What Is a Capitalist?; R. Clites

Are we to conclude that even though the program is having no measurable impact now, it willhave when there are more people available to ignore it? But never mind: The subsidies are in effect anyway, and the GAO estimates that they will cost the aforementioned $8 million THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY to $10 million in 1993 for the federal gov ernment's employees alone. It also esti mates that it might cost as much as $720 million to subsidize all those in the federal government who might ride the trains. Someone should ask whether fighting the pollution and congestion are worth that kind of spending, particularly when we are being told on all sides that we are in the midst of a financial crisis. And, once more, with feeling: Why spend it if it is not clear that it has any impact? The facts are: we cannot deduce a linear progression of city-centered, commuter traffic growth over the next 20 years; the government is not necessarily the best organ for determining how best to cope with the problem that we have; the various TCMs in place now are not working and are unlikely to have a larger effect on a population 20 years from now; and the government will find cooperation on the part of commuters easier to come by when it stops trying to coerce them all out of their cars and begins to make it easier and less expensive for them to drive. 0 What Is a CapitaIist?

by Roger M. Clites N ot many years ago rabble-rousers were able to ruin the career of almost anyone by labeling him a "communist." Now there are those who attempt to slander a person similarly by calling him a "capitalist." Roger Clites teaches at Tusculum College in Tennessee. When we look at all the mischief done by self-proclaimed communists we can see that that term may have deserved to be consid ered derogatory, although we must admit it was often misapplied. When people use the term "capitalist" in a derogatory manner, however, we question whether they know what a capitalist really is.

The first tangible act of a capitalist must be self-denial. In order to accumulate capital to save and invest, which is how one be comes a capitalist, one must first refrain from consuming a part of what one has produced and risk losing through his invest ment what he could have enjoyed at the time. Would those who label others "capi talist' , defend their supposed ridicule by decrying the act of self-denial? Another act of a capitalist is to provide capital goods, tools, and machines, for oth ers to use in their work, so that those others may be more productive. Capitalists are sometimes accused of exploitation when they hire others to use their capital goods. But how are those others exploited if they prefer the employment offered them by the capitalist to any other alternative available? The capitalist did not force them to accept the employment he offered; they accepted it voluntarily in preference to anything they could develop on their own and in prefer ence to anything else available. This is in direct contrast to what the communist or socialist does. In a controlled economy, where the factors of production, including labor, are allocated and forcefully directed by planners, exploitation really takes place.

A capitalist is one whose savings and investments make it possible for others to live above absolute poverty. Without capital with which to work, we would still be living in caves-if we were living at all-and wearing loincloths. Throughout much of history, poverty has been the condition of most of mankind, except for a few rulers who were the real exploiters of their fellow men. Even today poverty is the general condition of a large portion of the world's population. Only in those parts of the world where relative freedom made possible the accumulation of capital have the masses of people attained higher levels of material wellbeing. Only when and where people were allowed to keep the fruits of their labor to save and invest capital could economic progress take place. Without the accumulation and application of capital to agriculture the enormous pro ductivity of farmers in the United States WHAT IS A CAPITALIST? 519 could not have been attained. Without the accumulation and application of capital to increase productivity, childlabor would still be as widespread in the United States as it is in India where child labor laws have failed to abolish it. Without capital today's women would not have beeb liberated from the household drudgery which enslaved women of past generations. Modern grocery stores and cookstoves have eliminated the need for spending a whole day at least once a week doingthe familybaking. Automatic washers and dryers have done away with backbreak ing work of drawing water, scrubbing, boil ing, and wringing out the family laundry.

Wash-and-wear fabrics have substantially reduced the time and toil spent on ironing, first with flat irons that had to be heated again and again on a hot stove, and more recently with electric irons which reduced the toil substantially but fell far short of eliminating it. We flip a switch instead of chopping wood to heat our homes. Even the equipment used to cut logs today represents a substantial improvement over earlier days. Arduous labor of many kinds has been done away with by the introduction of capital equip ment, the use of computers, and the activ ities of capitalists. A list of the contributions of capitalists would be almost endless. Sometimes the capitalist is painted as dooming workers to "dehumanizing" toil, monotonous, repetitive work. On the con trary, productivity is so much greater, even in routine work, that workers have far more leisure time to engage in pursuits other than grubbing for a living. Far from dehumaniz ing mankind, capitalism has enhanced the quality of life.

No matter how you consider the capital ist, he is not the evil person he is portrayed by many to be. Those who presume to malign him by labeling him a capitalist, which he is, should consider what that label really means. A capitalist begins by denying himself consumption he could have en joyed, undertakes risk, transforms his sav ings into tools and machines that help to increase production, and so becomes a benefactor of man. 0 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY FDA and the Market In Natural Medicine by Stephanie Hiller H ow much government intervention is appropriate in a free market has been the subject of lively debate for many years. This debate is characterized by the incon sistent demands people make on the State. In 1934, Walter Lippmann commented: The pure doctrine of nonintervention in production in trade has never, in fact, been practiced anywhere .. One could ar gue plausibly that most men have shown in their behavior that they wished to impose free capitalism on others and to escape it themselves. Employers have believed in it for their employees, and have appealed to it against factory laws and unionism. But they have not hesitated to call upon the State for protection against foreign competitors.