Definition of Capitalism

Vic Biorseth, http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

This brief definition of Capitalism is not intended to go into the detail that would be needed if defining a system of government.

Unlike Marxism and/or Socialism and/or Communism, Capitalism is purely an Economic system, not a Government or Governing system, and requires a market to be free and unhindered by government interference. History proves that it works most efficiently and profitably under Representative Government. Capitalism is not planned or organized or controlled; it is something that naturally "happens" when and where men are free and the market place is open.

It is the economic system that emphasizes the right to private property and in which the means of production are privately owned and operated. In a Capitalist system, the investment of capital and the production and distribution of various commodities, goods and services are accomplished in an open and free market.

Prices are just naturally and automatically determined in the free market, and they float in accordance with the natural laws of supply and demand.

Those who invest capital at their own risk expect to make profit or loss on the investment. Wages or salary is paid for labor; wages or salary and other on-going expenses reduce profit margins.

Update to Definition of Capitalism, Saturday, February 04, 2012
http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

The Free Market is itself a definition of Capitalism. Just as Liberty is a natural thing that exists within the breast of man, Capitalism – the Free Market – is a natural thing that exists in symbiotic and co-dependent relationship with Liberty.

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It is when men enjoy these three rights that the natural system of Capitalism comes into its highest and most productive form of being. Capitalism is natural; Capitalism just happens, when and where men enjoy liberty. Another word for Capitalism is a Free Market. It is not planned or controlled or governed by any outside entity or government or power. Just as liberty is natural within the breast of man, the free market is natural where a culture is free.

It is a gross misinterpretation to call the Pursuit of Happiness – the ability of a man to work in his own self interest – a system of greed. It is a slander. You may call it greed if you wish, but I submit that self-interest is the first dynamic even of survival itself. No one can ever be of any use to anyone else if he doesn’t first take care of his own needs.

Our Declaration of Independence guarantees that our citizens are able to prosper by their own effort. A man must make profit before he can be charitable.

These are the unique American Principles to which our Founders pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”, in the words of Jefferson, to which all signed their names. They all knew that they were signing their own death warrants if the new nation failed to survive. They all signed.

And they all stood by those signatures.

Free Market (Laissez-faire Capitalism)

Capitalism – meaning, the Free Market – is not a system of man, in that it is not purposely created or controlled by man. Capitalism just happens when and where men enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When large numbers of men are left free to pursue their own self interest and allowed to prosper by their own work, a great plethora of varieties of goods and services are created by the work of these free men. Adam Smith didn’t invent it; he only described it in his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the same year our Declaration of Independence was published.

When a person works enough to make profit – meaning more than he needs for his subsistence – he creates wealth. Wealth is just another name for profit. The only source of the creation of new wealth is a free man making more money than he needs for food, shelter, clothing and so forth. The excess wages or profit may be spent by him to buy property, of any sort. Thus it may be said that

Profit = Wealth = Property

A free man is perfectly free to use his own profit any way he wishes to use it, within the law. He may spend it, save it, squander it, gamble with it, invest it or give it away. It is his to do with as he pleases, because he owns it. It is his private property.

Those of us with the most creativity or imagination take best advantage of the Free Market Rule that says Find a Need and Fill It. This means, in simple terms, detecting a social Demand for a given product or service, and then finding a way to produce that product or service to satisfy the preexisting demand, and produce it in such a way as to economically profit from the effort.

The only restraints that should be put on the Free Market would involve remaining within the rules of Judao-Christian Morality, which should always be backed up by representative legislated Civil Law.

See the I, Pencil page for an example of how this completely natural system works.

Perverted Definitions of Capitalism

Marxists of various description, including the current American Democrat Party, much of the “Establishment” Republican Party, the SLIMC, public education and upper academia, always show Capitalism in a negative light, to the point that most of the American public associate the word Capitalism with Greed and Corruption. This is the predictable result of purposeful Marxist indoctrination and mal-education perpetrated in our teaching institutions and strongly supported by our news media.

Even politicians and political candidates who are or call themselves Conservative avoid even using the word Capitalism because it has been so successfully demonized in the eyes of the public at large. Frank Luntz, now famous as a preeminent “instant response” focus-group pollster, has proved it. Like so many others who see the clear falsehood of this negative view of Capitalism, he fails to capitalize on a teachable moment when he encounters focus-group results that shows that the group is miss-informed on the subject. Instead, he goes with the flow of the mal-educated group, and recommends to candidates that they avoid using the word Capitalism because it polls so negatively. Thus, the view of the word Capitalism, a quite positive thing, is simply surrendered by men who know better to the ultimate destiny of universal distrust and negativity by a mal-informed public.

Language is the battleground of ideologies. Any American politician who surrenders proper use of the English language to the enemy while articulating American Constitutional Conservatism has lost the political battle for Liberty before it even begins. See the American Political Ideologies page for the layout of the current battlefield.

Democrats and other Marxists, including our current President, Comrade Barrack Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) go so far as to miss-quote and pervert the teaching of Jesus Christ to reinforce the false goodness of taxing the bourgeoisie to redistribute to the proletarians, in an evil, twisted interpretation of charity. These Marxists don’t even know what charity is. Charity must be freely given, else it is not charity. Charity must be given from your own plenty, not from someone else’s. The record shows that none of these Marxists are charitable. No Marxist was ever charitable. To take from others against their will is stealing. Good intentions, whether real or as a mask, do not change an act of stealing to be something other than an act of theft.

" The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
-- James Madison, speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794

"A wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
-- President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill.

"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."
-- President Grover Cleveland vetoing a bill for charity relief (18 Congressional Record 1875 [1877]

True Definition of Capitalism

The true definition of Capitalism is the free market place full of a wide variety of goods and services, each of wide variety in quality and in price, that naturally become available when a population enjoys the God-given rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It has been falsely demonized as “Unfettered Consumerism” and “Unfettered Profiteering.” But, why should Consumerism be fettered? Why should Profit be fettered?

I submit that if you “fetter” Capitalism, it will no longer be Capitalism. It will be some form of Socialism. Capitalism is an unplanned, uncontrolled economy. Socialism is a planned and controlled economy. They are opposites.

The only restraints or “fetters” that should be placed on Capitalism are the exact same restraints that ought to be put on citizens: to live within the moral law, which should be in complete harmony and synchronization with representative civil law. Bernie Madoff is widely touted to be an example of a greedy Capitalist run amok; but he was no Capitalist. He was a criminal. Note where Bernie Madoff is; he is in prison, where criminals belong.

You should not consume too much. You should not begin to value profit, or any tangible thing, or the world, more than your neighbor, or allow it to distract you from God and His law. If you are a Christian or a Jew, you already know that.

Marxists do not know that. Marxists are atheists, whatever religious pretensions they may display in public. Being an atheist is a prerequisite to being a Marxist; you can’t be a good Marxist without first being an atheist. Marxists hold nothing to be sacred; they deny even the term sacredness itself, for they cannot even begin to understand it. Whenever any Marxist uses that terminology he shows that he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, or that he is lying. All Marxists are MEJTMLs. That’s just the way it is.

The rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness were authored by God, and not by man, and not by government, and not by any law of man. These rights may not be taken away by man, or by government, or by any law of man. These rights of man are, almost definitively, Capitalism.

And that’s the way it is.

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