The Spire

Tucker Scott ‘26

Guest Writer

Voters from both parties today have soured on capitalism. Young people especially are more in favor of socialism, despite the fact that they don’t know what socialism is. This is due to a fundamental lie that both the left and right have been telling the voters of this country for decades, that capitalism, free markets, and laissez-faire economics will solve all of your problems. The truth is that it won’t. Capitalism can’t solve the problems America faces, just like corporatism, socialism, and communism can’t solve them either. Because that’s not the job of an economic system.

Capitalism isn’t moral, but that’s the point. An economic system is not meant to be moral, it is meant to create the best benefit for the consumer. Morality is meant to come from the social fabric– from religion, culture, and society. Capitalism is “failing,” as so many people claim, because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism does. People misunderstand capitalism as it is meant to promote morality instead of its actual job, which is meant to benefit the consumer. Capitalism creates more pie, whereas socialism can only divide up the pie that exists. 

This misunderstanding is what leads so many young people to look favorable towards socialism, because the lie of socialism and communism is that it can create a moral economic system. One based on fairness and equality. But the truth is, it can’t. No economic system can fix moral problems, and the more an economic system tries to fix moral problems, the worse it gets for everyone. No economic system, no matter how amazing, can solve moral problems. 

Now is capitalism the best economic system to generate prosperity? No doubt. Thanks to capitalism more than half the world has been lifted out of poverty and into prosperity. Thanks to capitalism we have all the amazing things like technology, medicine, planes, and so much more that were not even dreams yet thirty years ago. If the founders were transported to today, they would legitimately believe they had died and gone to heaven. But despite all the good that capitalism has created, it can’t fix societal ills. And it shouldn’t have to, because that isn’t the job of an economic system. It would be comparable to asking a plumber to build a rocket ship. Both jobs are incredibly important, but they have nothing to do with one another. So is capitalism good? Absolutely. But is it moral? No, and it shouldn’t have to be. To be fair, socialism and communism aren’t moral either but for completely different reasons. They aren’t moral because they are based on the government infringing on individual rights and freedoms rather than allowing the people the right to choose. If you want moral clarity and advice go to a church. But if you want the best and newest advancements at the lowest prices, then go to capitalism.

What makes capitalism so successful is that it is a recognition of two basic facts. First, people are inherently selfish and greedy, and second that no one person could know more than the market as a whole. First the recognition that people are inherently selfish and greedy. This is where socialism and communism go wrong. They believe that inherently people are good and that it is the evil capitalist society that has corrupted them to be greedy. But that’s just not true. When it comes down to it, people are selfish and only motivated by a desire for wealth, power, and prosperity. But what capitalism does is that it turns that desire for wealth, power, and prosperity into something that can help everyone. People develop new and better ideas and products to make money, but those new and better ideas and products still help everyone who’s buying them. Second is the idea that no one person could know more than the market as a whole. This is just a basic fact and one that socialism and communism fail to recognize. No one head of a government department or even group of officials could possibly have the knowledge or wisdom that the society as a whole has. This is where capitalism succeeds, because it corrals all the wisdom and knowledge that the society has to ensure that everyone has the best and most efficient product.

Now none of this is to say that I believe capitalism is perfect. It isn’t. Just like anything else created by humans it is mired in sin, open to exploitation, and ultimately flawed. However when compared to any other system capitalism so far exceeds it would be foolish to get rid of it. As the great thinker and leader Winston Churchill once said, “Capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others.” And, like with most things, he was right. It would be foolish to give up on a system that has generated so much prosperity for so many people world wide because of a belief that an economic system could, or even should, be moral.

Featured Image Courtesy of Peace Innovation Institute

Copy edited by Colette Potter