The Minneapolis Star-Tribune (a left-wing newspaper) featured a quotation on the Sunday editorial page that claims that without intensive regulation “capitalism is a menace to society.” From the end of the Civil War in the United States to World War I federal government regulations barely existed. This laissez-faire capitalism catapulted living standards upward and generated a host of new products and services that fostered the good life in America. At the same time, unbridled capitalism eliminated starvation within the United States and greatly extended lifetimes. Capitalism and progress are synonymous. Socialism and starvation are also synonymous.
Nor is it capitalism that has murdered 200 million people. It’s the socialist philosophies promoted by the radical Left. The liberals in this country adored Fidel Castro and the murderous Che Guevara. They are having a tough time swallowing Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and they avoid trying to explain why socialism doesn’t work there. The Left never learns from real-life events.
Liberals like to claim they are not socialists. However, they want the government to run things and control the free-market system. Unfortunately, there is no halfway between capitalism and socialism. There is only a gradual transition from capitalism to socialism. The mixed economy is a slippery slope to big government and collectivism.
The great economist Ludwig von Mises stated it succinctly:
Capitalism is essentially a system of mass production for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. It pours a horn of plenty upon the common man. It has raised the average standard of living to a height never dreamed of in earlier years. It has made accessible to millions of people enjoyments which a few generations ago were only within the reach of a small elite…. Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves. Capitalism delivers the goods…. The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.… A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.