Does Capitalism Provide Individual Liberty?
There has been increasing support
for socialism on the left while an equaling increasing fear of socialism on the
right. Although I don’t agree with a lot of aspects of classical socialism, I
do understand the underlying ideology behind it. I believe (in specific sectors
of our economy) a more socialist approach would provide the most amount of
opportunity for an individual’s pursuit of happiness, appeasing the core believes
of classical liberalism (sectors such as healthcare, education, and public
services). My logic here is we, by nature, create groups. Wither it’s
evolutionary by human beings forming groups to survive (explaining our
tribalistic natures) or even in a religious context with faith being the center
focus on the bond of having a community. We live as individuals, but can’t help
but create groups. I believe our societal system should also reflect on our
nature, which is why I would personally consider myself to be a conservative
socialist, which means splashing in socialist policies, without losing the
integrity of our current capitalist economy. Those who fear socialism do so
only on the merit of knowledge of wide scaled failed attempts from our global
past, (more times than not) siting examples of tyrannical and authoritarian offshoots
of socialistic ideas (instead of actual socialism itself). But, if you’ve read
any of my previous work you’ll know I’m no stranger to the problems with capitalism.
However, I know capitalism does have a role to play; it just isn’t the only role
as it’s often pitched to be.
I’m focusing on capitalism in the
sense of the arguments used to support it. More specifically, using the
argument that capitalism is the right economic system to promote individual
liberties by being a system in which allows personal freedom to make and do
whatever they would like with their money and socialism is wrong because it
takes away such freedom. The train of thought here is an easy one to follow.
Classic socialism does call for 100% of everything to be shared collectively,
and capitalism does give freedom to make money, but was exactly is
freedom?
Freedom involves a secondary
factor based on the level of capability. Freedom shouldn’t just be the ability
to have a choice, but also the ability to make the choice you have. The
capability of choice is where capitalism fails for a majority of Americans.
According to a 2017 report from CareerBuilder.com, 78% of the working class are
living paycheck to paycheck. Another study was done by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics looked into spending data from 1994 to 2014 showed an increase in the
amount spent on basic needs, (more explicitly spending on housing and
healthcare) within the middle and lower classes. Combined, both classes had an
increase of over 7% overall on spending on basic needs. In
2010, the Supreme Court ruled on the trail of Citizens United vs. Federal
Electric Commission, that spending money on political causes as a form of free
speech and is protected by the first amendment. Lastly, Inequality.org states
that Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos own more wealth combined than
the bottom 50% of Americans. Now I’ve got the facts out of the way; I’ll focus
on their implications and how they link back to capitalism’s lack of freedom of
capability.
Capitalism is all about the ability
to achieve individual wealth. To make wealth, you need capital, and to acquire
capital, you need money. Capitalism has also shifted our economy to a strong
dependency on a consumer-based market, where money is necessary to buy
basic needs for survival as well as leisure. In our modern world, we use money
for virtually everything, meaning money plays an essential role in the
capability of making any choice in life. We all have the freedom to quite a
job or make the decision to not take a job, but with money being the tool to
acquire our needs for survival as well as leisure, we may not have the
capability to quite a job or turn down a job. The statistics show that as capitalism
continues to move forward through time, the people who’ve acquired wealth have
been effectively working towards preventing lower classes their capability of
choices in the aspect of achieving equal opportunity. It’s important to clarify
how same and equal are different, with capacity being the measure of the
difference.
Pro-capitalists
love making it know that capitalism gives all of us the same opportunity with
the misconception of same meaning equal. A rich person and a poor person have
the same chance to open a business, but do they have equal capability to do so?
My answer is no; they do not. Money spend is how money is made. People with
money have a more accessible pathway towards the choices they make, and people
without money have way more hurdles to jump. Both are having the same
opportunity of choice, but are by no means equal. My fears with capitalism
reflect in the pattern of how the longer we operate in a 100% capitalistic
system, the easier it becomes for the rich and the harder it becomes for
everyone else. On top of that, people are labeled “Lazy” or “entitled” if they
acknowledge the increasing difficulty of achieving capitalistic success for the
middle and lower classes. The numbers do show an increase in costs of our basic
needs combined with the stagnation of worker’s wages that in turn, causes an
indirect form of oppression.
Capability
is the measurement in helping us understand the implications of this indirect
oppression by focusing on the sameness of choice, while equally neglecting the
cap on the ability to make these choices. Capitalism does have its advantages,
and I do not deny that, but hyper-focusing on the positive aspects doesn’t
cancel out the negative ones. Capitalism, for many Americans, hinders our capability
of choices. First, our continuing price hikes in housing, higher education, and
health care, to name a few. Second, with big businesses manipulating the loopholes
in our tax codes to prevent paying their taxes, such as Amazon had achieved by
paying $0 in taxes on their $11.2 billion in profit last year. Third, with the
government using billions of taxpayers dollars throughout our history to co-operating
bailouts. Lastly, with privatized companies profiting off of publicly funded
research as in the case with Gilead and the HIV prevention drug Truvada. Which,
they’ve made billions on from the hefty price tag of roughly $2,000
for a 30 day supply of the medication. Also, the average taxpayer not only paid
for the funding of the research for the drug but now would need to pay an
additional $2,000 to use the drug, so essentially we’ll end up paying twice,
while Gilead makes a fortune. All of these examples pigeon hole many Americans
to have to forgo individual choices due to lack of capability, because we have
to focus on survival choices such as keeping a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and being able to get the help needed when we’re sick. Now, even
reading my last sentence back to myself I can sympathize how it initially may
come off as whining or entitled, but the liberalism this country was founded
on, had an economic philosophy on the ability to pull any random person in our
society and giving them the best chance to fulfill their pursuit of happiness.
I
don’t complain about being upset about having less and less capable of making
more leisure-based choices out of entitlement. I’m upset for having to work
harder and harder for my basic needs, and I want my liberty of having the
freedom of capability to make the choices in my life to achieve my version of
happiness. My version of happiness can have more moments of enjoying the one
short life I have, without needing to adopt a work mentality of sacrifices and
spending more of my time working rather than living. The increased cost of
living, learning how our tax dollars (which, taxes is a socialistic idea) are
used to fund such things as corporate bailouts, and the private companies
profiting from publicly funded research, shows overall indirect oppression of
capability to make the choices we all have. Hindering our ability of choice, takes away my freedom of making a choice, and that goes against my liberty, or
am I the only one?
Works
Cited
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