Capitalism develops self-respect, statism destroys it

Self-respect and responsibility are personal qualities of fundamental importance to a person. Let's start with this definition: Self-respect is the ability to accept ourselves as competent to cope with the main challenges of life and to be worthy of happiness. It is confidence in the efficiency of our mind, in our ability to think. It is confidence in our ability to learn, to make appropriate choices and decisions, and to respond effectively to change. Taking responsibility is putting self-respect into action and realizing that we ourselves are responsible for our thoughts, words, our actions, the consequences of those actions, and our relationships with other people. Taking responsibility means realizing that no one but us will do these actions and that if we ourselves do not take full responsibility for them, we are doomed to failure and unhappiness.

From the science of human action - praxeology - we know that man is a social animal. Society is a coordinated action for cooperation between people. This is the result of conscious and purposeful behavior for the most fruitful satisfaction of the experienced inconvenience that life brings us. Society - this social system of organization for cooperation between people - is based and built on moral values. Depending on the two opposing types of moral behavior - individualism and collectivism, both political systems for the organization of society arise. Capitalism and socialism. Or freedom against violence - in the form of statism.

Statism - this political ideology of state intervention in the economy - is based on the principle that a person's life and the fruits of his labor belong to the state, which is the final arbiter, deciding how and in what amount it will be taken from the individual. In this respect, statism is a major factor in the socialist system. It is the way in which those in power try to destroy or control the capitalist system.

The free market and self-respect

The free market rewards with self-respect those who take responsibility. This is because the market economy is based on the law of logic – A is A – a thing is itself, it has a specific identity. Wealth is not taken for granted, but comes from the thinking and work, mixed with the factors of production by a given individual or group of individuals. The unregulated market economy does not reward undeservedly. Every success, every undertaking, wealth and prestige must be deservedly earned by the individual’s own efforts, by the fact that he has a high opinion of his own abilities and has taken full responsibility for the performance and consequences of his actions. Success is possible only as a result of man’s capabilities – his knowledge, intelligence, productivity, economic judgment in seeking and producing the most pressing needs of consumers that must be satisfied. If he fails to do this task, he takes full responsibility. He is the loser and bears the consequences of his actions.

What kind of self-respect can we talk about in a regulated economy? What kind of responsibility can we look for in a violent system where decisions are made by people who do not take any responsibility for failure? Taking responsibility is a quality that is missing in it. Unlike the businessman, whose success is based on taking responsibility in the form of skills, knowledge, productivity, innovation, economic judgment and his voluntary interaction with everyone around him - his customers, suppliers, employees, creditors and investors, the civil servant needs only political commitment to guarantee his work and his successes. The forcibly taken income that he receives as a means of subsistence, he considers secure and regardless of how much and how he will work, when they are provided for him, the effort he puts in is many times less, because there is no motivation to move him forward and constantly seek the best solution to the problems.

Redistribution and loss of self-esteem

In the redistribution of income - social benefits and subsidies - lies the fundamental principle that distinguishes the psychologically free from the coercive (statist) political system. In the market economy, there is no redistribution of income through coercion, precisely because it is based on self-respect and self-responsibility. Having self-respect requires that your rights be respected. Which means being able to dispose of yourself, your time, your body, your income, your private property, as you see fit, without being ordered and imposed on you by other people.

Social benefits and subsidies are a reward for the abdication of responsibility. They are not given for positive qualities and achievements, but for their lack. With our own funds, taken without our permission, the state rewards evil at the expense of good. We sponsor people whose goods are not bought, people who do not work; people without abilities; at the same time we punish successful entrepreneurs for their profits by collecting taxes.

Or in the words of Nathaniel Brandon: A 15-year-old girl gets pregnant, she doesn't know who the father of the child is. The girl doesn't have the means to raise this child, so she gets welfare from the state. And then we wonder and complain about why there are so many children having children. But the truth is, if we want to discourage a certain behavior, we don't reward it. The welfare state does!

If we want this to change, we need a change in thinking, in our ideas, that will lead to the desired results. And the principle is very simple - rewarding positive traits and behavior, instead of negative ones, which would mean believing in freedom itself. In the unregulated capitalist system of organizing society.

The reason why we have never had a completely unregulated market economy in history is precisely in the qualities of people coming to the fore. Unlike socialism, capitalism needs people with high self-respect and self-responsibility in order to exist. We need an emphasis on these moral foundations that stimulate creation. In a free market, only you will be responsible for your actions, and by necessity this system of organization of society would develop to the maximum the qualities of respecting yourself and being responsible for your actions and deeds. Such a change in the personal qualities of people would lead to a fundamental change in social life. The qualities of standing up for your personality would not only change our entire life, but would also significantly enrich that of other people through an increasingly higher standard of living.

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