BAYSIDE, NY – In a previous entitled, “Why Capitalism is a Failed Idea,” taken from my book “Essays on the Christian Worldview,” I posited that the capitalistic system had serious and significant defects and, for want of a better word, failings. I said in that essay that capitalism in its present form is based on competitiveness, greed, and survival of the fittest, fails as an economic system and even as a philosophical system or moral system since it cuts out and excises a large percentage of people who are given no chance at all because of their race, economic status and even their health. I stated that Capitalism fails to provide sharing and equality but rewards brute strength and wealth acquisition as the method and goal of the society. I said in that essay that a mixed system of socialism and capitalism would be the solution to a more equal, just, and better society for all.
In this present essay, I would like to point out other factors in our present society that make capitalism a failed concept and economic system. It has been propagandized that, in fact, there is a free market in the United States and so, it is said, there is equal opportunity for all and equal chances. I do not think at the present time it is true that, in fact, the so-called free market is at all free and open to all. We have experienced a significant concentration of wealth in the United States through mergers of companies. The independent hardware stores have been eliminated to be replaced and substituted by Home Depot. Independent stationary stores have been replaced by Staples. In dependent drugstores have been replaced by Rite Aid and CVS. Even to some extent independent restaurants have been replaced by chains such as Ruby Tuesday, Taco Bell, etc. Thus, the ability to establish independently a successful business in this so-called free market is extremely difficult. Even doctors no longer find it easy to establish their own medical practices, and many join HMOs. Lawyers, although many have their own practices, are faced with competition from major law firms that dominate the legal field and for one reason or another have obtained all the business clients. Thus, the notion or idea that we have a free market I do not believe to be at all true. We have increasingly in the United States an economic system where through mergers more and more business are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
I say this capitalism is a failed idea not only as I said in my first essay, conceptually and philosophically, but also practically since in reality we do not live in a capitalist system. Rather the truth of the matter is that we live in a plutocratic and oligarchic system where true competition is significantly stifled by the major corporate sector or at least there is a significant attempt to do so.
Capitalism is a failed idea because it is based on and rooted in greed and wealth acquisition, which is morally wrong. Moreover, quite simply, it is no longer functional. The media may promulgate the myth of the free market but that market is no longer free. The capitalist system that formerly gave some equal chance to all does not do so anymore. I do not say that communism or socialism are a solution but do say that repair and modification of the capitalist system for it to work as envisioned and intended must be made.
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