Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Hidden Article

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Capitalism and the Common Man

Alan | 23.10.2006 16:33

Capitalism and the Common Man



There are some arguments, having a faint measure of plausibility, that have served politicians, charlatans and assorted do-gooders for well for over a century in their quest for control. One of those arguments is: capitalism primarily benefits the rich and not the common man. That vision prompts declarations such as: Congressman Richard Gephart's assertion that high income earners are "winners" in "the lottery of life." Then there's, Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, who says high income earners the "fortunate fifth." These nonsensical visions lead to calls for those who've been "blessed" to "give back" either voluntarily or coercively through the tax code.

While demagogic statements like these have high emotive worth, they reflect resolute, near incurable stupidity about the sources of income. Listening to some of the talk about income differences, one would think that out there somewhere is a pile of money. People who are wealthy just happened to get there first and greedily took an unfair share. Justice requires that they "give back." Or, there's talk about income distribution. The way some people talk, unequal distribution of income means that there is a dealer of dollars who shells out $1,000 to one person, $100,000 to another and a million dollars to yet another. Thus, the reason why some people are wealthy while others are not wealthy is that the dollar dealer is a racist, sexist, a multi-nationalist, or just plain mean. Economic justice requires a re-dealing of the dollars, income redistribution, where the ill-gotten gains of the few are returned to their rightful owners.

In a free society, for the most part, people with high incomes have demonstrated extraordinary ability to produce valuable services for, and therefore please their fellow man. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and singer Michael Jackson provided services deemed highly valuable by their fellow men who voluntarily took money out of their pockets to purchase those services. Their high incomes stand as unambiguous proof of that service. Their high incomes also reflect the democracy of the market place. For example, millions upon millions of independent decision makers decided to fork over $200 or $300 for Microsoft founder Bill Gates' "Windows 98" operating system. Those who think Bill Gates is too rich, and want to redistribute his income, are really registering disagreement with the democracy of the market place and want to cancel or offset the market "vote."

Indeed, we might think of the dollars people earn as certificates of performance. Think of it in the following way. You hire me to mow your lawn. After I have completed the task, you give me $20. I go to the grocer and demand a pound of steak and a six-pack of beer that my fellow man produced. The grocer says, "You're demanding something that your fellow man has produced. What have you done to serve him?" I reply, "I have served my fellow man by mowing his lawn." The grocer says, Prove it!" That's when I hand him my $20, my certificate of performance.

Income earners owe nothing else to their fellow man; they have met their social obligations. If "giving something back" means anything, it should be the admonition to thieves and social parasites: people who have taken and given nothing in return. We have it ass backwards. Highly productive people (the rich) like Sam Walton and Bill Gates are held up to social ridicule while thieves, bums and other social parasites are shown passion and concern and have become society's mascots.

Capitalism is the best thing that ever happened to the common man. The rich have always had access to entertainment, often in the comfort of their palaces and mansions. The rich have never had to experience the drudgery of having to beat out carpets, iron their clothing or slave over a hot stove all day in order to have a decent dinner; they could afford to hire people. Capitalism's mass production and marketing have made radios and televisions, vacuum cleaners, wash-and-wear clothing and microwave ovens available and well within the means of the common man; thus, sparing him of the boredom and drudgery of the past. Today, the common man has the power to enjoy much (and more) of what only the rich could yesteryear.

What about those who became wealthy making comforts available to the common man? Henry Ford benefitted immensely from mass producing automobiles but the benefit for the common man, from being able to buy a car, dwarfs anything Ford received. Individual discovers and companies who produced penicillin, polio and typhoid vaccines may have become very wealthy but again it was the common man who was the major beneficiary. In more recent times, computers and software products have benefitted our health, safety and quality of life in ways that dwarf whatever wealth received by their creators.

Here's a little test. Stand on the corner and watch people walk or drive by. Then, based on their appearances, identify which persons are wealthy. Years ago, that wouldn't have been a difficult challenge. The ordinary person wouldn't be dressed as well, surely not wearing designer clothing, nor would they have nice looking jewelry plus, they wouldn't be driving by. Compare the income status of today's airline passengers with those of yesteryear; you'll find a much greater percentage of ordinary people.

That's one of the great benefits of capitalism; it has made it possible for common people to enjoy at least some of what wealthy people enjoy. One might assert that common people don't have access to Rolls Royces and yachts. You're wrong. Microsoft's Bill Gates is super-rich and can afford to ride in a Rolls Royce and go yachting; but so can the average common man - just not as long. He can rent a Rolls or a yacht for a day, half-day or an hour.

Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one's fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce and market it as efficiently as possible. Here's a question that we should ponder: are people who by their actions created unprecedented convenience, longer life expectancy and made more fun available for the ordinary person, and become wealthy in the process, deserving of all the scorn and ridicule heaped upon them by intellectuals and politicians? Are the wealthy really obliged to "give something back?" After all, what more do the wealthy discoverers and producers of, say, life-saving antibiotics owe us? They've already saved lives and made us healthier.

Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system will pale in comparison to a Utopia. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires.

Alan

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech