On April 22nd, the teachers’ union in the state of Colorado announced that it had adopted a resolution against capitalism:
The Colorado Education Association—the formal name of the union—has 39,000 members who teach kids in public schools in this western U.S. state. It is one state chapter under the National Education Association, NEA, which in turn is one of America’s most influential political lobbyists. Together with the American Federation of Teachers, the NEA has made $32 million in political donations, almost exclusively to left-of-center politicians.
The teachers’ unions always make sure to attach strings to their donations. In recent years, those strings have become increasingly radicalized. The resolution passed by the Colorado teachers is a key indicator of where the agenda of the teachers’ union is moving.
It is also an indicator of how aggressive the political Left is here in America. Needless to say, it is no less forceful in Europe, where some iterations of the Left have an even more radical agenda than their American peers. That, however, only makes the fight against socialism all the more important.
It is time for conservatives to take the socialist onslaught seriously. Every time a socialist organization—among which we have to count the teachers’ unions in America—speaks up about its ambitions, the conservative movement needs to respond. We must see it as a call to action for all of us who abhor the political oppression, the moral depravity, and the economic destitution that socialism always brings.
As the Colorado example shows, the Left is increasingly training its crosshairs on capitalism. This is no coincidence, of course: capitalism is the economic lifeblood of Western civilization. As an economic system, it has been hated by the Left since the days of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V.I. Lenin, and Mao Zedong. The ability of capitalism to elevate everyone, including the poor, is as indisputable as the ideological fervor with which socialists oppose it.
Socialist opposition to capitalism is becoming a systemic threat to the future of Western civilization, but it is not working alone. It is unintentionally aggravated by the fact that some conservatives tend to be reluctant to defend capitalism. They see capitalism as unethical, as a machine that grinds down individuals to nihilistic consumerism. The pursuit of profits is sometimes frowned upon as a simplistic, even primitive instinct.
I am the first to admit that capitalism is imperfect and that it cannot sustain itself over time without being wrapped in the perennial arms of Christianity. However, capitalism was never meant to be more than an economic system; it neither can nor should fill all the cultural and spiritual needs of humanity.
Given the Left’s growing attacks on capitalism, it is paramount that the conservative movement unites behind this economic system. I realize that this is not easily done; without going into the details of conservative anti-capitalist rhetoric, it is worth noting that many of the general points made are based on a false understanding of capitalism as an economic system. For one, capitalism is not prohibitive; while it permits, even encourages, private ownership of property, it does not mandate a profit-centered lifestyle, either for individuals or businesses.
Conservatives need to learn to love capitalism, and how to defend it cogently against its enemies. That does not mean accepting all the flaws of capitalism—all it means is that we unite around its foundations, defend those foundations against socialist onslaught, and secure the blessings of capitalism for posterity.
If this does not happen, we will eventually lose capitalism. If we do, we also lose Western civilization. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is capitalism that has produced the unprecedented prosperity that elevated Western civilization to its unique presence in human history. Its combination of economic excellence with individual freedom is unique, both in its ability to generate high living standards and its permissiveness toward social and economic experimentation.
Conservatives who are skeptical of capitalism often overlook this last point. Capitalism is not a restrictive system; to take one example, it does not exclude any particular form of economic organization (so long as it is based on voluntary participation, not state coercion). Under capitalism, we can experiment with Christian communes, which if they do well can coexist alongside shareholder companies. Those who shun the profit motive and prefer to set up a cooperative that distributes its surplus evenly among its members, regardless of their efforts, are perfectly free to do so.
By being open to experimentation, capitalism puts on full display the fruits of human ingenuity. But we conservatives tend to forget that capitalism has a broader appeal than that. In the movie Wall Street, the fictional character Lou Mannheim (dryly portrayed by Hal Holbrook) reminds two young stock brokers of the long-term purpose of their jobs. The money they make for people, Mannheim says, pays for things of higher value. Those who prosper under capitalism—and there are those who prosper immensely—give back with donations to cultural institutions, to academia, and to other causes they find worth the while.
We can see this even in our very cities, in both America and Europe. Those that were early centers of industrialism often have impressive architecture along their main streets, sometimes more impressive than what those cities appear to be able to live up to today. The fact that the West is home to the best universities in the world is likewise no coincidence.
It is for this reason that we as conservatives must ramp up our defense of capitalism against its Leftist enemies. If they are more dedicated than we are—if the Left has more stamina in its campaign to destroy capitalism—then all we hold dear as conservatives will wither away.
I have no reason to believe that any conservative believes that socialism can deliver anything on the economic front that comes even close to what capitalism can. However, for those who do not feel the passion to defend the capitalist system, it is worth noting that socialism can never produce the abundance of resources that capitalism can. Under socialism, the sprawling scarcity of resources eats its way into every aspect of society: housing, transportation, clothing, food, health care, arts, education, and even spiritual life. At the core of socialist economics lies the idea that effort and reward must be separated: every person’s outcome must be equal to every other person’s outcome. Economic differences manifest the influence of merit; the influence of merit goes against Marxist economic doctrine.
In the spirit of Lenin, one of the most ruthless socialists ever to exist: if people are allowed to earn more because they work harder than others, then sooner or later a new capitalist class will emerge. Since capitalism by Marxist doctrine is unjust, so are the incentives that keep the capitalist economy moving.
Due to its severing of reward from effort, socialism is systemically and perennially unable to produce a sufficient amount of the resources its population needs. To varying degrees, socialist systems resort to rationing: from the ‘milder’ forms of scarcity in the Swedish welfare state, with medically dangerous waiting lines for health care and a major housing shortage, to the boundless lack of practically everything in Cuba and North Korea.
Where there are not enough resources for the basics in society, there are not enough resources for ‘higher’ needs and aspirations within arts, entertainment, literature, and academia.
Conservatives generally understand this, and the suffering that socialism inflicts upon us. The problem is that our movement often seems to be lukewarm in defending capitalism against its enemies, as if the demerits they see in capitalism (some of which, again, I agree with) are too bitter a pill to swallow. I sometimes get the impression that conservatives are willing to abstain from defending capitalism because its demerits, in their view, do not make for a worthwhile difference from socialism.
We need to change our approach here. Let me repeat: the socialist adversary is relentless, committed, and increasingly determined to go from theory to reality. Their fervor is real and their influence growing by the day. If they are more determined than the defenders of capitalism are, then capitalism has no future.
Let me repeat the main point: If capitalism were to fall, and if the socialists were to replace it with a system of their choosing, everything else that is dear to conservatives would fall as well. Not only would society gradually descend into chronic starvation of everything basic, but socialist dogma would eat its way into every institution devoted to the humanities. There will be no untouched enclaves in society.
In fairness, I can sympathize with the conservative reluctance to capitalism that stems from observing libertarianism at work. Devout followers of John Hospers, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand (yes, she should be counted as a libertarian), have a tendency to defend capitalism without conditions or hesitation; it is no coincidence that some libertarians call themselves ‘anarcho-capitalists.’
Socialists have successfully defeated libertarian arguments by portraying capitalism as the home to every evil tenet in human society. They associate it with egoism, ruthless exploitation, and an almost primitive worship of money. Some of this rhetoric has made inroads in conservative circles as well, although with a higher analytical profile and often a Christian angle added. Nevertheless, this is why conservatives sometimes portray capitalism as morally void, as degrading for individuals, and as turning workers into labor ‘drones.’
This criticism of capitalism is unfair, in part because the socialist alternative, when fully fledged, is truly exploitative and morally degrading. Coercion—a prerequisite for exploitation—is an affront to the very ideals of freedom that capitalism is built on; the core principle of the capitalist economy is that we are all free to pursue happiness, to satisfy our needs, and to put our ambitions to work in any which way we desire. We are free to focus our lives on material wealth or cultural enrichment; we can devote our time to building massive wealth, or combine material frugality with a rich intellectual life.
The merits of capitalism are visible everywhere around us. To have an average job in modern-day capitalist countries is to be immensely wealthy by historic comparison. Even the poor are better off under capitalism than under socialism; next time a socialist disputes this, ask where he or she would prefer to be poor: North Korea or South Korea.
Socialism, by contrast, is built upon exploitation. In its most elaborate form, socialism micro-manages every component of the economy, assigning professions to individuals, allocating them across the labor market with no regard to individual choice. Fully evolved, socialism centrally plans the production and distribution of every good and every service in the economy. Rations, not individual preferences, dictate consumer ‘choice.’
The purpose of socialist exploitation is to bring the outcomes of the economic system as close as possible to an ideal of perfect equality. Of late, the Left has begun referring to ‘equity,’ as in ‘equal outcomes for everyone.’ In economic terms, this means that everyone should have the exact same standard of living, regardless of merit.
Not all forms of socialism are as exploitative and oppressive as the full-fledged version we know as communism. There is a spectrum of coercion and government planning, from the aforementioned ‘milder’ versions of socialism all the way out to the totalitarian extreme. However, as I explain in Democracy or Socialism: The Fateful Question for America in 2024, the milder forms are not separate from the full-blooded iterations of the same ideology. They are inroads, meant to give socialism a foot in the door so it can gradually expand its presence in a country. Once it gets in, getting it out is a Herculean effort.
I hope conservatives are up to the task, that they can overcome their skeptical attitude toward capitalism, and that they can preserve the economic foundation that has helped Western civilization become what it is today.
Stand Up for Capitalism!
On April 22nd, the teachers’ union in the state of Colorado announced that it had adopted a resolution against capitalism:
The Colorado Education Association—the formal name of the union—has 39,000 members who teach kids in public schools in this western U.S. state. It is one state chapter under the National Education Association, NEA, which in turn is one of America’s most influential political lobbyists. Together with the American Federation of Teachers, the NEA has made $32 million in political donations, almost exclusively to left-of-center politicians.
The teachers’ unions always make sure to attach strings to their donations. In recent years, those strings have become increasingly radicalized. The resolution passed by the Colorado teachers is a key indicator of where the agenda of the teachers’ union is moving.
It is also an indicator of how aggressive the political Left is here in America. Needless to say, it is no less forceful in Europe, where some iterations of the Left have an even more radical agenda than their American peers. That, however, only makes the fight against socialism all the more important.
It is time for conservatives to take the socialist onslaught seriously. Every time a socialist organization—among which we have to count the teachers’ unions in America—speaks up about its ambitions, the conservative movement needs to respond. We must see it as a call to action for all of us who abhor the political oppression, the moral depravity, and the economic destitution that socialism always brings.
As the Colorado example shows, the Left is increasingly training its crosshairs on capitalism. This is no coincidence, of course: capitalism is the economic lifeblood of Western civilization. As an economic system, it has been hated by the Left since the days of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V.I. Lenin, and Mao Zedong. The ability of capitalism to elevate everyone, including the poor, is as indisputable as the ideological fervor with which socialists oppose it.
Socialist opposition to capitalism is becoming a systemic threat to the future of Western civilization, but it is not working alone. It is unintentionally aggravated by the fact that some conservatives tend to be reluctant to defend capitalism. They see capitalism as unethical, as a machine that grinds down individuals to nihilistic consumerism. The pursuit of profits is sometimes frowned upon as a simplistic, even primitive instinct.
I am the first to admit that capitalism is imperfect and that it cannot sustain itself over time without being wrapped in the perennial arms of Christianity. However, capitalism was never meant to be more than an economic system; it neither can nor should fill all the cultural and spiritual needs of humanity.
Given the Left’s growing attacks on capitalism, it is paramount that the conservative movement unites behind this economic system. I realize that this is not easily done; without going into the details of conservative anti-capitalist rhetoric, it is worth noting that many of the general points made are based on a false understanding of capitalism as an economic system. For one, capitalism is not prohibitive; while it permits, even encourages, private ownership of property, it does not mandate a profit-centered lifestyle, either for individuals or businesses.
Conservatives need to learn to love capitalism, and how to defend it cogently against its enemies. That does not mean accepting all the flaws of capitalism—all it means is that we unite around its foundations, defend those foundations against socialist onslaught, and secure the blessings of capitalism for posterity.
If this does not happen, we will eventually lose capitalism. If we do, we also lose Western civilization. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is capitalism that has produced the unprecedented prosperity that elevated Western civilization to its unique presence in human history. Its combination of economic excellence with individual freedom is unique, both in its ability to generate high living standards and its permissiveness toward social and economic experimentation.
Conservatives who are skeptical of capitalism often overlook this last point. Capitalism is not a restrictive system; to take one example, it does not exclude any particular form of economic organization (so long as it is based on voluntary participation, not state coercion). Under capitalism, we can experiment with Christian communes, which if they do well can coexist alongside shareholder companies. Those who shun the profit motive and prefer to set up a cooperative that distributes its surplus evenly among its members, regardless of their efforts, are perfectly free to do so.
By being open to experimentation, capitalism puts on full display the fruits of human ingenuity. But we conservatives tend to forget that capitalism has a broader appeal than that. In the movie Wall Street, the fictional character Lou Mannheim (dryly portrayed by Hal Holbrook) reminds two young stock brokers of the long-term purpose of their jobs. The money they make for people, Mannheim says, pays for things of higher value. Those who prosper under capitalism—and there are those who prosper immensely—give back with donations to cultural institutions, to academia, and to other causes they find worth the while.
We can see this even in our very cities, in both America and Europe. Those that were early centers of industrialism often have impressive architecture along their main streets, sometimes more impressive than what those cities appear to be able to live up to today. The fact that the West is home to the best universities in the world is likewise no coincidence.
It is for this reason that we as conservatives must ramp up our defense of capitalism against its Leftist enemies. If they are more dedicated than we are—if the Left has more stamina in its campaign to destroy capitalism—then all we hold dear as conservatives will wither away.
I have no reason to believe that any conservative believes that socialism can deliver anything on the economic front that comes even close to what capitalism can. However, for those who do not feel the passion to defend the capitalist system, it is worth noting that socialism can never produce the abundance of resources that capitalism can. Under socialism, the sprawling scarcity of resources eats its way into every aspect of society: housing, transportation, clothing, food, health care, arts, education, and even spiritual life. At the core of socialist economics lies the idea that effort and reward must be separated: every person’s outcome must be equal to every other person’s outcome. Economic differences manifest the influence of merit; the influence of merit goes against Marxist economic doctrine.
In the spirit of Lenin, one of the most ruthless socialists ever to exist: if people are allowed to earn more because they work harder than others, then sooner or later a new capitalist class will emerge. Since capitalism by Marxist doctrine is unjust, so are the incentives that keep the capitalist economy moving.
Due to its severing of reward from effort, socialism is systemically and perennially unable to produce a sufficient amount of the resources its population needs. To varying degrees, socialist systems resort to rationing: from the ‘milder’ forms of scarcity in the Swedish welfare state, with medically dangerous waiting lines for health care and a major housing shortage, to the boundless lack of practically everything in Cuba and North Korea.
Where there are not enough resources for the basics in society, there are not enough resources for ‘higher’ needs and aspirations within arts, entertainment, literature, and academia.
Conservatives generally understand this, and the suffering that socialism inflicts upon us. The problem is that our movement often seems to be lukewarm in defending capitalism against its enemies, as if the demerits they see in capitalism (some of which, again, I agree with) are too bitter a pill to swallow. I sometimes get the impression that conservatives are willing to abstain from defending capitalism because its demerits, in their view, do not make for a worthwhile difference from socialism.
We need to change our approach here. Let me repeat: the socialist adversary is relentless, committed, and increasingly determined to go from theory to reality. Their fervor is real and their influence growing by the day. If they are more determined than the defenders of capitalism are, then capitalism has no future.
Let me repeat the main point: If capitalism were to fall, and if the socialists were to replace it with a system of their choosing, everything else that is dear to conservatives would fall as well. Not only would society gradually descend into chronic starvation of everything basic, but socialist dogma would eat its way into every institution devoted to the humanities. There will be no untouched enclaves in society.
In fairness, I can sympathize with the conservative reluctance to capitalism that stems from observing libertarianism at work. Devout followers of John Hospers, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand (yes, she should be counted as a libertarian), have a tendency to defend capitalism without conditions or hesitation; it is no coincidence that some libertarians call themselves ‘anarcho-capitalists.’
Socialists have successfully defeated libertarian arguments by portraying capitalism as the home to every evil tenet in human society. They associate it with egoism, ruthless exploitation, and an almost primitive worship of money. Some of this rhetoric has made inroads in conservative circles as well, although with a higher analytical profile and often a Christian angle added. Nevertheless, this is why conservatives sometimes portray capitalism as morally void, as degrading for individuals, and as turning workers into labor ‘drones.’
This criticism of capitalism is unfair, in part because the socialist alternative, when fully fledged, is truly exploitative and morally degrading. Coercion—a prerequisite for exploitation—is an affront to the very ideals of freedom that capitalism is built on; the core principle of the capitalist economy is that we are all free to pursue happiness, to satisfy our needs, and to put our ambitions to work in any which way we desire. We are free to focus our lives on material wealth or cultural enrichment; we can devote our time to building massive wealth, or combine material frugality with a rich intellectual life.
The merits of capitalism are visible everywhere around us. To have an average job in modern-day capitalist countries is to be immensely wealthy by historic comparison. Even the poor are better off under capitalism than under socialism; next time a socialist disputes this, ask where he or she would prefer to be poor: North Korea or South Korea.
Socialism, by contrast, is built upon exploitation. In its most elaborate form, socialism micro-manages every component of the economy, assigning professions to individuals, allocating them across the labor market with no regard to individual choice. Fully evolved, socialism centrally plans the production and distribution of every good and every service in the economy. Rations, not individual preferences, dictate consumer ‘choice.’
The purpose of socialist exploitation is to bring the outcomes of the economic system as close as possible to an ideal of perfect equality. Of late, the Left has begun referring to ‘equity,’ as in ‘equal outcomes for everyone.’ In economic terms, this means that everyone should have the exact same standard of living, regardless of merit.
Not all forms of socialism are as exploitative and oppressive as the full-fledged version we know as communism. There is a spectrum of coercion and government planning, from the aforementioned ‘milder’ versions of socialism all the way out to the totalitarian extreme. However, as I explain in Democracy or Socialism: The Fateful Question for America in 2024, the milder forms are not separate from the full-blooded iterations of the same ideology. They are inroads, meant to give socialism a foot in the door so it can gradually expand its presence in a country. Once it gets in, getting it out is a Herculean effort.
I hope conservatives are up to the task, that they can overcome their skeptical attitude toward capitalism, and that they can preserve the economic foundation that has helped Western civilization become what it is today.
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