Capitalism and Freedom - Essay Example

Running Head: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM Relationship Between Capitalism And Freedom Of The Of TheInstitute] Relationship Between Capitalism And Freedom Capitalism and freedom are indivisible. In our civilization we consider that human beings, only by good value of being human, possess the ability to apply freedom and the right to do so. Every person should be liberated to own property, select a job and a profession, worship, speak, move liberally within the society and to other societies, encourage and protect one's self-interest, convention, compete, generate, innovate, trade, and correlate with others. Those of us who support liberty and free markets are assorted lot. Our worldviews vary, too. To discover general opinion, let us momentarily believe in turn the libertarian, Judeo-Christian, and Objectivist viewpoints on the nature of capitalism and its association to freedom. Libertarians elevate personal freedom to the highest good-as an end to be achieved. Freedom is viewed as prerequisite to, and integral with, the achievement of any of man's goals. Libertarians defend each person's right to be protected against all forms of external aggression initiated by the state or by private individuals. A basic principle of libertarianism is that individuals have the right to live life as they choose, as long as their actions do not constitute an aggression against the freedom of others. This non-initiation-of-force or nonaggression attitude is linked to the libertarian thought of self-ownership. Self-ownership means that one's possess decisions about what to do with one's life, possessions; body, energies, and speech are the decisions that matters. Since individuals are equivalent, not only does an individual own himself, every other person owns himself as well. The self-ownership principle creates a zone of privacy and freedom of action for each individual. When dealing with others each person should respect them as equals in moral status and human dignity who have the right and responsibility to make their own decisions regarding their own life, property, body, energies, and speech. Capitalist refuse the idea that people need a protector to guard them from themselves or to tell them what is bad and good. The state should therefore detain itself to the lowest essential to defend individuals in the way they opt to practice contentment. The appropriate state is therefore impartial with respect to its dedication to one or another beginning of pleasure or the good life. The job of the state should be restricted to providing the freedom that allows individuals to follow happiness or the good that each describes for himself. Capitalism may be defined as a system of voluntary relationships within a lawful framework that protects individuals' rights against might, deception, theft, and contract violations. Advocates of capitalism change in their arguments for a social system that maximizes individual liberty and in their analysis with respect to the temperament of man and the universe. Underlying these separate views, though, is the requirement for freedom of the person to decide how he wants to incorporate himself into society. All consent that: 1. Freedom is the likely condition of the individual-each person from birth has the capability to think his own thoughts and manage his own energies in his labors to perform according to these thoughts. 2. Individuals are free to commence their own purposive act when they are free from man-made shackles-coercion by other individuals, groups of people, or the government; liberty is not the capability to get what one wishes-other non-man-made obstructions such as lack of ability, cleverness or resources may outcome as one's failure to achieve his wishes. 3. Freedom is essential but not an adequate condition for one's contentment. It is not compulsory to first attain metaphysical or religious accord to agree on the appeal of a system in which individuals do not use aggression or deceit to harm others or to dispossess others of their legally held belongings. Different proponents of capitalism consequently concur that the correct role of the state is restricted to that of guardian of property and punisher of those who deceive and steal from others. The Price Of Freedom Did slaves who purchased their own autonomy, or whose freedom was purchased by others (such as relatives), pay a cost higher than their substitute cost A slave's readiness to pay exceeded the owner's assessment of the slave, as the slave would achieve not only the economic value of her work, but also sovereignty. Owners could purchase a substitute for a manumitted slave on the market. Owners may therefore have tried to take out above-market prices from slaves looking for manumission, when lawfully permitted to do so. There is small disagreement today about whether or not there is an affiliation between capitalism and freedom or democracy. Two huge economists of the last generation, Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter, detailed the connection. Weber competed that democracy in its clearest shape can happen only under capitalist industrialization, and that it had its maximum chance in a society which highlights individual accountability. He affirmed completely that history evidently authenticates that current democracy rose along with capitalism and in an informal link with it. Schumpeter was even more forceful. He declared that modern democracy is a creation of the capitalist procedure, and the two were equally compassionate parts of an increasing modern evolution. Schumpeter was careful to point out, though, the strain between capitalism and democracy. He cautioned that the means at the removal of personal interests were often used to impede with the machinery of spirited leadership. The Friedman's say that regardless of the compensation which flow from capitalism, the association between political and economic freedom is difficult and by no means one-sided. The necessary nature of capitalism is communal synchronization through the quest of self-interest. Under capitalism, the individual's pursuit of his own economic self-interest reimbursement the economic self-interests of all others. The system means the total division of economy and state, just similar to the parting of church and state. Capitalism is the social classification based upon private ownership of the means of production. Nevertheless, the primary basis of capitalism, the one that I consider most significant, is that is based on individual rights. It is the merely politico-economic system based on the canon of individual rights. This means that capitalism identifies that each person is the owner of his own existence, and has the right to live his life in any way he chooses as long as he does not infringe the rights of others. Differing to extensively held viewpoint, capitalism is not a system which develops a big segment of society for the sake of a minute minority of well-off capitalists. Sardonically, it is in reality socialism that sources the systematic exploitation of labor. Exploitation is intrinsic to the nature of socialism because individuals cannot exist for their own sake; somewhat they exist simply as means to whatsoever ends the socialist rulers may have in mind. Most detractors of capitalism now acknowledge the critical job of businessmen and entrepreneurs in the earlier phases of the system. The basis of the gifts of capitalism is the contributing side of the economy. In the capitalist economies of the West, this easy gratitude is the center of all victorious economic strategy. Karl Marx incorrectly situated the means of manufacture in the material arrangements of the society rather than in the metaphysical capital of human liberty and imagination. Nonetheless, supply can generate its own demand, even in the political monarchy. By similarity, leadership is supply and public opinion is demand. In a democracy, a turnaround of the suitable direction of power permits vulnerable creations of mass feeling to utter to the influential and everlasting mechanisms of representative leadership. The outcome is a agitated and estranged electorate, a breakdown of political influence, a lethargic and barren government, and a propensity toward national turn down. That supply generates its own demand is a rule of capitalism called Say's law. Capitalism consists of providing first and receiving afterward. All political systems are eventually the appearance of some underlying philosophy. Example, Marxian socialism supports that man is a combined body fashioned by economic forces past his power whose greatest good is to serve the ends of "society". Capitalism is ethically good for each person to struggle for his own contentment, and that the appropriate social arrangement for men to subsist under is one in which the beginning of physical force is expelled. This is the ideological basis upon which the United States was unreservedly founded. Capitalism is the only political system that is based upon man's true nature as a being who possesses the sense of reason-capitalism is the only system that distinguishes that human beings can imagine. Certainly, individual rights and capitalism not only defend the individual person and possessions of each human being, but most significantly, they protect the individual intelligence of every human being. The mere intention of government in a democratic capitalistic society would be to protect its citizens from might or deceit. The safeguard from force, that is, the protection of individual rights, would be attained through the use of a police force to defend the rights of citizens at home; a military, to protect the rights of citizens from foreign violence; and a court system to implement agreements and resolve disputes among citizens. The supreme aggressor against man has been the different governments that man has taken on throughout history. This is why it is critical that governments be restricted in their capability to use power by a constitution based upon individual rights. Capitalism is the only system in which liberty and freedom can subsist. An individual is free when force is not being commenced against him. A man's freedom can only be infringed upon when another person or group of persons starts the use of physical force against him. The reality that an individual cannot begin his own company is an infringement of his freedom. In a liberated society all men may perform as they opt as so long as they do not violate on the freedom of others. Freedom is lone whole, and everything which decreases freedom on one part of our lives is probable to influence freedom in the other parts. Democracy and capitalism have very diverse viewpoint about the appropriate allocation of power. One considers in a totally equivalent allocation of political power, "one man, one vote', while the other believes that is the responsibility of the economically fit to guide the improvement of society. Though, in democratic-capitalistic societies power comes from two bases -wealth and political position. It has been probable to change economic power into political power or, equally, political power into economic power. Economic freedom is an obligatory means in the direction of the attainment of political freedom. The sort of economic organization that gives economic freedom directly, specifically competitive capitalism, also encourages political freedom, because it divides economic power from political power and in this way allows the one to counterbalance the other. The association between political and economic freedom is difficult and by no means one-sided. History proposes only that capitalism is an essential circumstance for political freedom. Evidently, it is not an adequate condition. Conclusion At last -- most significantly, in conditions of economic freedom's necessary contribution to democratic nations -specifically because economic freedom creates affluence, it creates countless pockets of wealth, interest, and power that are sovereign of the power of the state. This contributes enormously to the constancy of government. Paradoxically, the more interests or sections there are within a nation, the more complex for any one group of them to plot productively against the common good. An added advantage originates from the need repeatedly to guard against the infringement of state power. Milton Friedman makes this squabble very fine in his book, The Capitalist Revolution: "The modern state has the innate tendency to project its power further and further into society, unless it meets up with institutionalized limits . . . . Capitalist economy . . . creates its own dynamic that confronts the state as a relatively autonomous reality." Whatsoever the government then controls, it does not completely control this region, which infact limits state power. The 'fit' between capitalism and democracy is the result of this. I hope in the short occasion we have been together that I have persuaded you that freedom adds more than roasted chickens to the steadiness and welfare of democracy and capitalism. I do not for an instant imagine that freedom is a cure-all, or that democratic systems of government are devoid of difficulties. But history makes simple that no other means of commanding the political economies of nations approaches this powerful grouping in its capacity to supply material profusion while protecting the lives and freedom of normal men and women. Bibliography Milton Friedman; (September 15, 1982). Capitalism and Freedom. Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 2nd edition. 208 pages. ISBN: 0226264017. Quentin Skinner (January 13, 1998). Liberty before Liberalism. Publisher: Cambridge University Press. 156 pages. ISBN: 0521638763. Isaiah Berlin; "Two Concepts of Liberty": Notes for a commentary. Website accessed on 15-11-06. Online: Jonathan Wolff; (March 1, 1996). An Introduction to Political Philosophy (OPUS S.) Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA. 256 pages. ISBN: 0192892517. Read More