Capitalism: The Word is a Bad One

?Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me.? Isn?t that how it goes? Of course, that?s a great pile of nonsense and everybody over four years old knows it. Words explain and complain. They champion and they degrade. The uplift and inspire but they can also mislead, confuse and fight the Truth itself. Such is the case with a word that has been used for at least two centuries to describe our very world.

Newscasters and columnists, politicians, dictators and ordinary folks use it all the time, every day, often, and usually without thinking. It?s been the banner term for the West (which is another misnomer) for generations and the bane of the East for at least as long. That word is Capitalism.

History books and television news crews regularly note that Capitalism defeated Socialism and/or Communism in the 20th Century. But, is that what really inspired the free peoples of the Atlantic Alliance during the Cold War? Did millions of Americans and Europeans and others really rally in the 1950s and 1960s to some plutocratic banner and stand for wealth against justice. Ridiculous!

This is the most serious example in history I know of where a word has been used to distort, dissolve and defeat an ideal. In effect, Capitalism is the Left?s favorite word for it suggests that the entire fight against the Soviet Union and its allies in the 1950s and 1960s of the last century was a matter of Goliath (us) versus David (them). Simply put, Capitalism is Socialism?s favorite word. The proponents of Big Government all over the world love to use the term. Who can honestly defend against what seems to suggest not just survival of the fittest but survival of the biggest?

It?s time for a modern language lesson. Capitalism is not what inspired our world to confront tyranny, whether fascists or communist. What we, especially our greatest generation , fought against was tyranny of any kind.

What do we really mean when we use the word capitalism? Do we mean money or the people who have it? Do we mean the very rich? Do we mean bankers and banking?

Usually, when commentators use the word, they are really talking about something else entirely. Don?t they really mean free enterprise? Don?t they really mean an economic system with a minimum of government intervention and control? Don?t we really mean just the opposite of socialism and communism?

Consider this: the old Soviet Union officially called itself state capitalist. Economic decision making was Moscow?s role. The government ran a huge bureaucracy that operated the Soviet Union as an enormous, centrally planned economy.

As Karl Marx put it: ?From each according to his abilities. To each according to his (or her, Marx was pre-women?s lib) needs.?? That?s what you might call the tidy approach to communism. They defined their great enemy as the ?capitalist? world and it?s greedy bankers and industrialists and their government lackeys that oppressed the proletariat and enriched only themselves. Sort of good guys (millions of factory workers) versus bad guys (company managers).

Capitalism, as so defined by Marx?s Das Kapital in his huge and fascinating book written by a man who spent most of his life in the British Library in London. It translates as Wealth.

It stands far to the left, of course, of Adam Smith?s Wealth of Nations. In his great work, Smith wrote of an invisible hand, the marketplace that decides what is produced, how it is priced and who gets what for what. The free market, with as little government intervention as desirable, is a wealth creation machine of astounding successes. So why do we call ourselves capitalist?

Because we haven?t thought it through. Words are important after all, as our new President has noted. We, the West and the millions of soldiers and citizens of so many countries did not take up arms against justice, they took up arms against tyranny. What we are in love with is Freedom and its natural child, Free Enterprise. Those are the words we need to use ? often, every day, so all may know where we stand.

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