Capitalism and the Moral High Ground... From The Objective Standard

From The Objective Standard:

Capitalism and the Moral High Ground
Craig Biddle

Economists from Adam Smith to Ludwig von Mises to Henry Hazlitt to Thomas Sowell have elucidated the general mechanics of a free market and demonstrated the unassailable practicality of capitalism. They have shown how freer markets provide better and cheaper health care, cleaner air and water, safer automobiles and airplanes, ample food and energy, better and cheaper schools, and so on. But their arguments have not convinced the world to embrace capitalism. On the contrary, people today are condemning the system of private property as loudly as ever.

According to Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA), Americans must abandon “this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it.”1 Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), addressing oil company CEOs, openly threatens to socialize their industry: “Guess what this liberal would be all about. This liberal will be about socializing. . . . all of your companies.”2 Philosopher Noam Chomsky insists that “putting people in charge of their own assets breaks down the solidarity that comes from doing something together, and diminishes the sense that people have responsibility for each other.”3

All such assaults on free markets and property rights proceed from the recognition of the fact that these key elements of capitalism enable selfishness. As Karl Marx explained: “The right of man to property is the right to enjoy his possessions and dispose of the same arbitrarily, without regard for other men, independently from society, the right of selfishness.”4 And as President-elect Barack Obama intimates, who would dare “to make a virtue out of
selfishness”?

This article is from TOS Vol. 3, No. 4.

Full article here.