Don Crawford

Don Crawford

President of Crawford Broadcasting and the voice of the STAND Podcast

The Capitalism of America

Do you believe in Capitalism?

Do you know what Capitalism is?

Do you understand how this very special way of life works?

You and I really should know everything there is to know about this great system of belief and lifestyle for it is under attack in America and around the world as never before. If you really understand what Capitalism is, I dare say you would be inclined to think most favorably of it and you would defend it against the socialistic and Marxist attacks against it. You would want, as the old saying goes, to use it and defend it before you lose it.

The essential tenet of Capitalism is the private ownership of goods and services. Those capital goods and services are owned by private individuals or by Corporate entities. They are not owned or controlled by the government, by any government federal, state or local. The goods and services which we enjoy as Americans and often take for granted are originated (ideas), developed, manufactured and marketed by:

ENTREPRENEURS.

The owners are business men and women who develop IDEAS and then with hard work and perseverance turn those ideas into reality. These private persons or corporations manufacture these goods and services so that they produce economic value for the user, the buyer and for the owning entrepreneur as well. These creators, these innovators are free to market the goods and services which are the products of their ideas without undue government interference or restraint. You can essentially do as you wish, economic freedom at its very best. That is the essence of Capitalism. Following your dreams. Working to make them happen. Knowing that in America, there will always be:

          OPPORTUNITY

to do what you want, what you think is right. Capitalism is the stuff, the substance of:

          THE AMERICAN DREAM.

Capitalism further allows and encourages investments, financial investments. These investments are made by private individuals and Corporate entities and THEY make the decisions. These private entrepreneurs personal and corporate are the:

          DECISION MAKERS.

Not government. Not social entities. Not nonprofit corporations. Not reformers and complainers. But:

          DOERS.

People and corporations which really make things happen. The essential difference between controlling government and individuals determined to exploit opportunity is that decision makers DO and government attempts to tell decision makers what to do. Government in so many ways is not productive, produces nothing in the way of capital goods and services and often destroys the first roots of those who do. Capitalism wages constant battle against government control. The system at work chafes at bureaucratic interference, the negative and suffocating effect of regulations and most importantly, the endless series of taxations which inevitably accompany creative and fruitful production and creation. Government carefully follows the productivity of entrepreneurs, ready to tax and control at every hand. Entrepreneurs resist that and the economic battle for freedom and control rages everywhere.

Capitalism thrives on a FREE MARKET. The more good business can be done in America, and the world over, the better for business. The free market produces one of the key elements of Capitalism, namely:

          COMPETITION.

Nothing makes things better than competition, there, with high standards and always with the OPPORTUNITY to build as the old saying goes:

          A BETTER MOUSE TRAP.

The better the product or service, the better the price. Capitalism prices according to value, real value to the buyer and seller. Entrepreneurs decide how much to produce and how to produce it. They make decisions with respect to distribution, marketing, branding, and the timing, the places and the choice personnel to sell those well produced goods and services. Capitalism done right, implemented well is the lifestyle and economic fulfillment of the American constitutional promise of:

          LIFE – LIBERTY – HAPPINESS.

Capitalism is in many ways the fullest expression of our constitutional hopes and freedoms promised to every citizen. Done right, it is the way and means to the fulfillment of:

          THE AMERICAN DREAM.

Capitalism also provides better jobs, better employment. Capitalism at work allows employees to grow, prosper and compete. Capitalism produces WEALTH. Although at times that wealth can be improperly exploited, done right, it creates opportunity for all who wish to grow, provide lives for their families, and live a better life individually. Capitalism at work can often create an imbalance, and at times even an inequity. But, done and implemented fairly, it rewards ingenuity, ideation and most importantly, hard work, very hard work. The diligence and perseverance of entrepreneurs is the very stuff, the substance of the EXCEPTIONAL American lifestyle. It produces constant economic motion and motivation. It is always at work. It allows you and me in America to live the finest lifestyle ever in the history of mankind. It is a way of life, done right, which should be applauded on the one hand and mightily defended on the other. Would that all Americans, and especially the young, the millennials, those now of so-called generation Z would understand Capitalism. To really understand it, to watch it at work would be to appreciate all that it is and to wish to be a part of this way of life like no other. So often today, Capitalism is taken for granted. Or misunderstood, often terribly misunderstood. Or under attack by those who do not wish to work, and work hard and compete with others for a better way of life. But this good way of life, this often brilliant economic system of Capitalism is constantly under attack and its major antagonist is:

SOCIALISM.

That governmental system, that way of life which in its simplest terms seeks to replace private ownership with government, the control of capital goods and services by individuals with government, the decision making for investments and pricing with government, and the end of the free market, free trade with:

          GOVERNMENT.

Socialism seeks to level out. Socialism has its own definition of equality. It seeks to flatten, bring down the entrepreneur, especially the wealthy one and build up, very seldom because of merit, the one below. Socialism takes away opportunity. In so many ways, Socialism at work tells you what you can and can’t do, how much money you can and can’t make. It will do so through punitive legislation, or perhaps worse suffocating regulations and perhaps above all taxes, taxation at work everywhere and on virtually everything. Somehow, those who have never done find a way to get control, governmental control and those who have never done tell those who do what to do and how to do it. And when that happens, like the DEEP STATE in America, that is the beginning of the end of Capitalism, of opportunity, of economic freedom and:

          THE AMERICAN DREAM.

There can be a benign Socialism. It can perhaps allow for a modicum of Capitalism, of individual opportunity. But Socialism so often turns progressive. It increases. It is never satisfied by some control but the control of everything. It becomes progressive, all encompassing, even radical. A highly progressive Socialism becomes ever more like a dictatorship, perhaps very much akin to what happened in Germany in the 1930s, or Russia under Stalin. Legislative bodies were symbolic. Democracy and the voice of the people were extinguished. The rule of ONE OR A FEW (oligarchy) became the norm. And freedoms, especially economic freedoms were extinguished. Socialism, in any form but especially progressive and radical, is the end of a free and opportunistic society. It forces hardworking men and women to work for others. It requires entrepreneurs to toe the party line and essentially to do what they are told. Socialism, especially the radical kind, like Marxism kills off democracy and eventually controls everything. My fellow Americans, an extreme and radical Socialism would destroy the America we know and love and with it the economic freedoms we enjoy or take for granted and the entrepreneurial opportunities which make our country and our lifestyles great.

And now, constitutional Americans, comes Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont. You knew about him in 2015 and 2016. He almost won the Democratic nomination for President. Sanders is an open and a valid Socialist, a progressive even radical one. He advocates government control of economics, industry and essentially all things economic. He urges universal Medicare and Medicaid for all. Sanders and others like him want government federal, state and local to guarantee a job, guarantee an income for everyone, EVERYONE no matter their capability or willingness to work. Those guarantees would cost trillions of dollars and virtually bankrupt America, destroy its economic systems and utterly destroy:

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM.

And so would Senators Booker and Gillibrand, and Harris and any number of other Democratic candidates for President. This democratic party of ours has veered left, hard left, progressive, radical socialistic left bent and determined on the institution of Socialism and the replacement if not the destruction of Capitalism. This great country of ours has never had any experience living under the suffocating control of Socialism. We the so-called silent generation, and the baby boomers, and even some of those who have come thereafter simply take Capitalism for granted. We take opportunity and economic freedom as well for granted. We never thought the day would come when we would have to defend Capitalism against Socialism. We believe that economic opportunity was forever, inviable, constitutionally guaranteed. But:

          WE WERE WRONG.

The American way of life, its economic way of life is under attack as never before. Socialism not only exists but is the driving force behind the academics, preached and taught in academia. And in Hollywood. And by the media. And by unions. One way or another, in one guise or another, Capitalism is under attack and some form or ideal of Socialism is the ultimate goal. Americans today live not knowing what Socialism really is like Capitalism. An economic and social equality is good, they think without understanding in any way the ramifications and the repercussions of such a way of life. And so, a Bernie Sanders becomes popular, the elderly spokesperson for a radical change in traditional and entrepreneurial America. The young, the millennials and beyond think it is cool to be more socialistic. To be sensitive to a new kind of equality, even as they work and the vast majority work hard and productively to build a better life. So many do not realize what a progressive, radical candidate, much less a President – Elect who is socialistic – radical would do to the America we now know and love. Those who believe in this system and these types of candidates would never, ever have the way of life, the freedoms we now enjoy and they seem blind to those possibilities.

No matter, there is little or no dialogue regarding these issues. There is rancor, argumentation and anger. There is deep, impassable divisions between us, WE THE PEOPLE. There is an attempt, perhaps on both sides to shut down this dialogue, to prevent freedom of speech in exposing error or arguing – discussing points of view. Debate is long gone. To disagree makes one the enemy, hateful, and the words of that adversary are simply labeled HATE SPEECH. America is built and sustained on the first amendment, FREE SPEECH AND OTHER CRITICAL FREEDOMS and they are slowly but surely being extinguished. And we the people let that happen, when we should aggressively stand against such controls, the first fruits of Socialism and protect and defend the America we know and love and its way of life. We cannot allow a Sanders, a Harris, a Booker, a Gillibrand or any other such candidate to radically and socialistically change the America we know and love, and with that change, destroy THE AMERICAN DREAM.

I urge you as a fellow American to study, to completely understand Capitalism, all that it is and all that it offers. Anything can be abused but this economic system, this way of life is absolutely the best. It is the maximum economic freedom without which no freedoms of any kind can exist. If the so-called average American does not understand Capitalism, how it works and what it means, it will be the end of this great system and so much of America.

At the same time, every American should understand Socialism, benign at first, but then progressive, and then radical, and then all controlling, and then Marxist, and then a dictatorship. And then, the end of the American way of life. If we do not, and we do not teach our children and our young accordingly, they will learn from others and never know the America we knew or the lifestyle we so thoroughly enjoyed or took for granted. We, older and more mature in the American way of life, lived the best of times. We worked, we competed, we learned, we made mistakes, but we persevered. We were possessed of good work ethics and we sought to achieve and accomplish the fruits of our labors. So many of us, I especially, hope and pray for just the very same for my children, and grandchildren and for all the young of this world. That cannot happen unless we know and teach precisely what Socialism is, and what Capitalism is. It is the economic substance of THE DEMOCRATIC WAY OF LIFE.

Stand up and defend that way of life, Capitalism and democracy at work my fellow Americans. For those freedoms, once lost, lost in the voracious, destructive jaws of a radical Socialism are lost forever!

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