Klaven refers to James R, Otteson's article, An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism for The Manhattan Institute. In this article, Otteson points out that while Obama said that "the market" or capitalism "doesn't work. It has never worked," this flies in the face of historical facts:
"Since 1800, the world’s population has increased sixfold; yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold. That is a truly amazing achievement. In America, the increase is even more dramatic: in 1800, the total population in America was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39, and the real gross domestic product per capita was $1,343 (in 2010 dollars); in 2011, our population was 308 million, our life expectancy was 78, and our GDP per capita was $48,800. Thus even while the population increased 58-fold, our life expectancy doubled, and our GDP per capita increased almost 36-fold. Such growth is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Considering that worldwide per-capita real income for the previous 99.9 percent of human existence averaged consistently around $1 per day, that is extraordinary. "
"What explains it? It would seem that it is due principally to the complex of institutions usually included under the term “capitalism,” since the main thing that changed between 200 years ago and the previous 100,000 years of human history was the introduction and embrace of so-called capitalist institutions—particularly, private property and markets."
The article goes on to show that, contrary to socialist propaganda, capitalism is actually the system that benefits the most people and is, in fact, the moral choice. Some of his key points are:
- "(M)arkets allow us to 'serve' one another even when we do not love one another—even when we do not know of one another’s existence."
- "(V)oluntary exchanges that take place in the free-enterprise system are positive-sum, not zero-sum—meaning not that one person benefits only at another’s expense but rather that all parties to the transaction benefit."
- "Even if we do not all get rich at the same rate, we all still get richer."
- Rescuing hundreds of millions of people from grinding poverty is, however, nothing to sneeze at—and nothing to take for granted."
Otteson admitts that, "Capitalism is not perfect." But, he points out that, "The benefits of the
free-enterprise society are enormous and unprecedented; they have meant the
difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of people and have
afforded a dignity to populations that are otherwise forgotten. We should wish
to extend these benefits rather than to curtail them."
"It would be all too easy for us, among the wealthiest people who have ever lived, in one of the richest places on earth, to disdain the institutions that have enabled us to escape the strictures of poverty and disrespect that have plagued humanity for the vast majority of its existence. Our crime today, however, would lie not in our inequalities but rather in our refusal to uphold the institutions that give humanity the only hope it has ever known of rising out of its natural state of destitution. The great and precious blessings of freedom and prosperity that we Americans have enjoyed, and that some, but not enough, others around the world have also experienced, deserve nothing less."
Do you really want a president who is so completely ignorant of how the economy really works? I don't.
Enjoy the video, but don't miss it's point.
