The Moral Basis of Capitalism: Part 2

Let’s take a small step back and think first about why it is important that we choose a system that is “moral”. Why should we be concerned about morality when choosing between capitalism and socialism or any other systems? Shouldn’t we just be thinking about economic issues instead of taking the subject into that direction?

Actually, to discuss morals is to discuss everything, including economics. The problem many people have is that they think of morality in a wrong way; they do not understand the purpose of morality. Some people think of morality in terms of “going to heaven” only. They believe that being moral is the thing that makes you happy in the after-life.

Others think that being moral is something that is just man’s duty, and that one should not think of any reward whether here on earth or in the after life. This is the most common view in the academic world, so your lecturer is likely to hold this view. It’s the view that was promoted by the most influential thinker in the world of academic philosophy: Immanuel Kant. Kant is the simple reason that you find many otherwise intelligent academics who fail to understand capitalism. A philosophy in one’s mind can be so powerful that it stops the mind from understanding anything that is contradictory to that philosophy, even if it is logical.

So, what is the right view of morality?

The religious are closer to a correct view of morality than the academics, but the latter look down on the former because they think they are not intelligent enough. But if the academics looked deeper into their own world of philosophy, they will discover that the man who basically invented “logic,” Aristotle, was closer to the religious view of morality than to theirs. He also believed that morality is there for happiness (”eudaimonia”), not just as a mere purposeless and rewardless “duty.”

But if the religious view is only “closer” to the truth than the academic view, what is the actual truth? The simple truth is just what you know from common sense: living a moral life is the key to prosperity and happiness HERE ON EARTH. It’s okay to believe that it is also the key to happiness in the afterlife, but that is dangerous if it makes you think that on this earth you should not prosper, that you should sacrifice your happiness here on earth for the afterlife. In fact, even Jesus Christ did not believe the view of most of his current “followers” (he was not a Christian!). Christ was closer to the Aristotelian view because he believed that morality would reward you BOTH “in this life and in the life to come”.

But my concern here is only for what can be proved logically so that no one can have an excuse for rejecting capitalism. We can logically prove that morality is the key to prosperity and happiness here on earth, without using any faith, and without believing in Christ. If that is true, then discussing capitalism in moral terms is a much higher venture because it also covers “economics” since right morals lead to prosperity.

So another term that we have to understand is “prosperity”. Someone can say “I know some very immoral people who are actually very prosperous.” Actually, that is impossible. Prosperity includes money but it is not just money. What’s the point of having all the money in the world when you can’t sleep at night (like Tony Montana in “Scarface”)? You are always looking over your shoulder because of what you’ve done to get that money, or you always have to keep lying just to continue holding that money. Just follow the stories of “prosperous” hollywood celebrities that developed their talent without developing their moral character, and you will quickly see that money and fame alone can not be the meaning of prosperity. Simple observation can thus be a logical way to prove the fact that there can be no prosperity without morals.

True prosperity can only come from faithfully following true morality. And true moral principles, as Aristotle rightly observed, can be discovered by just using reason. Some people follow a moral system using only religion, but it is much better if you actually understand the logical basis for those moral principles so that you don’t hold contradictory principles. In short, you should see exactly how a certain principle ultimately leads to happiness here in this world. The reason many religious people are not interested in understanding this is because they wrongly think that morals have nothing to do with happiness “in this life.” If that’s your position then it makes sense that you only want to follow certain rules without even understanding them. After all, you can’t understand something without seeing how it works on this earth.

But anyone wishing to understand how a life of honesty is better than a life of lying can easily see from just making observations why this is so. Trying to sustain your life by stealing or trying to sustain your life by producing – which one will lead to a happy life right here on earth whether or not you believe in God? This can all be established by simple logic through simple observation or even just through thinking about it. When you tell a lie to get what you want, you normally have to tell another lie, and another one – and you have to always keep in mind the lie you told. Not only does this put unnecessary pressure on your mind, it also robs you of having full confidence because you don’t know when you will be discovered as a phony. Such a state of mind can not be a happy state. A rich man who cheats on his wife for just a few minutes has to live under that mental pressure for the rest of his life!

It is therefore possible to logically prove that ONLY morality leads to happiness and sustainable prosperity.

Now, in the same way, if you can show that one social system is moral, then you have shown a system that leads to happiness and sustainable prosperity.

The American Founding fathers did a lot of thinking when they came up with a system that would lead to “the pursuit of happiness”. And you can simply look around now and see which is the most prosperous society on earth today. Why does it happen to be the one that is most associated with capitalism?

Some people of course say that America is not really prosperous because people there are not really happy. And yet when these people hear about “green card lottery” they are the first to apply to go to this “sad” country! How come this society happens to have the highest number of people knocking on its doors to be admitted in? Are they just deceived from the outside? And when they get in, how come they do almost anything to stay in – including staying there illegally?

If it’s true that Cubans are much happier with their “anti-consumerist” policies, then why do millions of Cubans risk their lives trying to get into the “evil” United States?

The fact is that it is easy to see what kind of social system leads to prosperity and which kinds lead to destruction HERE ON EARTH, just like personal morals. Even when a capitalist society has problems, it is not the same as the problems faced by other types of societies. America and other Western semi-capitalist states can go through a crisis, yes, but the other parts of the world that reject “evil” capitalism are constantly in a state of crisis!

In fact, everyone knows that America is not a fully capitalist society; it has a very long way to go. But the fact that it was founded on capitalist principles is what pushed it to the top in the first place. The few socialist policies in its system are obviously what has kept it from becoming a fully prosperous, crisis-proof society.

Before you protest that statement, think again about morality. If good leads to prosperity and evil leads to destruction, and if we can determine which system is good and which system is evil, then you can not logically deny that the good (prosperity) that is found in any society is coming from the good system and the evil (destruction, poverty, etc) is coming from the evil part. If America is a mixed economy, then the evil is coming from the “socialist” side, not the capitalist side. Unless you still believe that socialism is not evil or that evil does not lead to destruction, in which case you need to reread “part 1? (and part 2) before you proceed with us.