Socialism vs Capitalism
I never really liked these terms but the reasons why seemed vague. Finally, it dawns on me that these terms are not a simple either, or. To most people I suspect capitalism is all about money and the right to keep what you rightfully earned. Socialism is all about sharing and has more focus on obligation, responsibility, and the common good.
Jesus could hardly be classified as a capitalist; in reality he was on the extreme end of socialism. Over time I have come to realize that capitalism doesn't have to be something unregulated, uncapped, or some sort of survival of the fittest.
In the above two paragraphs there are several key words----rightfully earned, sharing, obligation, responsibility, common good, unregulated, uncapped, and survival of the fittest.
Let's start with 'rightfully earned'. We need to be quite careful with how carelessly we claim something is 'rightfully earned'. I know I didn't choose my parents, my nation of birth, my religion, my formative community, my formative circle of friends, my schools, my athletic ability, my I.Q., my looks, my basic personality, my teachers, my ethnicity, my sexual nuances, etc. And yet, I reckon all these factors had a lot to do with anything I might now claim I 'rightfully earned'. This is not to say my own labored efforts and labored insights did not contribute to anything I may have earned in life. What it does say is that the likelihood of my achieving these things with a different combination of 'given' factors listed above would be slim. Thus, the emphasis needs to be on thankfulness for good luck, not ego inflated claims of "I earned it".
If, in many respects, we didn't earn something without help from our genetics and our environment, and if we understand the ethics behind "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"-----then, of course we are obligated to share. You simply cannot be ethical and not share.
Socialism does not have to mean some cannot be more successful, or have more material wealth, fame, or responsibility than others. Socialism doesn't have to be a leveling of the results, just the need to achieve a level playing field. Pure capitalism and ethics are simply incompatible. Strangely, a pure capitalist is usually destined to a life of stress and miserableness. It is an addiction, an obsession, a necessity to always be looking over your shoulder, a competitive disrespect for others, a selfish inclination to base success on your own personal wealth, family, power, religious connection to your inherited God, and anything else that bolsters your own ego. At some point you amass so many 'toys' that you have no time to play with them. No country is more pure capitalism than the United States. Over the past year I have seen the results of several studies which purport to measure the happiness level of people living in various countries. I can't speak to the validity of these studies, but I do note that the U.S. falls way down the rankings in terms of 'Happiness'. I know, even if the studies were valid, they measure the average 'happiness'. Clearly, by any definition, some people within any country are far more happy than others. But still, pure capitalism has not generated the happiest campers according to these studies. The winners of these studies seem always to be Scandinavian countries and places like Costa Rica. 'Humpf', how can that possibly be? What do they have compared to us anyway? Well, I guess more widespread happiness.
The next key word is sharing. With a lot of unearned good fortune, some people find it easier to achieve success than those with unearned bad fortune. According to the Golden Rule those with good fortune are obligated to share the material benefits of such good fortune with those having such bad fortunes. And what, pray tell, inhibits people from doing this to the extent demanded by the Golden Rule? For some, religion messes up their minds. If one believes his/her good fortune comes from praying, from God Himself meddling in their personal life, alternately rewarding and punishing him/her for good and bad deeds, then others less prosperous, talented, etc. are that way because their relationship with God is deficient. A lot of current 'family values' is linked to this kind of mentality. Another reason behind lack of sharing are the priorities often needed to become financially successful. Materialism, in one form or another, drives capitalism. This doesn't make capitalism wrong or evil, but numbs our relationship to the Golden Rule. It took a lot of effort to accumulate our material wealth. To let go, even some, of what took so much planning and effort to achieve, is difficult. I mean, I worked hard for it, let others do the same. As an isolated concept, this is not unreasonable. But reality dictates, as explained earlier above, that heredity and environment dictates heavily on the likelihood of material achievement. So many people hardly have the given 'where-with-all' to compete with many others for material gains. And only an idiot would seriously deny this. For many who pompously stand on the "I earned what I have, let others do the same", I always feel a desire to see them placed in different shoes via genetics or environment and watch how far they go in life. If one can only be proud, and not equally grateful/responsible, then an ethical life is unattainable.
The next term here is 'common good'. No society lasts long when the 'common good' is neglected. Human rights are universal and apply to all who are human. To the extent any are denied rights, the Golden Rule has been abrogated. All laws generated to deprive certain humans of rights granted to others, are unethical. Most injustices in history have always gotten support from religious leaders who use dogma to advance their own agenda. Religious dogma, for the most part, is either silly and therefore harmlessly inconsequential, or it is discriminatory and therefore harmful to the 'common good'. All the turmoil in societies across the globe----today and throughout history----is often linked to ignoring the common good. Whether it be slavery, denying women rights men have, denying particular groups equal access to jobs, privileges, marriage rights, job advancement, equal education opportunities, equal health care, safe neighborhoods, whatever----these are the human injustices which breed discontent and turmoil. And with time, the 'have nots' of these human rights, will win. And not infrequently in history, the 'Have's' lose big when the dust has settled. Those with much to protect will always lose when too many people with nothing to lose revolt. I am not aware that, over time, it ever goes the other way. Unregulated, uncapped capitalism accumulates massive wealth in the hands of the few on the backs of the many. It is not socialism to put capitalism under strict regulation and caps. What determines how much regulation and how low or high the caps? The 'common good'.
It is not the current interpretation of 'family values' which creates a healthy society but respect for, and a responsibility to, the 'common good'. The perception persists that if we can just 'take care of 'me and my family' then happiness and contentedness will prevail. Any kind of contemplative observation of 'such families', religious clans, ethnic clans, cultural clans, nation clans, etc. reveals these groups, in general, to be seeped in discontent, hatred, and unhappiness. If you force yourself into the small world of such groups you can virtually palpate their intolerance to others, their indifference to others, their 'holier than thou' attitude about life outside their own self spun cocoons. Whenever I step temporarily into their world I can bet it will not be a 'fun' day, an enlightening day, an inspiring day. I always feel afterwards like I need to take a good shower. Then take a long walk somewhere peaceful and ponder just what it is that I just experienced. No one tries harder to achieve personal happiness than these 'group values' cabals, and all of them, collectively, seem more angry, hostile, and cranky than those people with a wider appreciation of the common good.
During my productive years I taught at universities. You encounter all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances in such a profession, getting a daily observation of all the human variances. You kind of see the result of all kinds of parenting, all kinds of circumstances, all kinds of bias, all kinds of priorities, and all kinds of personalities. You learn that all kinds of people really do matter, that the greatest satisfaction and reward comes from helping those with the greatest needs. If you want to bring meaning to your life, you help those getting the short stick in life, you help those most who have the least support system in their life---and in the process, frustrating and challenging as it always proves to be, you feel a meaningfulness and satisfaction in your own life not attainable otherwise. You can't tell people who do this sort of thing---helping those personally most in need---that there is no sense of duty or responsibility to do this. This is, after all, the purest application of the Golden Rule and the Golden Rule is the purest form of ethics.
In some sense, not easily defined, God's evolutionary process does proceed, ever onward and upward, via survival of the fittest. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on individual forms of life. "I", is after all, that miniscule aspect of life over which we have the most control, the most investment, the most understanding. Still 'life' is not any "I" as a definition. "Life" is DNA in various forms. "Life", as a phenomenon, is a continuum. Since creation, it has never ended, has changed forms, has passed from one generation to another, and when we as humans use the word eternity, so far "life" is an applicable eternity. Thus, whatever else we mean by "life", life has no death. We, as individuals, have death, but we are but passing through evolution as some sort of abstract personality, much like clouds are but temporary portions of the atmosphere. When we succumb to our egos and see our own existence, which in reality is an ephemeral 'concept' apart from the living cells which generated such a 'concept'----when we see our own 'concept' as a serious cog in the process, we are illusionary. Another problem arises when we view "God's" evolutionary process as merely a physical phenomenon, giving rise to different physical forms of life. But there is a mental aspect to evolution which tends to be ignored. Mental activity takes endless forms such as memory, intelligence, emotions, personality, etc. Included amongst these mental activities is ethics. I guess most people see ethics as something inherited by religion, messages from God via human special agents to His chosen flock. Unless one views God as prejudicial, mean-spirited, or inefficient, this seems ludicrous. Ethics has evolved as part of evolution. Justice is an evolving concept and what is ethics but concepts seeped in justice, applied to various situations. All humans understand the Golden Rule absent a mental disorder like psychopathy. It is universal to humanity. We, for the most part (the evolution is continuing), understand right and wrong. Whether, in any given instance, we choose right over wrong is another matter. Slavery is wrong because it is incompatible with the Golden Rule. Depriving women of certain rights that men have is wrong because it is incompatible with the Golden Rule. Supporting laws that force others to accept your religious dogma is wrong because it violates the Golden Rule. Declaring you have a right to choose whom you marry and some one else does not---violates the Golden Rule, and so it goes with each case before us being decided by the Golden Rule. Ethics is less applicable to which religion you inherit and more applicable to your personal strength to follow the Golden Rule.
It is the Golden Rule which dictates the importance of the 'common good' to any society. Capitalism is not an inherent evil, but an exercise which must be regulated by laws which protect the 'common good'. Individual success is a legitimate goal, an admirable goal, a lofty goal, but not a sufficient reason to override the 'common good'. When goods are overcharged or produced by slave labor, any where in the world---in order to give others a chance to buy cheap, the Golden Rule has taken a major hit. When capitalism has no caps and a few are entitled to amass wealth way past any needs or reasonable perks---all of this on the backs of others, the 'common good' has been damaged and therefore this accumulation is wrong. When Bill Gates is allowed by law to accumulate wealth greater than the combined wealth of the poorest 25 countries on the earth, this is an absurdity. When any system of government allows an unequal distribution of wealth to grow to such an extent that 1% of the people own 90% of the wealth in a society, the 'common good' has been abused to the extent such a society cannot be sustained for long. History has shown that over and over. Others always count, the Golden Rule applies. Regulated capitalism with caps is a good. Unregulated capitalism without caps is an ethical disaster which is destructive to the society within which it operates. Steeply graduated income taxes minus loopholes, and steep inheritance taxes, also with no loopholes, are necessary tools to limit individuals from grabbing too much of the pie, and to prevent other individuals from access to wealth which they did not themselves earn, but just inherited.
Responsibility follows from the Golden Rule. The common good trumps individual preferences every time. For ethics to be operative, the Golden Rule must prevail. Examples here are plentiful and crucial to our human collective future. I may desire to have 6 kids, but in an overpopulated world this is unethical. The common good necessitates responsible reproductive practices. I may wish to accumulate as much wealth as possible and then pass that wealth on to my kids, but the common good necessitates that I be prevented from accumulating too much wealth for myself, and to return such accumulated wealth back into the society from which it came so that others have a fair shot at earning it for themselves after my demise. It is unethical to support the expenditure of adequate money to educate my kids and not support the same amount for all kids. The Golden Rule is hardly complicated. It is unethical to support any health care system which provides proper health care for myself and my family while leaving others without such health care. It is unethical to support adequate minimum wages for your own citizens and then purchase goods made by 'slave' labor elsewhere. Slavery is slavery no matter where the location, and whoever lives off the labor of others without them getting proper remuneration for their labors is behaving unethically. The Golden Rule is not complicated. Treating recreational drug use as a politcal/police criminal problem instead of a medical problem is to allow some the responsible use of the recreational drugs of their own choice and jail others who select different drugs. To damage our natural environment without regard to future generations is contrary to the Golden Rule. To retain the right to marry the adult of your choice and deny anyone else the same right is contrary to the Golden Rule. To condem the adult consensual sexual practices of others and view your own consensual sexual inclinations as sacred, is unethical and silly. To interfere with the internal politics of another country for your own greed, or to control the form of government elsewhere is unethical. Putting a military base in a country where sizable numbers of citizens oppose it, is unethical and most often done to prop up and defend a government of somebody else's choice.
We ought to concentrate on the 'common good' and discard rigid definitions of capitalism and socialism. Whatever it takes to protect the 'common good' is a good policy, an ethical policy and that is about the sum of it.
