Vol II: #24 Happy Labor Day

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One of the great strains of my life is the volume and acceptance of extremist views in popular culture. In less than a week I heard people I love take up shelter behind opposing views of capitalism, President Trump, and President Biden. They are all wrong. For the purpose of this Labor Day post, I’ll focus on the immature views of capitalism.

First of all, capitalism is the oldest form of economy. It is a tool, a mechanism. It is not noble or evil. Better said, capitalism is like a hammer- capable of creating value and destroying life. Evil people use capitalism to achieve evil goals, and good people use capitalism to bless others. I am tired of people who idolize or demonize it. We can only make progress when we are objective about the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism.

For starters, if you took Labor Day off and enjoyed a Monday without work, you indulged in the fruit of the Labor Movement. My “capitalism is perfect” friends obviously forgot this dark era of US history- when children as young as five worked long hours in factories and coal companies put down strikes by firing on their miners. In fact, most conservative Americans seem completely ignorant as to our economic history. They wrongly believe the government should back off and “let the market work.” Ironically, that’s exactly what the government did for one hundred years, from 1800-1900. Every ten years the country experienced a depression, similar to the Great Depression. EVERY. TEN. YEARS. Now, add to that polluted cities, crushing poverty, and hazardous work environments. Life was hell. And, if you weren’t a white man…good luck.

All of the sins listed above are not a criticism of capitalism, believe it or not. It’s a condemnation of greed and a disconnect from the heart of God. Capitalism rewards those who work hard, like Jeff Bezos. He’s an evil man. Period. I know most people love Amazon, but Amazon treats its workers horribly. They do all this while making billions in profits. It’s clear they value profit over people. That’s not the Lord.

The alternative doesn’t work either. My “capitalism sucks” friends are just as wrong. We wouldn’t have flight, the internet, or enough food to feed the planet without it. (Yes. As of today, the world is producing enough food to feed the planet. The problem is distribution, which is less of a problem now.) Capitalism created pathways for people like me to own and operate my website without learning code or buying a server. I have a platform to the world because someone believed in the desire of little people to be powerful. When communism collapsed in the early ’90s, the world was not flooded with great inventions or advances in surgery. But, the West flooded those countries with every excess possible.

Capitalism needs rules and guidance. Greedy, evil men use it to hurt people, usually in the name of commerce or freedom. Our laws must be directed to prevent leaders from destroying retirement accounts (Banks), the environment (BP, Exxon, etc.), or limiting free speech (Facebook.) Amazon shouldn’t be allowed to steal designs from its customers and reproduce them at a lower cost, thereby putting Americans out of work. (All Amazon Basic products are manufactured in China.) And, don’t get me started about the state of our shitty health care system.

Let me be clear, I’m not advocating for socialism or communism. I remember my history. Communism was a stunning failure, but we’ve got to stop measuring the quality of our American lives through the stock market or GDP. Go back to the start of this post. I stated my annoyance over uneducated views of capitalism, so I’ll end by writing this: Rules and laws are a good thing. We produce more food because we learned how to manipulate livestock and plants. No one throws seed in a random field and expects a good return. We prepare the land, carefully plant our seeds, then nurture them to maturity. This is how we provide the maximum benefit for everyone. We cannot hope to preserve capitalism by pretending it’s perfect. And yet, we shouldn’t let the extremist on the other side destroy the only economic system worth a damn.

Happy Labor Day everyone. Please take a moment to remember those who lost their lives under the tyranny of evil men, then give thanks for the luxuries and comfort we enjoy. Both are true.

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