Even if you should wish so, there is no alternative to capitalism
The view is widespread that capitalism is unsuitable as an economic system and that it must be replaced by socialism or at least transformed in such a way that it comes as close as possible to the socialist ideal. This notion that capitalism can be replaced by another economic system is, however, fundamentally wrong.
Whoever wants to abolish capitalism abolishes property and the price system and thus the source of prosperity gets extinguished. In contrast to the path towards more and more socialism, which would bring both less freedom and less prosperity, the choice in favor of capitalism means greater prosperity and more freedom.
Capitalism is currently at the bottom of the social preference scale. The ethics of capitalism, the right to individual property and personal self-determination, has fallen in disregard among large parts of politics and the judiciary and especially in the mass media and academia. Anti-capitalism has become a threat to civilization.
Socialism consists in the abolition of private property and the transfer of production facilities into the hands of the state, wrongly called “socialization”. However, if the production and distribution of goods is managed centrally, the question arises on what basis scarcity should be determined.
Abolition of private property means to do away with markets and thus the formation of prices on the basis of supply and demand disappears. Without pricing in markets, goods are no longer valued according to cost and benefit. Private property is therefore essential for the rational economic calculation.
The problem of a socialist polity is not that people are morally deficient (which, after all, could perhaps be remedied through education), but consists in the intellectual incapacity of setting prices rationally. The steering authorities of the centralized socialist economy lack the criteria of what should be produced and how this should be produced and to whom it should be distributed.
Even if the socialist company heads were excellently trained and willingly wanted the best for all of society, they could not solve the problem of economic allocation when there are no market prices available.
Only in the case of a completely stagnant economy, where all economic activity repeats itself over and over again according to the same routine, could one dispense of entrepreneurs. Such an economy, however, is permanently backward-looking and unable to cope with the ever-occurring change — not just of human needs and desires, but also how they are again and again posed by natural changes.
The socialist planners cannot operate in a future-oriented manner. Even on the basis of the most comprehensive information systems (which are always based on data from the past), they may not know where and how production is to be increased or decreased and where and how new industries are to emerge. In capitalism, entrepreneurs accomplish these tasks with the help of the price system.
Soviet communism was economically successful only as a war economy. Consumer needs, however, fell by the wayside. In a war economy, the overall economy is geared towards the central goal of warfare. Production is determined according to military criteria.
The ideas of a war economy guide the ecological movement today. The climate warriors use the language of war in their struggle for the environment. For the environmental ideologues, the economy should not serve the people, but be instrumentalized with regard to environmental goals.
Just as the war leaders of the past swore their peoples to comply to total war, so today the environmental fanatics manipulate the masses in order to win them over to achieve the salvation of the climate. The aim of environmental protection justifies all means and be it the destruction of humankind.
The modern ideologues are silent about the consequences of the orientation towards their “environmental goals”. Like the military leader of old, today the propagandists of the ecological doctrine conceal the true costs of waging their war. In order to gain a following, one must hide the sacrifice. To gain acceptance of the ecological cause, the truth must be hidden that in the name of a dubious aim, most people must be pushed into misery.
The promotors of the ecological agenda, ranging from the Club of Rome to the World Economic Forum and the various suborganizations of the United Nations spread a vision of the future, according to which there is no longer any property since everything can be borrowed from the state. However, this utopia does not answer the question according to which algorithm — if not completely arbitrarily by an authority — the loans should be allocated, nor the quantitative exchange ratio of the loaned goods to one another.
In the capitalist market economy, both of these tasks are solved through the formation of prices on the market, where consumers demand goods and services and entrepreneurial companies submit the offer, both of which are subject to constant change and the price system constantly displays these changes. Capitalism in this sense is a system of constant adaptation to changing circumstances.
There is not alternative to the free economic and social order. Socialism and interventionism lead to impoverishment and bondage. If the forces of evil prevail, repression on a scale beyond anything known in history will occur. That is why the capitalist alternative is more than just an option. A free capitalist economic and social order is the only available way to maintain and increase prosperity and freedom in the 21st century.
The 21st century will belong to those countries that turn their backs on socialism and move decisively towards free capitalism.
