Who's a Capitalist?
by Dr. Doug Cardell
Well, Let's start with what capital is. Capital is an accumulation, a store of accumulated assets minus accumulated liabilities. People tend to think of it monetarily, but that's an unnecessarily limiting view. Assets add to your well-being, and liabilities reduce your well-being. In any area, monetary or otherwise, if you take your assets and subtract your liabilities, the result is your capital. Someone in good physical condition has greater physical assets than liabilities. They have a store of physical capital. That capital allows them to more readily fight off disease and disability. A capitalist is someone who invests capital they have in hopes of increasing their assets in the future. In fact, capitalism is a commitment to hope. If someone in good physical condition depletes that condition, their physical capital, today by exercising in hopes of improving their physical condition, they are a capitalist. They are using assets they have today in hopes of receiving increased assets in the future as a result. Others may see the impact of this increased capital and be envious. They would also like to have those assets, but they don't know the capitalist's investment in building their capital. They also don't know the risks the capitalist took. Someone devoting time and effort to exercise might find it wasted if some tragedy prevented the benefits from coming to pass. Thus, the anti-capitalist sentiment, "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die." The anti-capitalist is unwilling to risk rewards today for greater rewards in the future. Education can be another example of capitalism. One idea of education is investing time and other resources today, believing it will increase future ability. The second idea is to invest resources to learn more about something that interests you, whether or not it increases your future capability. Both are valid points of view but are often confused, with unfortunate consequences. The first is the capitalist view, using capital today in hopes of increasing capital later. The second is using resources today for enjoyment. The difficulty arises when one chooses the second, expecting the rewards of the first. Pursuing a college degree in art history may be very rewarding today, but it may not be an asset in the future. Learning a skill is usually a capitalist undertaking. It is investing resources today for a reward in the future. Learning to play a musical instrument well requires effort and dedication that most do not consider enjoyable. Still, it may lead to career opportunities or simply a future of enjoying the ability. Other skills are more clearly aimed in one direction or the other. Welding is more likely to lead to career opportunities than resulting in a fun hobby. Still, knitting is less likely to lead to career opportunities and more likely to result in an enjoyable pastime in the future. Both are examples of capitalism because they are an investment today for a future reward. When most people think of a capitalist, they think of money but often have an incorrect picture. They imagine someone with a great deal of inherited wealth that doesn't work and just manipulates money. That's a myth. Anyone who saves or invests money in a manner that creates income is a capitalist. Capitalists include anyone who buys savings bonds, puts money in a savings account, invests in a retirement plan, or buys stocks. All these actions involve investing money to create a larger amount for future use instead of spending it today. Furthermore, many more people are indirect capitalists. When someone buys insurance, they give money to the insurer who invests it in capital enterprises and uses some of the profits to pay claims. Anti-capitalists have spent the last 150 years using all the propaganda techniques available to convince people that capitalism is evil. They do this because capitalism means economic freedom, which is essential to civil liberty, and anti-capitalists fear freedom because it vanquishes their desire for power and control. They understand that big undertakings require large amounts of capital. If private citizens cannot provide that capital, it must come from the government. If the government invests, then the government has control of it. In free-market capitalism, thousands or millions of shareholders share the power. The anti-capitalists don't want that because they believe they can more easily manipulate the government than millions of citizens. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die" works out well only if you actually die tomorrow. The anti-capitalist takes the short-term view, believing it is better to spend resources for today's pleasure and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. The capitalist takes the long-term view, believing that a better future is worth investing resources in. The capitalist uses resources to create more resources, while the anti-capitalist uses up resources today and hopes more will appear later. To be a capitalist is to adopt a way of life that invests in the future, not only with money but health, education, training, relationships, reputation, and most other areas of life. Invest in the future, have hope, live long, and prosper; be a capitalist.
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