Capitalism and Socialism: Who Owns You?
November 1st, 2008 | by Brian |From last week’s Daily Camera Editorial Advisory Board:
The question: “Recent debate on economics and politics has been framing recent events in terms of socialism and capitalism. Is this warranted or a sign of hyperbolic rhetoric?” My response:
Debating political issues in terms of socialism and capitalism helps address a fundamental question: Who owns you? Who has a claim on your time and the products of your physical and mental efforts?
Under capitalism, you do. Consenting adults have the right to voluntarily associate with each other — in personal relationships or for-profit and non-profit ventures. Others have no right to interfere by mandating or prohibiting such relationships. The purpose of government is to protect our individual rights to freely cooperate and pursue our values.
Under socialism, everyone else owns a piece of you. They use the political process to stake a claim on your time, life, and property, whether or not you consent. In this sense, Socialism is anti-social. Under socialism, you are a means to other people’s ends.
Consider Barack Obama on health care: “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.” This “system” refers to people: patients, doctors, actuaries, scientists, etc. For Obama, we are like ingredients and politicians (“designers”) are the chefs.
As French economist Frederic Bastiat wrote in The Law back in 1850, “Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. … To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.”
Sadly, John McCain’s world view differs little from Obama’s. Rather than offering a principled alternative, it’s closer to an echo.
tags: collectivism, Daily Camera Editorial Advisory Board, McCain, Obama, politics
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