Capitalism Is Not A Punchline

During the December 28th episode of Fox's animated series American Dad, there were numerous jokes about capitalism. The entire series is dedicated to mocking conservative values but until that moment I had never considered capitalism to be a thing to be portrayed as conservative or liberal. It's our economic system, it always has been, and the idea that it should be trivialized with some Hollywood writer's jokes is just ignorant.

Over the past several months politicians have been tearing down pieces of capitalism in favor of socialist policies. Barack Obama was elected on such ideals. Likewise President Bush and many people in Congress have been driving these same issues in the last few months. Again, I think ignorance is at play here. Ignorance of what capitalism has built in this country.

People are angry about the economic meltdown that started in 2008, and it is certainly far from over. The politicians assure them that they are gonna stop this from happening again and instead of punishing people who have abused the system, they are punishing the system. Capitalism did not create this economic crisis, greed did. It was politicians who were greedy for votes and so they pressured banks to make bad loans to people who couldn't afford them. It was greedy banks who went along with it to squeeze some money out of poor people. It was poor people who were greedy for a house they couldn't afford and so took a loan that they couldn't possibly pay back. Every economic system in the world is susceptible to greed, it's how well the system works when it's not run by crooked people that is important. If all of the sleazy people who ran this economy into the ground were actually being held accountable then it would have put a stop to it all.

So for those people who are so eager to tear down capitalism let's take a look around the world at some other examples. How about the USSR? Communism created so much poverty that it couldn't be sustained and they collapsed. How about Cuba? Again, poverty is rampant. Venezuela? Socialism is crippling the average citizen while filling the pockets of the government. China is a great example. It's the only truly wealthy communist nation and why are they wealthy? Because we pour billions of dollars into their economy every year buying goods from them. Capitalism has been so successful that it lifts the economic status of not only our own nation but of the largest communist nation as well.

So someone please show me how capitalism doesn't work because I'm really not seeing it. You want socialism? Then you're going to get it. When the dust settles we will be as poor and dependent on our government as the rest of the world. If I wanted to relive the Feudal Age, I'd go visit a renaissance fair.