This is a post I've been wanting to write for awhile now, but because of professional circumstances, I just couldn't. Perhaps I still shouldn't. But I've got to understand my thoughts, and that means I've got to discuss them, and I do that best by writing. Somehow, this makes those thoughts seem official, so here I am, writing this now.
A few months before I graduated from Wooster, while I was riding the elevator to the third floor of Gault library, I realized that I didn't really believe insistence on personal property was an absolutely gospel-informed position to take. I wrote a post, one of the first on this blog, entitled "Am I a communist?" I don't know if I had an answer then. I've come down a little bit from it as I've let it slide out of my mind, but I can affirm that I probably, well, not really just probably, I am something of a socialist now.
That's a curse-word at Hillsdale and it should be unamerican enough that I wouldn't post July 3rd.
It all comes down though, to the foundations of economic ideology.
At its most redeemed, capitalism comes down to doing the best for yourself and hoping everyone else does the same, which means that everyone is better off. But it's still a system built on accumulating individual wealth. We become a product of our centers, and with a center predicated on making the most money possible, there's never going to be great fruit. That's a simple tenet. And thus, I can't be a capitalist. I can't say in consecutive sentences that I'm a Christ follower and a believer in an economic policy built on earning money. I'm not opposed to free markets, but I'm opposed to hunger, poverty, and the existence of the other.
So I've flipped it up. It's very imperfect in execution, but I'd rather have a foundation predicated on providing for the needs of the disenfranchised. Maybe it's just because it's a broken system, but capitalism today means pay raises for ceo's, not new jobs with money saved and earned. When your goal is to make as much money as possible however legally possible, there will often mean granting yourself a pay raise before you think about hiring more workers when the market isn't sustaining higher volume so expansion isn't practical. As investors, capitalism means putting your money in the best place to earn, but so often today, that means into corporations that perpetrate human rights violations on a daily basis.
Sure, communism has often failed. I'm shooting holes into a broken system in favor of a non-existent system. But all of those rhetorical facts against me, I can't get past where the foundation lies.
So what do I propose? A free market based on competition with higher personal income taxes on the richest 5%. The richest CEO in the country last year made about $85,000,000 in salary. Tax that by 60 percent and he still made more than 40,000,000. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/business/03pay.html?_r=2)
The critics say that stifles creativity and ambition. Well, I don't know about you, but I'd rather make $40,000,000 after taxes than $100,000 before. If we saw tax breaks leading to more jobs, I'd change my tune. If we saw non-profits completely funded, it'd be different. But the core is rotten. How could we ever expect otherwise from the fruit?
-Zack
"Can we just give love one more chance?"
-David Bowie
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