Capitalism. I’ve been doing it all my life. My first capitalist venture involved peddling Grit Magazine subscriptions door to door. I was seven years old. I know something about capitalism. It can be a force for good, and it can be a force for unspeakable evil.
Over my lifetime I have owned more small businesses than most guys have owned shirts. Together, Mary Ann and I have done everything from peddling faux armadillo purses and Mexican jewelry out of a VW bus (no armadillos were harmed) to practicing law, from jewelry manufacturing to writing and licensing courseware for training graphics professionals. Between each one of those examples were a dozen others. It was all capitalism. Every bit of it, and most of it was good.
When we were very young, capitalism allowed us to get lost in America, as we wandered across the country in seemingly aimless patterns for two years, supporting ourselves with the skills of itinerate vendors. Today, capitalism gives us the opportunity to reinvent our business in ways we hope will survive a depressed economy. These are some of the good things that capitalism does.
Capitalism, however, does good things only when it is kept in balance with the truly important things in life—love, compassion, charity, honesty and integrity. When it is allowed free reign to do as it pleases, it inevitably runs amok. In such circumstances capitalism transforms into something ugly, brutal and antagonistic to the human spirit. It may well be the greatest force for evil yet invented by man.
Over the past many years, capitalism increasingly has been given free reign. Deregulation of critical industries has led to unrestrained greed, plundering and looting of corporations by the very executives charged with a fiduciary duty to shareholders, and waste and fraud on a heretofore unprecedented scale. More tragically, setting capitalism loose from all restraints has allowed it to run rough shod over our very souls.
Unless you are a Marxist or monk, you will likely need more persuading of such a radical thesis. Sadly, persuasive evidence is all too readily at hand. In the video to the right of this article you will see irrefutable evidence that unrestrained capitalism has so desensitized the American spirit to the pain and agony of helpless animals that we, alone among the democratic nations of the world, permit the wholesale torture and mistreatment of farm animals every day, from Maine to California.
For nothing more than a bag of silver and cheaper eggs at the grocery, we have turned a deaf ear to screams of agony and hardened our hearts to all pleas that we relent. Animal life, we have told ourselves, is no life at all. It is nothing more than a commodity, an ingredient in a product. We avert our eyes for we know it is a lie, and we cheapen our lives with our disregard for theirs.
The factory farming techniques and practices shown in the video would constitute crimes, serious crimes, in any of the European democracies. Punishment for these crimes might involve fines, forfeiture of assets, or imprisonment. Only in the United States and such outlaw states as Iran can factory farmers so freely brutalize animals with no fear of retribution. Is this the company we wish to keep? Apparently, it is.
Through unspeakbly cruel and brutal practices, the factory farm boosts production and maximizes profits. In today’s version of American capitalism, the greater the insult to decency and compassion, it seems, the greater the competitive advantage.
Watch the video. This time, don’t turn away. Take a good, long look at what we have become, then tell me if this makes you proud to be an American.
Not long ago a majority of our citizens voted for change. I like to believe we were longing for a change of heart.
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We treat people the same way.