A Journal for Western Man-- Issue V
Don Watkins III
When I think of the state of our country, today, a certain quote comes to mind: "I've fallen and I can't get up."
The rise in drug use, the decline of education, the culture of violence and amoralism - all are symptoms of a disease that has been attacking our country from its inception and which, if left uncured, will destroy it.
The cause is not the media, nor the young, nor is it primarily political. The problem is not that Americans have lost morality - our once great nation is eroding because we have never discovered morality.
Our founders gave birth to a nation founded on the principles of individual rights and individual liberty. There were contradictions and inconsistencies in their thinking, but the essence in which they created America has yet to be equaled.
They laid the groundwork for what was to become the freest nation in history, and which, during the 19th century, came closer than any other to a system of laissez-faire capitalism.
However, the founders failed to identify the moral basis for capitalism. They failed to discover that capitalism is the only moral social system because it is based on the moral standard of egoism.
Thus, capitalism was destroyed, as men began to realize that a system of justice could not co-exist with a morality of mercy. A system based on a man's right to pursue his own happiness could not co-exist with the morality of altruism, which demanded that men become sacrificial animals with no justification for living save serving the needs of their neighbors.
Altruism and capitalism could not co-exist, and so men let capitalism die in order to retain a morality of self-sacrifice.
In order to save capitalism, in order to save this country, we must identify what was only implicit in the principles of the founding fathers: that capitalism is moral because the moral is the selfish.
This is the thesis I will be defending: that complete, laissez-faire, capitalism is the only moral social system for all men to live in.
***What is capitalism?***
While few people are willing to defend capitalism on any grounds, virtually none will rise to defend it on moral grounds.
But, to understand why capitalism is moral, one must understand what capitalism is.
America, today, is not a capitalist nation. It is a mixed economy - an unstable hybrid of socialism and capitalism that will necessarily keep drifting towards one poll or the other.
Capitalism, in the truest sense, is "a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned" (Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal 19).
This means, as I will demonstrate later, that the only proper function of the government is to protect men's rights, i.e., protect them from physical force and fraud. This means, a government reduced to three primary functions: the police, the military, and the court system. This means, a complete separation - a brick wall - between the state and economics. No welfare, neither for the poor nor the rich. No regulation, taxation, or coercion.
It is important to note that there has never existed a truly capitalist nation. Some countries have come close - the United States during the 19th century closer than any other - but none have limited their function to consistently guarding man's rights.
So, that is what capitalism is. But, why is it desirable? My answer is - because it is the only social system that allows for man's survival.
***Capitalism and man's survival***
For every living entity there are certain actions, determined by its nature, that make it possible for that entity to survive. For plants and animals, these actions are automatic. A dog has no choice but to act in ways that further its life.
But, for man, his basic means of survival is reason, and reason has to be exercised by choice.
In every human endeavor, it is thinking that makes our lives possible. To grow food, or make a wheel, or build a home, or design a car - it is reason that makes it possible. Factories don't spring out of the ground, and a thousand mindless assembly line workers will produce nothing without the man who, by the use of his mind, designs a car (not to mention an assembly line).
This kind of thought and action is not automatic. It depends on man's volition, his choice - to focus his mind, look at reality, and draw certain conclusions - or, to exist as a parasite off those who do. Note that a criminal counts on the existence of men who produce that which he then loots. A parasite counts on men who think, so that he may feed off the products of their thought. A man who unthinkingly parrots the actions of other men counts on the fact that there was someone who discovered which actions produced desirable results. In any case, the lesson is clear: to whatever degree men survive, it is by virtue of thought.
But thinking is a function of the individual. We are all alone in our minds. Just as there is no collective stomach, heart, or liver, so there is no collective brain. Although it is true that we can learn a great deal from other men, they cannot think for us. It is up to each individual to weigh the evidence presented and decide for himself, what is true and what is false.
Now, because thinking is not automatic (and not automatically correct) and because it is a function of the individual, if men are to survive, they must be free to disagree. They must be free to act on their own conclusions, right or wrong.
According to Rand, "A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or 'welfare.' Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument" (Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal 17).
This is an essential point. If man's survival depends on his thinking then that which prevents him from thinking (and acting on his conclusions) is that which makes his survival impossible. In a social context, then, the fundamental requirement of man's survival is that he be left free from force.
Writes Dr. Leonard Peikoff, "Physical force, to the extent it is wielded or threatened, denies its victim the power to act in accordance with his judgment. Such treatment…places the individual in an impossible metaphysical position. If he does not act on the conclusions of his mind, he is doomed by reality. If he does, he is doomed by the forcer" (Peikoff 314).