On college campuses today, it seems almost second nature to read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx in a philosophy class, or sit in an intro political science class and listen to the merits of socialism from professors who try very little to hide their true political beliefs within the classroom. As a college student, there has been little discussion on capitalism, with a few philosophical texts being used from Adam Smith.
With this lack of instruction on capitalism, it makes socialism and other forms of economic structures to appear extremely appealing to young students, hungry for knowledge, when it’s the only thing being taught. However, no matter what is said in class, no matter how many students in Che Guevara t-shirts come up trying to convince you that socialism is what the United States should start adopting, capitalism will always be the economic system that works. Capitalism is the only sustainable economic system, and it’s because of this that have allowed for the United States to continue being a world leader in capitalist economies, despite the fight to socialize the nation.
So why does capitalism work? Capitalism works because of its primary purpose – to have a free economy. We pride ourselves as Americans as being the land of the free. The United States Constitution is in place to ensure this stays true. The most basic freedom is the freedom to make choices. Capitalism promotes choice. It promotes the ability of people to decide what they want to buy, how much they want to buy, where they want to live, where they want to work, and so on. With other economic forms such as socialism, choices are limited. The government decides, for example, what kind of healthcare is available and doesn’t allow for the people to decide on their own what they want.
In addition to this, the reason capitalism has and will work for hundreds of years is because it is sustained solely on the idea of consent. In order to make a purchase, the buyer and the seller must agree on a price. The buyer must consent to the seller’s price and the seller must consent to to the buyer’s demand. For example, if a car dealership is selling cars at too high of a price, buyer’s won’t consent to purchase these cars and will look for cheaper options. But if buyers see that the cars are being sold at a price they can agree with, that the seller’s determine can still give them profit, they’ll make the purchase. Meanwhile, in other economic systems, the government has a say in the price of goods and services, which takes away the consent out of purchases. This at its very core, is immoral to do. If the people are truly free, as democratic Western societies like to think, then eliminating or at the very least limiting consent is completely contradictory to that.
So where does this consent come from? What if the vendor just wants to have high prices to force the buyer’s to pay too high of a price for goods? Well this is nearly impossible in a capitalist society. The reason consent is the basis of capitalism is due to competition. Unlike any other form of economy, capitalism works because of competition. In a capitalist society, there are numerous vendors selling products to the people. Because of this, vendors try to innovate and create better and unique goods to draw consumers in, while lowering the price to undercut one another. This creates low prices for consumers and better goods and services. The same can’t be said in state-run economies.
One of the biggest complaints statists have towards capitalism and the trigger-words that get thrown around by Democratic politicians and within college classes is that capitalism leads to a wealth-gap and hurts the poor of a nation. However, this is incredibly backwards because capitalism has done nothing but raise the standard of living and help the poor out of relative poverty. For example, the number of people living in poverty today is nearly half of what it was in 1990. The biggest contributors to this are China and India after they started opening up their markets and becoming more capitalistic.
Ultimately, capitalism is what allows for Americans to thrive. The clothes you are wearing is the result of capitalism. The internet or newspaper you are using to read this article is the result of capitalism. Capitalism is what allows for us to live our lives. It strives to better the people, it strives to help, it strives to sustain itself.
Nathaniel Beach ‘20 is a PPE major from Columbus, Ohio.
Carissa Falcone
I want to laugh this article off and pay it no attention, but the fact that someone would suggest that a neoliberal arts university in the middle of Ohio, in capitalist USA, doesn’t teach enough capitalism ?????? Capitalistic values are inherent in every part of our lives, are taught to us no matter if we agree with them or want to learn them or not… and connecting consent into this conversation… ugly. Not only is Nate’s conceptualization of consent pretty wack, it also makes no sense in the way he applies it to concepts like competition and choice.
I can laugh this article off because it’s the same econ 101 ‘ideal version’ of capitalism I’ve read over and over again, usually supported by those in social positions who can and do benefit from neoliberal capitalistic conceptions of power. But not always! Because, as we know, one aspect of an abusive relationship is that the abused will apologize for or explain away the abuse inflicted upon them. In this sense, capitalism is the abuser and those that support and protect its abusive tactics are either abused, complicit in the abuse, or both.
Nate is a great example of someone who might benefit from this specific system and therefore will tout its benefits with little to no consideration of those whom the system hurts (he even uses gaslighting tactics and general lack of empathy when referencing those who are hurt by capitalist inequalities). Or, maybe, he’s been brainwashed after a life of neoliberal capitalist abuse that he has internalized capitalistic messages and now feels the need to spread that message?
But the real kicker is this statement: “We pride ourselves as Americans as being the land of the free.” Who is we??? Who are the ‘americans’??? Because last time I checked, it was colonists that murdered Indigenous peoples (reminder: Natives actually lived on the ‘LAND OF THE FREE’ for well over a thousand years before European colonialists arrived) in order to implement their own parasitic economic, religious, and political systems. The parasite that is capitalism has been eating away at the North American continent since the days of John Smith, although in different iterations and via changing tactics. I will agree with Nate on one point: Capitalism strives to sustain itself. But it doesn’t help most people thrive or live their lives, instead capitalism feeds off our energy, our very beings in order to sustain itself. Capitalism is the machine, and we are the coals burning in the fire that keeps the machine going. And we are essentially trapped in the machine, as Nate reminds us: if we want food, clothes, or technology to access information, we must work within the capitalist system. This is the very definition of a parasitic relationship: the parasite feeds off and lives off of other organism(s), the United States workers, harming it and possibly causing death.