Capatilism Essay, Research Paper

Capitalism

The distinguished in the nineteenth century and it s collapse in the twentieth century have led to similar, though much slower and less obvious, process in the course of modern science. Today s frantic development in the field of technology has a quality reminiscent of the days preceding the economic crash of 1929. The clearest evidence of it may be seen in such comparatively young sciences such as psychology and political economy. In psychology, one may observe the attempt to study human behavior without reference to the fact that man is conscious. In political economy, one may observe the attempt to study and device social systems without reference to man. Political economy came into prominence in the 19th century, in the era of philosophies post kantian disintegration, and no one rose to check its premises or to challenge its base. Political economist-including the advocates of capitalism-defined their sciences as the study of management or direction or organization or manipulation of community s or nations resources. The author goes on to say that the European culture regarded material productions as work that should be done by slaves or serfs but not first class citizens. It must be remembered that the institution of private property, in the full, legal meaning of the term, was brought into existence only by capitalism. In the pre-capitalist eras, private property existed de facto but not de jure, i.e. by custom and sufferance, not by right or by law. In law and in principle all land belonged to the head of the tribe, the king, and was held only by permission, which could be revoked at any time. CAPITALISM, a term used to donate the economic systems that has been dominate in the western world since the breakup of feudalism. Fundamental to any system called capitalist are the relations between private owners of non-personal means of production (land mines, industrial plants, etc…. collectively known as capital) and free but capitalizes workers, who sell their labor services to employers. The resulting wage bargains determines the proportion in which the total products of society will be shared between the class of laborers and the class of capitalist entrepreneurs. Productive use of the social surplus was special virtue that enabled capitalism to outstrip all prior economic systems. Instead of building pyramids and cathedrals, those in command of the social surplus chose to invest in ships, warehouses, raw materials, finished goods and other material forms of wealth. There is of course, no such thing as a social surplus. All wealth is produced by somebody and belongs to somebody. Mans essential characteristic is his rational faculty. man s mind is his basic means of survival-his only means of gaining knowledge.

If some men do not choose to think, they can survive only by imitating and repeating a routine of work discovered by others-but those others had to discover it, or none would have survived. If men do not choose to think or to work, they can survive (temporarily) only by looting the goods produced by others-but those others had to produce them or none would have survived.

Man cannot survive as animals do, by the mere guidance of perceptions. He cannot provide for his simplest physical need without process of thought. he needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow food or how to make weapons for hunting. His precepts might lead him to a cave. No precepts or instincts will tell him how to light a fire.

Is man a sovereign individual who owns his person, his mind, his life, his work and it s products-or is he the property of the tribe (the state, the society, the collective) that may dispose of him any way it pleases, that may dictate his convictions, prescribe the course of his life, control his work and expropriate his products? Does man have the right? To exist for his own sake-or is he born of bondage, as an indentures servant who must keep buying his life by serving the tribe but can never acquire it free and clear.

In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate. They can deal with one another only in terms of and by means of reason, i.e. by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by voluntary choice, by voluntary choice of mutual benefit. The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that crucial. It is the institution of private property the protects and implements the rights to disagree-and thus keeps the roaf open to man s most valuable attribute (valuable personally, socially, and objectively): the creative mind.

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated by only means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government is such a society is, the task of protecting man s rights, i.e. the task of protecting him from physical force. The author goes on to say that the only time the government can use force is when there is retaliation.

Such there is no such entity as society since society is only a number of individual men, this meant, in practice, that the rulers did not abide by the moral laws only subject to traditional rituals, they held total power and exacted blind obedience. They believed good which is good for the society. The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was subordination of society to moral law.

The principle of man s individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system-as a limitation tot he power of the state, as man s protection against the brute force of the collective. He goes onto say the United States was the first moral state. I don t know what kind of morals the author is actually referring to.

A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a mans freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right : mans right to his own life. The right to life is the source of all rights-and the right to property is their only implementation.

He goes on to say all previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the end of others, and society as a means to a peaceful, orderly, voluntary, coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had regard man s life as society property that they could dispose of him anytime they felt like it

Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain life by his own effort, the man who has no right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that am man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earn it. It is the right to gain, to keep , to use and to dispose of material values. To violate man s right means to compel him against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values. there is only on why to do it: by the use of physical force.

31c