Capitalism - Hero or Culprit; R. Bradford

Ralph Bradford CAPITALISM Hero or Culprit? PICTURE in your mind a large, gross man, with a huge paunch, heavy jowls, wicked, pig-like eyes, and a scowling face. Clothe him in gaudy but expensive garments, decorate his vest with dollar symbols, and drape it with an elaborate gold watch chain. Let him hold an over-size ci gar in a bejeweled left hand, and put a bullwhip in the other. If you want to add a really effec tive touch, let him be standing with one foot on the neck of a prostrate widow in front of the house from which he has just evicted ,her; and let her ragged children be standing by, weeping and wringing their emaciated little hands. Mr. Bradford was a noted poet, writer, speaker and business organization consultant. He returned cor rected galleys of this article a few days before his death on October 17,1982, in Ocala, Florida. 750 I think I need hardly emphasize that I have just taken you for a brief excursion into a scene out of the past-a picture that is rarely in voked in these times, but is not so distant in time as to have lost much of its effect on the mind and heart of those who once saw it. For many years that was the classical leftist concept of "the Capitalist," as rep resented by thousands of cartoons, and as portrayed by anti-capitalistic artists, orators and writers.

And while it has now gone out of fashion as a newspaper stereotype, and while leftist speakers are less blatant in their portrayals, the impression created by that old smear technique lingers in the minds of many. To them "capitalism" is still a kind of dirty word, and the capi talist is generally a reprehensible, if not a monstrous, character.

CAPITALISM-HERO OR CULPRIT? 751 So ... let's spend a little time ex amining some of our pet monsters. Take capitalism. Is it an economic culprit. or a social hero? Good ques tionand I hasten to answer, with stentorian emphasis-neither! To be a hero or a cuIpri t; to be innocent or guilty; to be noble or base;-this requires the attributes of person and personality. And capital ism has neither. It is a device, a socioeconomic mechanism. It has no traits of char acter, good or bad. It is not capable of either guilt or innocence. It is an impersonal piece of economic ma chinery that men have devised and developed, to help them in the con stantly changing, ever evolving pro cess of producing and exchanging goods and services. Managedby Human Beings If you want to say that there are bad capitalists-that there are self ish, stupid, avaricious, shortsighted, antisocial men engaged in capital istic enterprise-you will get no ar gument from me. Indeed, out of my own experience I could supply you with some derogatory adjectives that may not have occurred to you!

But that is just another way of saying that capitalistic enterprise is managed by human beings. Such characters are not bad, selfish, stu pid, avaricious and so forth because they are capitalists, but because they are men. They would display precisely the same objectionable traits under socialism or communism would, and do; for the law courts of the socialistic countries are heavily docketed with both civil and crimi nal cases. As for communism, in the Russian Paradise itself the con trolled press used to inveigh con stantly against the "criminals" who are sabotaging industrial or agricul tural production. 'rfhe alleged crime there is to divert materials from government factories and convert them into luxury; items for sale on the black market. Within a decade after Khrush chev decided to impose the death penalty for such offenses, 163 viola tors were executed by firing squads. And it was soon discovered that peo ple (supposedly good communists) were setting up a !secret knitting op eration to turn out sweaters and shirts. The yams and raw wool were, of course, stolen c-from government vvarehouses, and the promoters net ted the ruble equivalent of over three lnillion dollars in about four years time. The leader and three others were sentenced to be shot, and the others to long terms in prison.

In passing, we might note here that nothing better illustrates the differ ence between capitalism and com munism than what I have just re lated. I do not mean the circumstance of applying the death penalty for a civil offense. I mean the fact that capi talism is an economic system, 752 THE FREEMAN December operating under government and law, whereas communism is the government and the law, to which every commercial and industrial process must be subordinate and subservient. The Development of the American BusinessSystem The thing that has emerged as the American Business System-or as American Capitalism (for practi cally all businesses, even very small ones, are operated on accumulated capitan-this thing we call Ameri can Business is an evolution, with values added as the years have passed, and with further changes and evolution yet to be made, no doubt, as our economy develops and our needs expand. I suppose the best ev idence of its utility and permanence is that it has survived and developed during nearly two centuries of trial and error.

The whole experience of man, of course, has been a struggle, a grop ing upward. His primary physical need, aside from biologic demands, was for food, clothing and shelter. Later, comforts, conveniences and luxuries were·added. To provide this in all its ramifications, man devel oped a set of mechanisms-trade, transportation, markets, money, credit .. Of first importance among these was trade, the great civilizer. Some years ago I wrote and pub lished a little book of verse that I called "Heritage." It was my effort to express in metrical measures something of the physical, moral, religious and political legacies that have come down to us from the past. Well, leaving aside its poetic mea sures, let me summarize here the guess I made in it as to the real ori gin of the thing we call trade. One day a hairy hunter staggered home to his cave, under the weight of a small venison-happy to have provided some food for his cave and its inmates, but distraught because, in killing the deer with a well-aimed arrow, he had broken his last flint head, and must now spend a lot of time and effort to find and fashion another to replace it.

His neighbor, however, had a dif ferent kind of problem to worry about. With all the instincts and needs of a good hunter, he was how ever, lame from a broken hip, and could not go afield to hunt big game. Instead, he had to content himself with wild fruit, and with easily caught small fish, for food. This handicap, however, allowed him plenty of time to sit before his cave and chip pieces of rock into flint heads-an occupation at which he had become rather expert. As his hunter friend drew near, he had sev eral such flints all shaped and ready to become spear or arrow points. But ... he had no food; and he was hun gry! And then, suddenly: 1982 CAPITALISM-HERO OR CULPRIT? 753 The thought elusive that had burned With smoking smudge, remote and dull, Within each thick and troubled skull Burst forth at last in vocal flame. Each gave a start, and then a shout Of wonderment; and each held out, The one his flint, the one his game, And thus a mighty force was sired.

Man's life would never be the same, Each gave the thing he least required, And gained the thing he most desired! The Process of Exchange Well ... in some such fashion the principle oftrade was discovered, and a first long step was taken toward civilization. For that (or some expe rience like it) was the beginning of specialization, which was the con venience under which individuals no longer had to supply with their own hands all they needed, but each could specialize in what he did best, easi est, and with most pleasure. This gave to those who wanted it freedom for leisure; and with leisure, even a little of it, came time to wonder, to think, to dream, to question, to doubt, to createin short, to begin to be civilized. That was trade-exchange; and it is still at the heart of business. It has almost infinite ramifications finances, credit, production, distri bution, salesmanship, advertising, competition, legal observances and restrictions,-but it comes down fi nally to an exchange between two -people.

The two cave men of my little po etic fable stood face to face. In mod ern commerce th~ original producer and ultimate consumer almost never see each other .•A score, maybe a hundred, intermediaries may stand between them. But the principle and the results are the same. Namely, Mr.· A has produced something far in excess of his need for that particular thing. He re ceives tokens for the time and skill he has expended in producing the thing. These tokens are called money. Another man, Mr. B, has done the same thing with ·someother product. On the open market each exchanges his tokens-his money-for what he needs of the other's product,-and so do millions of others,-with some grumbling, some cheating, some chiseling going on, no doubt; but with general satisfaction, benefit and convenience to all concerned. Some years ago I saw this graphi cally illustrated. A television com mercial was extolling the superior grade of cotton. in a product being advertised. It showed two men in a raw cotton wareroom-a seller and a buyer. Many samples ofcotton were spread out on tables-handfuls oflint that had been pulled from bales in a distant warehouse, each sample tagged by number to its. far-away parent bale.

The seller demonstrated the qual ity of the various samples-long staple, freedom from dirt, etc. After 754 THE FREEMAN some haggling back and forth as to price and number of bales available, the buyer said okay-and the deal was closed. And as the scene closed, I remarked to my wife, who hap pened to be with me, "Multiply what we have just seen by a thousand, and you have that mysterious thing called the cotton market." Back of each of those men was a small army-farmers, truckers, weighers, graders, ginners, com press men, railroaders, weavers, spinners, salesmen-and hundreds more. But the whole business was built around the point where two men strike a bargain for X bales of cot ton. That is trade; that is business; and The Businessman's Morals that, in these modern times, is capi talism. Business is more than a store, or an office, or a bank, or a stock exchange. It is the whole, vast, infi nitely complicated yet essentially simple matter of exchanging the ex cess goods and services provided by a million John Does, for the similar excess of other goods and services produced by a million Richard Roes to the benefit of all.

Finally, it is summed up in a cou plet from my little poetic analysis: Each gave the thing he least required, And gained the thing he most desired. These men are capitalists. What about your capitalist? Is he a hero, or a culprit? , IDEAS ON LIBERTY BUSINESSMEN are a cross section of the whole society, neither more nor less moral than the whole. The function of business is to feed and clothe and house and serve the people. It could do a better job if it were freer to meet that responsibility, with less lecturing and backseat driving by the innumerable army of monitors of business. Let the whole people share in carrying the conscience of society. There is an inclination to believe that when an action is contem plated, two alternatives will present themselves-one clearly labeled "Right," and the other "Wrong." Actually, there may be a choice of several courses of action, each of which has elements of moral sanction and other aspects of doubtful propriety. In short, we do not have just black and white indicia to guide our moral instinct, but also a large area of varying shades of gray. It is in this setting that a businessman must decide. He is called upon continually to exercise managerial judg ment,· not only in the economic zone, but in the ethical as well.

FRED DE ARMOND A REVIEWER'SNOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN TheEconomy •In Mind THE double entendre in Warren T. Brookes's title, The Economy in Mind (New York: Universe Books, 381 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016, 256 pp., $15.95) is presum ably intentional. Quite literally Mr. Brookes, a former Boston business man who has recently set up shop as our most lucid economic columnist, means that wealth starts with ideas in people's heads. This truth, unfor tunately, is not at all apparent to the majorities that control our des tinies. So, with the future of the economy in mind, Mr. Brookes pa tiently points out to the erring mul titudes certain facts which, if acted upon, could restore us to an old American heritage of free choice in plentiful circumstances. The significance of the first mean ing of Mr. Brookes's title is particu larly obvious from the author's own Massachusetts vantage point. All along Route 128 outside of Boston little companies exploiting the new knowledge that comes out of elec tronics and the computer have grown fat. The so-called high tech origins of these companies are in the Amer ican university world as exemplified by nearby institutions such as M.I.T., the University. of Massachusetts, Boston University, Boston College and (though Mr, Brookes has a low opinion of certain Harvard profes sors of political science) Harvard.