I believe in capitalism from a different aspect. That is from learning Torah and Talmud. In the Talmud, property is not considered to belong to the government, but to the individual. And not just taking it by theft or fraud is considered to transgress the command not to steal, but even if the court awards one money that does not really come to him by the law of the Torah (din Torah), that is also considered theft. Reading Ann Rand later on reinforced this. But Ann Rand was really just emphasizing a point I had seen before, that Socialism is theft disguised as virtue.
But to get a really full fledged defense of capitalism I really had to wait until I read Kant. I do not know if I was trying on purpose to come out with a defense of private property. I was after all interested in the argument against it. I read the Communist manifesto and Rousseau and approaches that defended the State as opposed to the individual. But these approaches never seemed to hold much water. Especially Marx. To me what he was saying seemed ridiculous. He had some concocted theory that things have as much value as much labor went into making them which is patently absurd. Things have as much value as people want them, not as much time and labor went into making them. You can work all year long on making a pin. It will not be worth more than if you spent less time.
There was effort from the communists to get the collage curriculum in the USA to feature anti capitalist thinkers. A lot depends on what he reads and digests in his or her college years. As for me even in my yeshiva years I continued reading left wing and right wing thinkers along with the Talmud. I read Lenin, Sartre, etc. Still the more I read the less they made sense. They would start out with some nice sounding principle and think they and proved it. And then by that dubious principle proceed to demolish normal moral values. You can see how reading the Talmud was for me a relief of logic and sanity from the inanities and absurdities of Lenin and Sartre. The contrast could not have been more stark.
[Sadly though I did not get to Kant until years later. That was a stupid mistake on my part. I had seen him in some private home and could have borrowed him if I had wanted. So instead it took me many years until I finally got to Kant.]
However there is a use for Marxism. It can harness the greed of people to gain power for central government. This is how it played out in the USSR and in China. But I do not think that is a good thing. It all depends if you think the state is more important or the individual.
But to get a really full fledged defense of capitalism I really had to wait until I read Kant. I do not know if I was trying on purpose to come out with a defense of private property. I was after all interested in the argument against it. I read the Communist manifesto and Rousseau and approaches that defended the State as opposed to the individual. But these approaches never seemed to hold much water. Especially Marx. To me what he was saying seemed ridiculous. He had some concocted theory that things have as much value as much labor went into making them which is patently absurd. Things have as much value as people want them, not as much time and labor went into making them. You can work all year long on making a pin. It will not be worth more than if you spent less time.
There was effort from the communists to get the collage curriculum in the USA to feature anti capitalist thinkers. A lot depends on what he reads and digests in his or her college years. As for me even in my yeshiva years I continued reading left wing and right wing thinkers along with the Talmud. I read Lenin, Sartre, etc. Still the more I read the less they made sense. They would start out with some nice sounding principle and think they and proved it. And then by that dubious principle proceed to demolish normal moral values. You can see how reading the Talmud was for me a relief of logic and sanity from the inanities and absurdities of Lenin and Sartre. The contrast could not have been more stark.
[Sadly though I did not get to Kant until years later. That was a stupid mistake on my part. I had seen him in some private home and could have borrowed him if I had wanted. So instead it took me many years until I finally got to Kant.]
However there is a use for Marxism. It can harness the greed of people to gain power for central government. This is how it played out in the USSR and in China. But I do not think that is a good thing. It all depends if you think the state is more important or the individual.
