Battle4Liberty

I had the opportunity to spend last week at a conference in South Africa. The people there generally like Americans, but this was a conference with diverse representation from the US, Europe, Africa, and a few from Asia and Australia. Discussions were global in nature, with an emphasis on development of the African continent.

The most intriguing comment I heard (publically stated) was a version of an old familiar one: “Take a look at the world. Look at what American capitalism has done to it.” The speaker continued, calling for what a “global transformation that charts a different course…not based on greed.” A number of people nodded in agreement and I engaged two of them later, but the conversation was a little different than I expected.

Their argument can be summarized as follows: Capitalism has created income disparities between the rich and poor, and crony capitalism is corrupt and immoral. A new world order was needed to resolve the problems, including greater power for the UN, a global wealth tax to redistribute capitalism’s illicit gains to poorer nations, intense global regulation to halt the ravages of industry-induced global warming. Business schools can play a role by rejecting the supremacy of capitalism and self-interest as the driver of economic activity.

They were genuinely confused when I agreed with their assessment of the problem but offered an entirely different vision for resolving it. Indeed, capitalism has created income disparities; on average, the wage gap between top and bottom earners is greatest in high growth societies. For various reasons, some individuals in capitalistic societies become great producers and generate substantial wealth for themselves as part of the process. They are simply responding to the incentive system embedded in capitalism and profiting by meeting the needs of others. In a (genuinely) capitalist system, the rich who are so frequently derided obtain their wealth only when others voluntarily transact business with them. Put another way, those at the top of the economic ladder can only get there by serving the needs of society. The simplest way to avoid the “income gap” is the eliminate capitalism, thereby making everyone equally poor, but those really concerned with the poor should focus on their prospects, not the high producers.

They accepted my explanation—more or less—and moved on to their presumed trump card, “crony capitalism.” Doesn’t “raw capitalism” produce wealth for the cronies? Isn’t big government necessary to save society from cronyism? I don’t have the space to reproduce the entire dialogue, but suffice to say that they were surprised to hear that I—a staunch defender of capitalism—share their contempt for the collusion between government and large corporations often called crony capitalism. This is not capitalism, but rather a product of the type of government control they propose to solve it. When corporations engage in back room deals with government, both sides are to blame. Why not pursue real capitalism, a system devoid of bailouts and other forms of government intrusion that immorally redistribute private wealth? They didn’t completely accept my argument, but it was obvious that they had never heard it pitched that way before.

There’s a key take-home point here. The best way to engage a leftist is to start with common ground. Cronyism is a serious problem and has become capitalism’s greatest perceived liability. The problem, however, is that cronyism is really more about fascism and socialism than about capitalism. It flows from a system that allows government to trample the rights of some to advance the interest of others in the name of the common good. As defenders of liberty, we need to attack it as well. Real capitalism is the solution, not the problem.