Socialism vs capitalism

Lachezar Tsenov BUS340 Capitalism or Socialism — Which is the moral social system? There are two major systems that compete for the name of moral social system. Capitalistic and socialistic ideas are quite different but both of them have a lot of supporters. Capitalism is about you pursuing your own goals and your goals only without caring about the others in the system. On the other hand, Socialism is about you pursuing the goals of you and the others at the same time. The question which system is the moral one is of high importance for the future of our world. Egoism is the word that best describes Capitalism. This system lies on the idea that people are born to become selfish and that it is our nature. That by seeking your own happiness and success you are doing the morally right thing because that is who you are. In contrast, Socialism is not only about you and your well-being but it is about you and the others’ happiness. The moral idea that supports this system is altruism- to care about the well-being of the others without any selfish intentions. What socialism promotes is that is morally right to pursue happiness of the whole society. Comparing egoism and altruism will give us the answer to the question which system is the moral one. And the answer is that it is not moral to live your life only in service to yourself but also to the people with whom you share this world. Many people that defend capitalism claim that people are motivated to seek their own satisfaction by nature. Every person is by nature selfish and there is nothing wrong to seek your own happiness. Moreover, the pursuit of happiness is one of the basic rights that a person has. It is said that this desire for private benefit motivates men to be better. The idea that capitalism is connected to human nature exists from the beginning. Adam Smith stressed human “ self-love” as a central motive for human actions. That means that a person acts only according to his desires and it is only moral to do so. You have to decide what is best for you and that is your moral obligation, the others are not your concern because it won’t be moral you to influence their way of living. In capitalism, man is an individual by nature and he is the one who has the power of his life. Why is egoism the moral way to live and why do we need a system that uses egoism as its main theme? Capitalist say that when you look for your best well being, you will always try to perfect yourself, you will always try to be better and more organized. With your life you have rights. The pursuit of happiness is a right you have since you are born. Therefore, by living, one accepts and follows this right. This happens by being selfish. And there is nothing morally wrong in it. And capitalism is the system that promotes egoism. That means it promotes every human being within the right to pursue happiness. Even further, it promotes our human nature. People that support capitalism state that because we humans are selfish by nature, we need a system that will suit it. Individuality is one of the main characteristic in a person. Capitalism is the morally right system because it gives freedom to this individuality. There are many critics to this promotion of selfishness. Many blame this system of encouraging vices as greed and materialism. On the other side, it can be said that Capitalism stimulates some virtues like honesty, independence, thrift and diligence. In addition, cooperation has a main place in this system. For example, if two people cooperate together, each of them will look for their benefit and this way both of them will win. Utilitarianism is an ethical system that also supports Capitalism. The argument for this statement is that the public welfare under Capitalism is promoted in the best way. Basically, the idea of Capitalistic system is to suit human nature the best. And human nature is selfish. Seeking your happiness in your own way is what capitalism is all about. Egoism is its main supporter. Socialism as a social system promotes the pursuit of common happiness. It’s not moral to be selfish, but it’s moral to think and work for the others as well. You are part of the society, so you work for it. Helping the others and sharing is considered moral in the socialistic system. Life is about choices. If you have a choice to help someone, what are you going to do? In socialism, your answer is that you will definitely help without any conditions. If you have two pieces of bread and someone has none, what are you going to do? In socialistic system, you will share the food because there is nothing more important than a human life and it’s moral to help the others. When we talk about socialism, altruism is the first thing that comes to mind. This ethical system fully supports socialism. Altruism suggests that helping others is one of the most important moral obligations that a person has. Socialistic idea consists of society of people with altruistic point of view. As a part of this society you have a moral duty to work for the common advantage. This social system is a system of “ higher” values. That is why most of the socialistic ideas look similar to ideas from religion. We all know The Ten Commandments of God and all the morals locked in the Bible. This sacred book is considered to be moral both in capitalistic and socialistic societies. It highly promotes helping the others, sharing and living not for oneself, but for everyone. Jesus Christ lived his human life in service of the humanity, that’s why his image is worshipped thousands of years. It doesn’t matter if this person existed or not but the idea of how he lived his life gained immortality. So, we can easily say that religion supports the ideas of socialism which is a very strong support. It is interesting to point out that utilitarianism supports socialism as well. The definition for utilitarianism states that everyone ought to act to promote the good that is the greatest happiness or well-being for the greatest number. The idea of socialism is happiness for everybody and, therefore, it can be said that this idea is utilitarian. In conclusion, Socialism and its ideas of helping the whole community and sharing what you have are beyond doubt moral. Altruism is the main ethical system that supports it. In order to understand which the moral social system is, we have to find the right ethical system. Egoism can be considered moral only if we accept that the human nature is selfish. Then acting as you are supposed to act, being selfish, is not morally wrong. Indeed, it is moral to follow your nature. Altruism, in contrast, can be considered moral if you do not take for granted that the human nature is selfish. Living for the good of the whole society, including you, is for sure morally right. But how can we say what human nature is? There is no technology created to determine or to research the so called human nature. All we have are assumptions, nothing else. And it is sad when you open an “ Intro to Politics” or the “ Economics” textbooks to see stated everywhere that human nature is selfish. Why should we take the fact that the human nature is egoistic for granted? How is it proven? The answer is that we don’t have to take for granted something that is not true. If all the people were selfish by nature, how come altruism exists? How come so many people help each other? How come there are so many remarkable acts of helping that are connected by no way to gains or benefits? The obvious answer is that there is no such thing as selfish human nature. Grigori Perelman solved the Poincare conjecture, one of the seven mathematical millennium problems, stated by the Clay Mathematical Institute in 2000. The reward for doing that was $ 1 000 000 but he declined them. If he was selfish by nature he would’ve taken the money but he didn’t. He didn’t dedicate big part of his life to receive something back. He didn’t solve it to gain something. What about Bethoven? He was considered crazy and he didn’t earn much for what he did during his life. However, Bethoven wrote this wonderful music without expecting anything back. Some of the music was done for Elise, the woman he was in love with. He knew that there is no chance to be with her but still he wrote “ fur Elise” because he was human, and that means not being selfish, but being able to give to the others without expecting something in return. Steve Erwin, “ the Crocodile Hunter”, is another great example of a person who is not egoist “ by nature”. He had a TV show where he was showing all kinds of animals. The purpose was to show the people that animals are not bad, but they act in accordance to their instincts. The even more admirable thing about him was that he used the money to buy land in Australia where animal reserves were created to protect the Australian’ kangaroos, koalas and other endangered species. Irwin dedicated his life in service to the animals and to show people how bad we are affecting our planet. Without a question, Steve Irwin was a great man and by no means was his nature selfish. There are many people like them. We cleared that there is no such thing as selfish nature. In comparison, we can state that there is no such thing as altruistic human nature as well. There are so many examples of egoistic people. Unfortunately, the truth is that there are more selfish than altruistic people in our world nowadays. But what is the reason for that? I live in a capitalistic society and through every level of education I’ve been taught to be egoist because I was supposed to be like this. In reality, people are selfish because the system teaches them to be egoists, but not because people are naturally selfish and the system is the result of that selfishness. Finally, the reason for human beings to be selfish or altruistic is not hidden in the human nature, but in the environment. When a child is raised and is constantly being told that it’s human to be selfish, then logically the child becomes an egoist. Life is about creating an environment for the next generation that will give them the opportunity to live better. Life is also about choices and we have a moral choice what environment to build for next generations. Clearly, it is easier to care only about yourself than to care for all. But is it moral? We have a choice what to be and what to build. The only moral choice is to work and build together for the better of the whole society; to live a way that everyone that need help will be helped, in a way that we can have a better development as humans and as civilization. We are people because we have morals. The moral future and moral system are of common goals, a chance of good life for everyone, a place where nobody will be left behind. Socialism never existed in reality. The political systems of USSR, Eastern Europe, Cuba and Venezuela were and are nothing more than totalitarianism. We have capitalism in its perfect form in our world today. The selfishness of capitalistic men led to one billion people without enough food, the richer getting richer and most of the wealth in hands of few people. In addition, we can mention the pollution problems and the still going on wars because of oil and other resources provoked only by some individuals’ selfishness. We have a choice to change things and create a better world. There is nothing moral in egoism and the misery it creates. Capitalism is definitely not the moral social system. The moral system is the one where all people are important, and where all people’s happiness is considered. A system that was never tested in reality — real socialism, is the moral choice. To conclude, the human nature is too complicated to be described by one word such as egoism or altruism. When we put selfishness against helping the others in terms of morality, selfishness doesn’t have a chance. If egoism is not moral, then Capitalism is not moral as well. Helping the others and sharing what, in first place, is common is moral and it is what every person should do. That’s why socialism is the moral social system.