elliot Temple]

http://principlesofafreesociety.com/limited-government/

> Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness (which, in my sense of the term, it is)—yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries, and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries, while all the collectivist, internationalist, One-World systems are splitting the world into Balkanized tribes.
>
> Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.
>
> Capitalism has been called nationalistic—yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace.
>
> Capitalism has been called cruel—yet it brought such hope, progress and general good will that the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.
>
> As to pride, dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem—these are characteristics that mark a man for martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism.
>
> “Global Balkanization,” The Voice of Reason [by Ayn Rand, 1977]

:)

One thing I think is interesting:

> the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.

can it really be that something is rejected for being too good, because its (true) claims (which have ample evidence, if one learns any history to compare with) seem hard to believe to newcomers?

I would think that wouldn't happen if all the older people said it was good. But they don't. So why don't all of them like it, who saw more of the before and after without having to read history books? (Or are there such people? It took a while. Maybe part of the difficulty is that no one sees the whole process firsthand.)

But anyway the young people of today haven't seen a lot of things. For example, they haven't seen communism bringing paradise. But they don't find that hard to believe.

There must be some reason people take sides as they do. I would suspect it has to do with moral principles, some sort of moral appeal of the (anti-capitalist) side they take. What do they like about it so much? What will change their minds?


-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/

[Rami Rustom]

Its consistent with the idea that people should honor emotions, theirs
and other people's.

If somebody felt pity for someone else because of his situation, then
he'd want to relieve that pity by helping him. Funny thing is that
people think that this is rooted in wanting to help other people. But
actually its about wanting to stop the bad feeling one is having
(pity) -- so its actually rooted in selfishness. It analogous to the
idea of helping others so that one doesn't go to hell -- its actually
rooted in selfishness.

Part of feeling pity is believing that one could have been in that
other person's situation. This uses false logic though because it
means that one doesn't have the free will to choose to do better in
his life -- that one didn't make choices that led to his better life.

And then, this feeling of pity, and the resulting action that people
take, can sometimes go wrong because they take action (provide help)
on the pitied when the pitied didn't want help. Or they try to help in
a bad way that causes more harm than good (e.g. giving food to poor
Africans instead of giving money).

> What will change their minds?

The knowledge that reason is superior to emotion.

Rami

[Alan Forrester]

Maybe it's something like the following. Acting morally doesn't guarantee a particular set of results. So this leads to the problem of how to explain why you should act morally.

Most moral systems either say that virtue is its own reward or that helping others is somehow a reward for you. Others say that you do somehow benefit but don't explain how: like the idea that you should maximise your personal utility. All of these ideas share a fatal flaw. If you take them seriously and try to act on them, then you don't criticise the results of acting according to your moral code. Suppose that giving money to the poor is its own reward. If you end up poor as a result that's not a fault in your moral code since you have been rewarded by the very act of doing the right thing. And if you go out boozing every night and destroy your liver, that's not a fault in the idea of personal utility you just misunderstood what would bring you most utility.

All those bad ideas misunderstand why acting morally doesn't guarantee a particular set of results. Acting morally doesn't guarantee a particular set of results because acting morally sometimes involves changing your preferences. Changing preferences involves creating new knowledge, which is inherently unpredictable. It's not the case that if you get shitty results you should put up with whatever bad moral code you have. The fact that you can't predict the results doesn't mean you should put up with bad results. Rather, you should change your preferences to act on a better set of moral ideas.

Alan