Capitalism has become a very unpopular word in America, especially among America’s college age youth. To its critics the term “capitalism” conjures up images of sweat shops and grifty merchants peddling misrepresenting the quality of faulty goods they peddle.
However, some voices run contrary to popular sentiment. One of them is Rick Kelo, a graduate of West Point and a veteran tax recruiter in Chicago. Rick draws on his prior background as an economist and points out that Capitalism outlaws nothing except theft. It organizes large groups of people under a system of peaceful and voluntary cooperation. Nothing is forced.
Capitalism says it is a useful function of government to prevent plunder and theft. To that end the only social institutions necessary to promote capitalism are:
- A military to deal with foreign aggression against private property.
- A police force / court system to deal with domestic aggression against private property.
Isn’t it curious that in capitalist nations even Socialism is not outlawed?! There’s a socialist party in America today. There have been many notorious failed communes in America. There are worker-owned co-ops. Every single thing Socialists pretend to advocate as a “solution” to the ills of Capitalism already exist in capitalist economies. Of course, that’s because Socialists may claim they advocate those things, but their economic alternative to Capitalism is actually collectivist plunder & a retrograde movement toward the type of social structure proper to militancy.
Rick Kelo challenges us to compare that to the coercive, militant, centrally planned society Socialists advocate to the peaceful, voluntary society based on Capitalism. Where’s the capitalist party in North Korea? In the Socialist’s co-op only society every other form of organization except co-ops are dealt with by violence. All the normal private ownership of companies must be seized and redistribute according to the preferences of the Socialist leader, who initiates violence against the legitimate owners of that private property. New companies are forcibly prevented from forming in the first place by use of aggression from the badge & the gun to threaten those workers wishing to flee government dictated co-ops and start their own business.
Notice how many Americans are fleeing to Venezuela? Or how many South Koreans are trying to escape the horrors of capitalism for North Korea? Exactly.