Is Capitalism Moral? - Defend Free Enterprise -- 5/1/09
by Gary Bauer: Is Capitalism Moral? The religious Left increasingly is providing “cover” for the political Left’s attack on free enterprise and capitalism. They argue that free enterprise is immoral because some people will do very well financially while others will fail. Sadly some young Christians are falling for this class warfare dressed up in religious garb.As a Christian, I am called personally and through my church to help the poor. I am not called to use the power of Big Government to take someone else’s earnings and redistribute them to those who did not earn it. Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, made this point in an editorial this week. Here is an excerpt:
“Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship. They have to declare that it is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can. It’s also a moral issue to lower the rewards for entrepreneurial success, and to spend what we don’t have without regard for our children’s future.”If you have high school or college-age children, I encourage you to look for opportunities to talk to them about this fundamental issue.
President Attacks Bond Holders Our class warfare president was at it again this week. In his press conference on the Chrysler bankruptcy, President Obama singled out a group of bond holders who weren’t willing to settle for 30 cents on the dollar. These are people who lent money to Chrysler for buying their bonds in the belief that, under our bankruptcy laws, they would be first in line to be paid back. Under our system we have built a credit market – a bond market – based on that assumption, and the viability of that bond market is essential if American companies are going to be able to find funding to expand, hire, etc.
But in Barack Obama’s America, bond holders are apparently evil. Here is how he described them at his press conference:
“While many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively, I have to tell you some did not. In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none. Some demanded twice the return other lenders were getting. I don’t stand with them.”This is an amazing attack on a group of law abiding Americans. Bond holders often are retired persons living on fixed incomes. The president was harsher in his words about them than he has been in describing Iran’s fanatical, Holocaust-denying dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Must See Video: In case you have any doubts about the anti-business, anti-free enterprise mindset that has infected Washington today, click here to watch a video of one member of Congress vowing to shut down private insurance companies.
Obama vs. Small Business: If you want a real world example of how Barack Obama’s proposed tax hikes would affect small business, read a very informative article by Lori Montgomery and V. Dion Haynes in The Washington Post titled: Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle in which they detail that "Under Obama Plan, Some Entrepreneurs' Bills Would Soar." Please share it with like-minded friends and family members.
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Tags: capitalism, Defend Free Enterprise, Gary Bauer, President Obama, private insurance, small business, taxes, the economy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 12:30 PM - Post Link
2 Comments:
Brad - and your point is? The author's point is that neither Capitalism or Free Enterprise is moral or immoral. However, the present administration is attaching to these a definition of being immoral. Normally, greed and stealing the ownership or property of another is immoral. In fact greed leads to both hate and theft. That is why people like Madoff are in trouble. His intent was not to do business but to steal (con) from others.
However, the socialist who wishes for the State to own and control the private property and resources of others is also practicing theft and envy. Capitalism is in the way of their agenda. Under socialism, the people never really control. The government controls - a dictatorship - or a small number of self claimed elites. Like the Politburo or even the USG if it does not follow the Constitution and only perform the duties which the people have specified. People are to be left alone to make their own free choices as constrained by their own local groups, communities and States who retained all other authority not delegated to the USG. The Bill of Rights was established as a further limitation on government excess including the Federal, States and local government.
Definition of Capitalism: an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned. Through capitalism, the land, labor, and capital are owned, operated, and traded, without force or fraud, by private individuals either singly or jointly, and investments, distribution, income, production, pricing and supply of goods, commodities and services are determined by voluntary private decision in a market economy. A distinguishing feature of capitalism is that each person owns his or her own labor and therefore is allowed to sell the use of it to employers. In a "capitalist state", private rights and property relations are protected by the rule of law of a limited regulatory framework. In the modern capitalist state, legislative action is confined to defining and enforcing the basic rules of the market, though the state may provide some public goods and infrastructure.
Capitalism is the only moral economic system. No other system respects individual rights.
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