By Roberto Diego

Copyright 2004 by Roberto Diego.  All rights reserved.  The reader is allowed to print and distribute this document provided the copyright notation and Mr. Diego's web site address are visible on the page.  http://www.insmkt.com/myhome.htm.  If you would like to place it on a web page, please contact the author for approval.  sales@insmkt.com

 Philosophers, historians, and economists of free market persuasion have asked themselves, "Why have the historians been predominantly anti-capitalist? Why have they sought to make capitalism appear to be such an evil system when it is responsible for so much good?" Indeed, the history of economic thought is full of intellectuals that have had a selective bias against the achievements of capitalism.

While reading a book on this subject, I noticed that the writers who were trying to deal with it offered little argument that completely discredited the profusion of anti-capitalist viewpoints. In fact, there was almost a condescending, apologetic attitude toward men whose words were but crass virulent hatred of capitalism. The book, Capitalism and the Historians, although excellent in many ways, is weak in one major area: It does not adequately answer the question, "Why do historians distort the facts about capitalism's development?"

None of the distinguished historians whose papers appear in the book attribute to anti-capitalist historians an evil intent. T. S. Ashton refers to "pessimistic views of the effect of industrial change" and says such historians "are not informed by any glimmering of economic sense." Another problem for Ashton is that certain commentators preferred political interpretation of an interventionist nature. He notes also the threading of "facts on a Marxist string." And finally, "The truth is (as Professor Koebner has said) that neither Marx nor Sombart (nor, for that matter, Adam Smith) had any idea of the real nature of what we call the Industrial Revolution. They overstressed the part played by science and had no conception of an economic system that develops spontaneously without the help of either the state or the philosopher. It is, however, the stress on the capitalist spirit that has, I think, done most harm, for, from being a phrase suggesting a mental or emotional attitude, it has become an impersonal, super-human force. It is no longer men and women, exercising free choice, who effect change, but capitalism or the spirit of capitalism. 'Capitalism,' says Schumpeter, 'develops rationality.' 'Capitalism exalts the monetary unit.' 'Capitalism produced the mental attitude of modern science.' 'Modern pacificism, modern international morality, modern feminism, are products of capitalism.' Whatever this is, it is certainly not economic history. It has introduced a new mysticism into the recounting of plain facts. What am I to do with a candidate who purports to explain why the limited-liability company came into being in England in the 1850's in the following words? I quote literally from the scripture: 'Individualism was forced to give way to laissez faire as the development of capitalism found the early emergent stage of entrepreneurial capitalism a hindrance to that rational expansive development which is the very ethos of capitalism."'

Professor Ashton's solution? "But I hold strongly that the future of the subject lies in closer cooperation with the work of economists and that phrases which perhaps served a purpose a generation ago should now be discarded."

L. M. Hacker, in his address, "Anticapitalist Bias of American History," holds that it was not so much Marxist influence that led to the anti-capitalist bias in America, but American political development, primarily, "the recurring struggle between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian ideas--that is, the creation and maintenance of a weak or a strong central authority; the intrusion of moral questions into the American public debates--slavery, women's rights, prohibition."

This explanation, true to the extent that such issues have influenced the American political economic scenes, does not answer the question of why the supposed solutions to these matters involved an anti-capitalist bias. Why was capitalism always seen as morally wrong?

Bertrand De Jouvenal, in his "The Treatment of Capitalism by Continental Intellectuals," holds that the Western intelligensia dislikes capitalism because of "a grafting of strong feeling onto a weak stem of positive knowledge." He then proceeds to discuss some ways that capitalism is "unpleasant to the intellectuals," and moves to a suggestion that social science may tell us, if it decides to look at such an issue, why the intellectuals act and think as they do. His basic argument is that the peculiar position in society held by the intellectuals could account for an anti-capitalist bias. The "market value of the intellectual's output is far below factor output."

And so it goes. You can read on and on, finding in the defenders of capitalism what appears to be an unwillingness to define the one factor, the one idea that gives rise to the hatred of capitalism.  Most of the reasons given in the book are true, in a sense, and to a point, but they do not go far enough. The defenders of capitalism do not yet sufficiently understand the nature of capitalism so as to provide for it what its enemies have in profusion: a moral argument.

If one studies the arguments of capitalism's enemies throughout history, one will find, almost to a man, that they hold one philosophical viewpoint, specifically one moral premise: altruism. They sense, more than do the defenders of capitalism, that a capitalist economic system represents an alien code and view of man. They, in contrast to the defenders of capitalism, know that capitalism is based on selfishness, not charity. They know that if capitalism were to remain pure, their moral code of ritualistic self-sacrifice, as well as their view of man as a helpless pawn under history's or God's or the government’s control, would hold no influence over men.  If capitalism were allowed to be capitalism, the philosophies of Kant, Marx, Hegel and a host of modern offshoots of their philosophies, would be swept away because of a focus upon the real world by the multitude of men.  Men would no longer be intrigued by the ineffable, the vague and undefined, and would instead insist that ideas have a real value, a real application.  They would pursue ideas that assist men in their charge toward understanding, economic well being and happiness.

The motive and goals of any particular detractor of capitalism can be one among many. But it cannot be denied that they all fall back on altruism. Indeed, their vehement hatred of capitalism is explained and understood only when one recognizes their blind, unthinking, and religious dedication to the idea that no man who lives for his own sake is moral.

That the defenders of capitalism do not know this is proof of the success that the altruist morality has had in keeping from men the fact that a rational, moral code of ethics is possible. The defenders of capitalism are, for the most part, altruists themselves (see the conservatives). They adhere to the ideas of altruistic self-sacrifice--so much so that it blinds them to the true nature of capitalism and forces them into the position of being condescending but cheery opponents of men who are neither condescending nor cheery in their hatred of freedom and capitalism.

Altruism is not the moral base of a capitalist system.       We can’t do capitalism because we want to help people.  Capitalism requires an independent mind. Altruism requires a mind ruled by the edicts of superiors.  Capitalism requires rationality, thinking, the evaluation of reality and the development of solutions that work in the real world. Altruism requires that man need only follow the easiest path of all: the road that preaches sacrifice as virtue. Capitalism requires integrity. Altruism requires that man fight his bodily nature with his spiritual code. Capitalism requires honesty. Altruism requires that one deceive one's own mind. Capitalism requires justice. Altruism requires that justice be suspended among men, that men do God's work by being unjust towards those who refuse to sacrifice. Capitalism requires productiveness. Altruism requires that the productive are not as important as those who give away the confiscated money of the productive. Capitalism requires pride. Altruism requires both humility in some men and pretentiousness in others.

Certainly, the detractors of capitalism have a massive blind spot. Their altruistic premises, and their belief that they would not prosper under capitalism, color their interpretation of historical facts to such a degree that they believe reality conforms to their views. But the defenders of capitalism have a more devastating yet hardly noticed, blind spot. Their evasion of the evil of altruism has kept them from discovering that capitalism is the moral system--the system to be advocated with fire and vigor and enthusiasm.  It is, after all, freedom and free choice among men in their dealings with one another that make capitalism successful.  It is the possibility of moral living that makes capitalism the moral system.  It is the very idea that no man should live as a serf at the behest of the lord, the government or the clergyman, that has liberated our country and made it the most successful in the history of the planet.  Freedom is what makes America a better place to live.  Freedom is what makes Americans the happiest and most tolerant people on this earth.  Freedom is what makes us the envy of the world.  Freedom is what makes us hated, not because we are decadent, but because, as a nation, we give every citizen the possibility of creating his own happiness in his own way.  Freedom is the enemy of the man that believes that men should live performing prescribed rituals or else.  Freedom is the enemy of the man who believes deep down in the core of his being that if men were free, he would not be able to survive.  Freedom is capitalism.

Are economists biased against capitalism?  As long as they hold that altruistic self-sacrifice is the proper philosophy for man and for an economic system, the answer is “Yes.”  Are they right?  No, and no amount of condescending argument that says capitalism will achieve the goals of altruists will work against intellectuals who hate themselves and men.  No amount of cheery debate against people that want slavery for men will enable capitalism to win.  The haters of capitalism must be exposed as haters of men and haters of freedom.  We must fight for capitalism based upon man’s right to be free, his right to property, his right to speak and think, and his right to happiness.  Consequences, such as the fact that capitalism creates the most vibrant economy, are irrelevant.  Capitalism is moral because it leaves men free. 

The operative word in “fight for capitalism” is “fight.”  The Founding Fathers had to fight for it and they coined the term, “Give me Liberty or give me death.”  Let’s hope that someday we don’t have to fight for it again in the same way against tyrannical dictators.  If today’s economists are any indication, they will come up short.

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