THE IMMORALITY OF CAPITALISM

Being a product of the capitalist system, born into it, raised in it, educated in it, I never questioned its morality. I saw that it created a disparity in income and standard of living among the population but I attributed it mostly to the difference in individual native ability or education or just plain luck. Living in Chicago during my college years I saw the enormous slums and riots there more the result of racial prejudice than of the system. In other words the opportunity to succeed was always there; it's the American ethic.

Believing this as gospel after graduating college I went to work for several companies, both large and small, in various industries for the next twenty years. There I observed that the incomes of the top managers and owners were far beyond anything that I could aspire to, at least as an employee. The solution would be to somehow start my own business, as my father did. And the underlying assumption was that money would determine the measure of my success. After all, it defined the American free enterprise ethos.

I was a perfect candidate to achieve that success. I was a believer in the system without regard for, or really awareness of, its negative aspects. It was total acceptance; I had faith in its rightness as if it were a religion. So after two decades of being a cog working for other companies, I went into business, a manufacturing business, where I thought I would have total control over my destiny, and where nothing I did could harm anything or anyone else so long as I was honest and acted within the law. I couldn't have deluded myself more.

While I was in business – having sold the business I'm now retired – you might say I was a type A personality, driven, meeting crises head on, hiring and firing people strictly from the point of view of whether they benefited the enterprise or not. We polluted the air, generated toxic waste which ended up in landfills, and sold materials which often caused environmental damage, and even health risks. Nothing that we did was illegal. Everything we did was sanctioned by our government and our community and considered beneficial to the economy and the nation.

And in some sense it was. Our company gave people employment; it manufactured much needed industrial products; it paid ever increasing taxes to our town and the nation; it contributed to the general prosperity of the community. Indeed it was a typical capitalistic model to be emulated. Yet, gradually, as over the years I witnessed our success, I began feeling something was wrong. Something was incorrect with the model, and with my thinking. I began questioning my original concept that capitalism had no downsides.

I began to be bothered seeing my workers, many years older than myself, doing difficult physical work at a time when they should be easing off. I began to worry whether they could maintain their standard of living when they retired. I came to realize my company was no more than a dictatorship in which no one had any say. And I came to be concerned with where our waste hauler dumped our waste. And on a personal level, I began to see that my family was paying a price as a result of my relentless driving, and dedication to the business. Materially, they were better off than most of the people in our community, in our nation, but on an emotional, human level they were deprived. This was perhaps the worst negative of all for being a capitalist.

I know of no other economic system that offers more than capitalism. I recall as a young man during World War II admiring the Communist system because in theory it was supposed to equalize the distribution of wealth. Our nation, the world, was just recovering from a destructive depression in which poverty was the norm. Many questioned our system then. Of course, in Soviet Russia under its dictatorship the government never practiced what it preached and it failed to recognize the inherent human need of its citizens: personal incentive. And personal incentive, for whatever gain whether money or the simple desire to do good, is the main feature of capitalism, the force that drives it. We now know that political freedom is not necessary for capitalism to thrive. Witness China today.

Under capitalism there's also the assumption that money is the driver. One would think so after seeing the outrageous incomes paid to corporate CEOs these days. Not necessarily so. In Japan, for instance, the CEOs are not motivated by money. Exorbitant salaries are peculiarly American. I discovered that while managing my company being creative in meeting the challenge of succeeding was far more gratifying than the large income I was drawing. And eventually I found that bringing all the employees into a unified effort and cultivating their trust and devotion to our cause by opening our books and consulting them at every turn, listening to their ideas and implementing them, was the most satisfying reward I ever received in running the business.

But we must understand that living in a capitalist society requires a trade off. To succeed in business involves sacrificing such responsibilities as being with one's family often when they need you, of putting aside personal feelings and empathy when they interfere with the bottom line, of being single minded of purpose while failing to consider a larger purpose, the community, of trying to destroy one's competition who is seeking to destroy you. Capitalism is no nirvana. It is very hard on its participants, but you'd never know it they way it is touted in the media. I encourage people in business who accept blindly the demands of capitalism, whether leader or worker, to compromise. Remember who you are, and those who love and depend on you. Don't let the system make you become someone else.