In the last issue of The Bagpipe, an article written by Elias Vedders addressed the topic of capitalism and how the only way to truly achieve this ideal was to accept dictatorship. Vedders’s article can best be summed up by its final sentence, which stated, “...if we want capitalism to perform at its peak, perhaps it’s time to give dictatorial regimes a second chance.”
Vedders argued that society is held back by the fact that experts aren’t allowed to dictate policy without interference from the public. The masses, Vedders argued, “simply cannot know everything.” Dictatorship, though, can solve these problems, and reach a higher form of capitalism. While his logical reasoning is sound, Vedders based his points on faulty assumptions.
The first big assumption he makes is about what capitalism is. Vedders is right when he said that capitalism relies heavily on the division of labor, and he is also correct in stating that this is not unique to capitalism. What really makes capitalism unique is the structure it follows. As Merriam-Webster puts it, capitalism is “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” By its very nature, capitalism cannot exist in a dictatorship. No, the economic structure that dictatorships follow is the command economy, an economy where the government decides what is produced.
Command economies have three central characteristics. All industries are run, directly or indirectly, by the central government, so there is no pressure of being undercut. Because competition is destroyed, prices don’t need to be improved. Business need not be innovating to achieve victory; rather, it is a foregone conclusion. And speaking of innovation, command economies are not the best place for new inventions. Vedders mentioned Communist China in his article, but can you name any major inventions coming from China? The United States, a leader in innovation, has continued to create things such as the iPhone and the Tesla, and even some of the new COVID-19 vaccines. China, on the other hand, has to rely on others for new technologies.
The second major issue of command economies are the experts themselves. Vedders claimed that governments should let experts be experts so that “they don’t have to water down their work.” However, a major issue is whether the government should be a pure dictatorship or an oligarchy, ruled by the elite. Both have their share of problems. In a pure dictatorship, there would likely only be a few experts at the top, but the experts would need to be versed in a wide array of topics. In an oligarchy, there would be enough experts to cover each topic. Unfortunately, this would result in massive chaos. Different experts would suggest different goals; thus, certain experts would have to be ignored. The dictator would have to choose what to value and what to ignore.
Speaking of the dictator, this brings up a third major issue. Vedders’s article assumed that the government would be able to vest itself in a single person. As Lord Acton famously said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” History seems to support his claim. Look at the USSR, look at China, look at Cuba. And as Paul writes in Romans 3:10, “None is righteous, no, not one,” and in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” People are evil, so why would we expect the dictator not to be? While capitalism assumes that men are greedy, dictatorships assume that there’s a person who isn’t.
Vedders began his article by stating that “[c]apitalism has been championed, largely, by democracy. We take it for granted that capitalism exists only in democracies.” However, capitalism and democracy are not just two ideas that tend to be correlated together. Capitalism is democracy. Capitalism is the idea that the public decides what is best, and that people vote with their money. Capitalism was built for democracy, and built for the idea that the consumer, not the expert, is always right.