Response to Capitalism's Critics
Most critiques of Capitalism are actually complaints about perversions of it.
by Rod D. Martin
May 25, 2013
Several commenters have replied to my piece concerning the Pope's attack on capitalism. The strongest of these point out the tendency of some capitalist economies (particularly ours, of late) toward monopolies, government enterprises, and a general "bigness" that colludes with government.
My response is that all these things constitute a perversion of capitalism, not its essence. Capitalism is about every individual being able at any time, with a better idea and a whole lot of work, to completely disrupt the status quo. Sure, IBM may be big today, but an Apple or Microsoft can always knock it off tomorrow. The more free a particular market truly is, the more you see this: Facebook wiped out MySpace in a year. And you may be certain that none of those MySpace employees went into a breadline.
No, we are both Christian and capitalist, which means we are conservatives, not libertarians. The libertarians would have you believe in anarchy (Rothbard, or worse, Spoo…