Misconceptions About Capitalism

Ever since its inception, capitalism, an economic system based off of private ownership of the basic means of production and free trade, has received both lots of love and seemingly more hate from millions of thinking humans. 

In the United States, people on the political right wing are more accepting of capitalism. Those on the left tend to be highly critical of the system. However, those who criticize capitalism ultimately do so on the basis of blatant misconceptions of the economic system.

The first of these misconceptions is that capitalism is fundamentally exploitative of the lower social classes. It seems one doesn’t have to go far in any direction to encounter this bolstered narrative. 

What critics fail to realize about capitalism is that it’s based off of free, voluntary trade and interaction. This means that both employees as well as employers freely consented to associate with each other. Hence, the outcome is likely tobe mutually beneficial. At least that’s according to free-market economists like Milton Friedman and Frederick Bastiat. This is in contrast to the anti-capitalist narrative that the poor suffer exploitation from the rich.

Another popular misconception of the economic system of capitalism is that it mainly benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. 

Of course this also is ultimately false since, as I noted earlier, economic interactions within capitalism are voluntary, thus we can know that they are mutually beneficial. BOTH parties will benefit from the trade. Otherwise the trade wouldn’t have happened in the first place. For example, when one buys a hamburger from McDonald’s, the customer obviously wants the burger more than he wants the money, and the worker wants the money more than he wants the burger. In which case, both people involved are better off than they were before because of the trade. Aside from this, It’s also good to note that both the rich and the poor in the US have gotten richer over decades, according to an article by Abigail R. Hall of The Independent Institute.

In a truly capitalistic society, people can really only become rich if they supply others what they want. We can know this to be the case, once again, because all human interactions under capitalism are voluntary and thus mutually beneficial. In other words, those who wish to benefit themselves and become rich can really only do so by benefiting those whom they interact with in the economy. Ask yourself why, for example, Walmart is so profitable. It’s because millions of people do business at Walmart, and we can reasonably assume they do business there because it makes them better off. Therefore, Walmart’s economic success is due to benefiting millions of people, not exploiting them.

Capitalism is obviously not a perfect system, but it sure does seem better than the "capitalism" we have now, that is corrupted by a big government, bureaucratic system that forcefully exploits taxpayers for the interests of powerful entities, something which is certainly not mutually beneficial.

Trump Succeeds Because He Entertains

For quite a few months now, it has been difficult to avoid all of the attention that presidential hopeful Donald Trump has been getting. Both before and after the recent republican debate, he has continued to fly high in the poll ratings.

Many, especially those who support his campaign, would claim that his recent success is due to his willingness to be politically incorrect and speak whatever is on his mind, as well as the fact that he is not actually a politician. However, I take issue with all of these claims.

First of all, his recent fame: To be frank and honest, there is little else behind his high ratings in the polls besides the fact that he has provided a significant degree of something which no other presidential candidate in a long time has been able to do, and that, my friends, is  entertainment.

I use that term ultimately because that really seems to be the best thing that comes out of all of the exceptional drama that he has caused in the political sphere. certainly not to say that the political sphere has lacked political drama, but simply that, unlike any other recent candidate, Trump has been able to connect with the people in a much deeper way via his blunt and off-script remarks that create so much reality-tv-style drama and hence, entertainment.

Going on similar lines, I believe people are making a huge laughable mistake when they view Trump as the model hero against the tyranny of political correctness. While I am no fan of political correctness whatsoever, what I do realize is that one does not have to be a flat-out dick in order to Not be politically correct.

Nobody seems to realize that there can be and is plenty of room between the extremities of political correctness and crass dickheadedness. One can still be polite and classy even when speaking the hard truths and whatever is on his or her mind. Trump, by contrast has no issue simply being an unkempt ass whenever he feels like it.

There can definitely be plenty more said on Donald Trump, but I’ll leave it at that. Besides, he’s already been getting too much attention in my oh so humble opinion.

A Modest Proposal: The Modesty Issue

I sure i hope i don't get sued for using part of the title to a popular 16th century satire by Jonathan Swift (You should look it up and read it by the way, it's pretty chill).

Anyway, lately i've witnessed a random resurgence in the whole issue of dressing modestly, which got me to start thinking about that issue once more, and i figured while i was in an inspired mood, i might as well give it a guy's opinion.

First off, in light of my past post regarding poor reasoning and argumentation, i've unfortunately witnessed the same thing going on when this topic is talked about. People often tend to resort to weak, abstract reasoning rather than more practical reasoning when it comes to making their case in this subject.

In particular, i keep seeing people treat it as though the main reason why we must all dress modestly is because our bodies, particularly our reproductive parts, are "sacred" and therefore need to be heavily covered and respected.

The simple problem with this reasoning is that it's being handled completely arbitrarily. If say... the waist of a woman ought to remain covered because it is where the womb is located, and the womb is considered to be a tabernacle of sorts, then why can't this same theme of reasoning be applied to the human head? After all it is where the brain (The most important and arguably the most "sacred" part of the body) is located, so are we obliged to keep are heads covered to veil our sacred brains?

I doubt it.

When they do this, they completely throw aside the real, practical reason for dressing modestly, namely that those regions of the body tend to incite lust in others, which is an evil, and that is why those areas ought to remain covered, not because of some abstract, arbitrary sentiment.

So if you're going to argue that a certain region of the body ought to remain covered, your logic should be based off of the fact that it can easily insight lust in others. That form of reasoning is far more practical and productive.

Another central aspect of the modesty issue is the debate over who carries the burden of responsibility; The women to dress or not dress a certain way, or the men to watch where they're looking and have some self-control.

While it is easily reasonable to conclude that both parties share some degree of responsibility, i have also come to the conclusion that the burden of responsibility ought to be predominately put on the men (and women) to exercise some basic self control when seeing other people out in public.

From my experience as a post-pubescent male, it really is not that difficult to practice self control in the face of immodesty. To be more exact, the only time it's really a problem for me was whenever i had struggled with sexual sin of some form. It was during then that my mind would be more oriented toward searching out those regions of the body. The thing was i would still be prompted to do so even on relatively modestly dressed women.

So while how women dress does have some degree of effect, i've realized that the real game changer is the state of my own mind and soul. In my normal and everyday life when i'm not struggling with any kind of sexual sin, my eyes really aren't much of a problem for me, so long as someone isn't outright scantily clad, such as in a bikini or such. I would glance at someone and would think to myself "well that person is wearing _____ " but then simply move on with my life without any notable effect.

There's plenty more i could say on this general subject, such as the fact that sometimes people make inaccurate choices as to what pieces of clothing are or are not modest, or the fact that it seems like men like myself almost never get consulted to see what it is that actually affects us the most, but i'll end it here.

I realize this issue ends up being rather heating, so this is just my opinion. Deal with it.

Problems With Sexual Issues And How Christians Argue.

A while back i wrote a critique to a short article from Chastity.com about why pornography was wrong. I criticized the article for the abstract and pathetic argumentation it attempted to employ against the use of pornography.

First off, i hope that when people saw the article, they didn't mistakenly think that i think that pornography was morally okay. I certainly agree With the Catholic Church and science that pornography is heavily detrimental to the human mind and character, It's just that that particular article for some reason thought it was perfectly acceptable to settle for a weak, pathetic, abstract argument to try and make that point.

Unfortunately, it has not stopped there. I've come to realize that, a lot of the time, many of us Catholics, even the professional apologists, often settle with weak and abstract arguments when it comes to pretty much any issue regarding sexual morality.

First off, i think it would be best to momentarily bring up a different moral issue that us Catholics are often faced with. From my experience, making a clear, practical and encompassing argument comes pretty easily and naturally to many of us in this issue. I'm talking about the issue of abortion.

Now, lets imagine I'm a pro-lifer and i'm going to have to make only one argument for why abortion is immoral.

So what do i decide to do?

"Abortion is wrong because it upsets the natural flow and process of pregnancy that God gave us. God gave us the whole process of pregnancy, so it would be wrong to tamper with that."

with that, i refrain from mentioning the rather important detail that A human being, the most valuable creature on God's earth, was just brutally killed!

I hope you guys see what I'm getting at.

While the argument against abortion i decided to use wasn't actually wrong, it was rather pathetic and deceptive of me to not prioritize the biggest moral problem with abortion, but instead settle with an abstract side note and behave as though it is in fact the ultimate reason why abortion is wrong, when it certainly is not.

The reason why i brought up this issue and this argument is to present an example as to how many of us sound when we argue against other sexual sins (Fornication, Contraception, Sodomy, etc).

We often tend to be clear and effective when it comes to arguing against abortion. However, for some reason it seems to stop there. Likely because sexual issues, such as the ones i mentioned above, can be very difficult to get our minds around in terms of logic and ethics, many of us sadly seem to settle for weak, peripheral arguments that really only amount the the example argument i used above.

However, many of us don't even seem to realize this. we seem perfectly content with what is in fact a lower standard of logical argumentation when it comes to these issues, and frankly i find that unacceptable.

Here i'll list a few live examples of such weak arguments and explain the problems with them, and hopefully by then you can catch on to the whole idea of what i'm trying to get at.

"Contraception is wrong because the birth control pill, as well as other medical methods of birth control, are potentially very dangerous to your health in multiple ways."

As important as it obviously is to express the rather heavily ignored dangers of pretty much any medical form of birth control, this form of argumentation isn't even accurate!

Just because certain forms of contraception might be very unsafe for the user, doesn't automatically mean that those methods of contraception (much less all forms of contraception) are intrinsically immoral. There is no necessary connection.

In which case, if your goal is to argue why contraception is unethical as opposed to simply unsafe, then don't go this route. You'll only confuse people.

"Homosexual sex is immoral because God designed the organs for male and female intercourse, not male and male or female and female"

While the person making this argument was indeed heading in the right direction, this particular argument is not sufficient!

When making this argument, the person failed to explain why having sexual relations in some other way that is not in line with God's design is necessarily immoral. Instead he just assumed that if something isn't how God originally designed it, then it's automatically bad.

Same-Gender sex is certainly unethical, As the Church has infallibly taught, but it's not simply due to that fact that it is outside God's design, but that it is inevitably a union of lust, and lust destroys the human spirit and character. That is the key reason why it is immoral.

These are just a couple examples of what i believe to be insufficient argumentation that i frequently see employed by our own crowd, and for some reason they seem perfectly fine with settling with it and acting like it's all that's needed to answer the tough questions and settle the issue.

Look, i totally realize that these issues certainly aren't clear and easy, but the least we can do is to be sincere and more critical with ourselves about whether or not we really know why the Church teaches what it does, before we go out into the front lines and run the risk of misleading people.

Common Misconceptions About Libertarians

Today i decided that one post about the subject just wasn't going to be enough, so here i am again bringing up this horrendous topic of political libertarianism.

I suppose that before i move forward, i should quickly reiterate what i said in my previous post about this topic and briefly define what i mean when i say Libertarianism.

I think Libertarianism is best defined as the political belief that the state should remain very small in terms of it's involvement in society and should mainly only focus on dealing with violent crimes rather than every last itty-bitty immoral vice imaginable. This is because giving the state such power makes it very easily prone to corruption and tyranny, besides the fact that coercion against the will of other humans  is logically immoral in general.

Now that aside, over the few years since i converted to a libertarian viewpoint and learned more about it, i have inevitably come across multiple misconceptions of the political ideology coming from those who oppose it. Today i will talk about the top three misconceptions.

1. We dislike the poor and blame 100% of their situation on them
First off, i think we should all simply come to agree that it's idiotic and insulting to just assume that those who you oppose politically must simply hate the poor, and that they can't possibly hold the views that they hold with sincerity.

Beyond that, there really has grown this rather inaccurate caricature that libertarians, as well as conservatives, believe that the main reason that the poor remain poor is simply due to their own laziness, and that if they simply worked even harder, they would finally succeed. This is, at most, only part of the picture.

The reality is we also understand that, in many cases, it is unreasonably difficult for those who are less fortunate to work their way up in the economy despite trying very hard. however, contrary to what socialists would argue, it is not because we don't have enough imposing regulations to "protect" the poor, but rather quite the reverse; everyone, especially businesses (who employ people) suffer greatly from being overwhelmed and oppressed by countless regulations that we are constantly having to work around in order to make a living and generate economic progress.

With all this in mind, us libertarians do indeed care about the poor and the external causes of their economic stagnation, it's just that we believe we have the real solutions to the problems.



2. We are obsessively individualistic and despise the idea of a community
People tend to stupidly think that simply because we disagree that coercive government action is the remedy to every socio-economic problem, then we are simply against the society as a whole working together to help out those least fortunate among us. In line with that, the refer to us (in a negative tone) as "Individualists" implying that we believe people should only focus on helping themselves and not each other and that being charitable is just not the way to go.

On the contrary. Libertarians have no issue whatsoever with helping out the community as a whole and striving for solidarity and the common good, and with that, our obsession is not with Individualism but rather what we refer to as Voluntarism. Voluntarism entails the preference towards voluntary, free human interactions as opposed to coercive. Essentially we consistently uphold the moral idea that it is better to respect people's freedom (given they also respect yours) as opposed to trying to use the state to force some kind of norm on everyone else INvoluntarily.

THIS my friends is the core ideal of political libertarianism; that no person be forced to do something against his/her will, which ultimately disrespects their God-given dignity, and is thus immoral.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the state, just about everything it does (if not simply it's very existence) is predicated on force and coercion and is contrary to human liberty and thus to human dignity. This is why libertarians are usually against the state getting involved in economic or social affairs in order to (supposedly) help those in need, but just because we're against the state doing it doesn't mean we are against it getting done altogether!


3. We are moral relativists or simply have no regard for morality

Finally we come to the main misconception of libertarianism that is especially prominent among traditionalists and conservatives. They mistakenly believe that since we don't agree with the state enforcing every last moral norm of say for instance, The Catholic Faith, then we must simply be moral relativists. In other words, we don't believe any objective moral norm really exists and people can just do whatever the hell they want.

I hope you're not surprised to find out that this is far from the truth. There is total compatibility with being a faithful outspoken Catholic, for example, and being politically against excessive state-imposed 'morality'.

I mean, it's not like the Church asks us to make other religions illegal and make people convert to the faith at gunpoint. No, just because something is right and something else is wrong, does not automatically mean you can resort to aggression to sway people to the right. That itself is deeply morally wrong. That is perhaps our ultimate ethical point.

So no, just because we subscribe to this viewpoint doesn't mean we are "moral relativists", it simply means we are not Jihadists.


With all of that said, it's always important to actually have an understanding of the tenets of your opponents viewpoint before you go spouting off about them. You just might save your reputation.

A Response to The Idea of a Catholic Monarch

So yeah the title is kinda shitty and boring because i wasn't in the mood to be clever.  life goes on.


Anyway, i was honestly quite fascinated and surprised to find out that, beyond the dull and same-old bickering between Catholic Conservatives and Catholic Socialists (Yes i just called them that), there has actually been what appears to be a reviving of the idea of just saying "screw this" and actually going back to having a Catholic monarchial government like we did back in the middle ages.

They present such a proposition due to what they consider to be the inevitable failure of democracies and republics, including the United States.

Unfortunately, i have found just about everything said by such advocates to be logically problematic in one way or another.

First and foremost is simply the claim that modern governments that consist of some sort of direct or indirect democracy have outright failed.
Despite the fact that yes, the United States as well as the European countries are rapidly going up in debt and probably eventually will have to suffer the same fate as Greece, These countries are actually still doing alright.

I think what's more important to point out is that there doesn't seem to be any reason conclude that the problems that modern countries ARE facing are simply due to the fact that they are more or less democratic. It seems to me rather foolish to simply rule out other sensible causes of our societal problems, such as culture and/or economic, political or monetary policies. The way i see it, many modern countries are on the highway to hell because they are increasingly adopting socialist policies driven by the increasing cultural acceptance of socialism.

In line with this, i've heard that the Monarchists' main reason for rejecting varying forms of democracy is because it is "ruled by the mob majority" as they say. In other words; the selfish, evil-inclined average Joes (And Joanns, because we're totally not patriarchs) human beings vote in a way that serves the selfish interest of the majority of themselves. More over, most of them are ill-informed of what the hell's even going on and how to handle it.

Interestingly enough, as a libertarian, myself, I totally agree with their criticism of the "mob rule."

In which case, my objection won't be towards that idea, but to two other things.

The first being that, after Catholic monarchists say that because of the concupiscence of the average human and that he is unfit to make important political decisions, they immediately seem to forget this when they follow up by essentially saying that one among these humans ought to have significant and unchallenged rule over all the rest of them.

But it makes no sense whatsoever to first say that human beings are corrupted by sin (which is true) and that they can't be politically responsible or take care of themselves, then IMMEDIATELY turn around and say that one of these corrupt humans can totally rule over the rest and take care of all of them. This is a plain and simple inconsistency.

Secondly, after they object to our current system of voting, the don't appear to provide any better alternative to determining the who and what of a nation. In the end, as bad as this so called "mob rule" could potentially be, this really seems to be as good as it gets when we're stuck in a world riddled with a fallen human nature. At least with voting we have some degree of political accountability, unlike the typical monarchies that we had in the middle ages.

On the side, i've heard many of these monarchists also object to our modern beloved economic system we know as capitalism; saying it is an evil enlightenment system that has rejected human dignity and brought about exploitation and the like.

First off, when they object to capitalism by virtue of the fact that it supposedly originated from the enlightenment, they are simply committing the genetic fallacy.

In other words, they are judging an idea or system simply based off of it's origin, rather than actually assessing the idea or system itself. This is a clear and easy misstep in logic. Just because something "came from the enlightenment era" doesn't automatically, magically mean that that said idea is either good or bad. Like every other period, the enlightenment also has it's ups and downs.

Now some monarchists do go past this logically fallacy and actually do fire direct shots at the system itself, based of of it's content. However, these objections prove to be oblivious at best.

I think what's important to keep in mind on top of all that is that their really is no fundamental alternative to capitalism other than socialism, despite that many traditionalist Catholics inaccurately attempt to condemn both capitalism and socialism simultaneously. (i spelled that word correctly on the first try. You should be proud of me)

There is much much more i could say on this topic and the ones adjacent to it, but i'll conclude here.

I think my final point simply ought to be that the state, by it's very nature, is in fact an intrinsic evil. Now, that doesn't mean we should get rid of it, for we recognize that it is a necessary evil. Another good example of a necessary evil is killing another person as an act of self-defense. Even though it is totally okay to kill someone in that particular, serious context, you would never stop to say that it is a good thing. Likewise with the state, whose existence is fundamentally predicated upon humans assuming coercive control over other dignified humans, is also a necessary evil.

The important moral distinction between a good and a necessary evil is this: Often we should strive to maximize goods. By contrast, we should always strive to minimize necessary evils, and the state is no exception. THIS is ultimately why small and weak government is better.

Out of this comes my ultimate moral and philosophical objection to a monarchy: we are obliged to minimize the power of the state because it is evil by it's nature. by contrast, a monarchy does precisely the opposite; putting all the power in the hands of a single individual without establishing any opposition or counterbalancing force. Thus the power of the state is maximized, which can only lead to a horrid amount of corruption.

Why Is Pornography wrong?: Critiqued

Well, here i am again complaining about another poorly written article i discovered on the updated version of Chastity.com.

It really is starting to piss me off that i run into a lot of persuasive-oriented Catholic written material that is everything but persuasive. Today's is of an article from Catholic Answer's Chastity.com titled,
"Why Is Pornography wrong?"

Thanks be to God for those of us who don't tend to enjoy reading a lot, this article is less than half a page long.

That said, the article gets right to it, attempted to rationalize the Church's moral condemnation of Pornography. It starts off by saying, "Pornography violates the basic principles of human sexuality. God’s design is for sex to be a pure and wholesome act—an intimate act between man and wife in which the two express their love for and commitment to each other."

Excellent start. There are no real issues i can think of with what is said here. The only thing is missing is the thorough explanation for how pornography violates the basic principles of human sexuality. Ah, you see... This is where it all drives off a cliff.

Immediately following what was said above, "Because the sexual act is meant to be intimate, it is meant to be private"

Umm, says who? how exactly did you necessarily get from "Intimate" to "Private"?

As you should be able to see, there is no warranting explanation for why something must be private if something is intimate. They just expect you to agree with it, but this is only the beginning of the issue.

The article ultimately concludes that pornography is immoral because sex ought to be private and pornography makes it public........

There you have it guys, the great and mighty logical reason why pornography is immoral. Boy am i persuaded!!

I hope you guys are catching on to the point I am trying to make. This is a pretty pathetic case of argumentation, and it's unfortunate that it got published and promoted as though it somehow wasn't.

Another thing that really bothers me about it is the deception in it's title.

When i saw "Why Is Pornography wrong?", I was thinking that the article was going to talk about THE reason why pornography is wrong. In other words, the most important, profound and convincing reason.

But nope. At BEST it gave us A reason, and at worst, it pretty much gave us no reason why pornography is wrong or immoral.

At this point, all i want to do is just ask those who wrote this article, as well as though who really liked it;

Do you really find this to be persuasive???

I mean, if you were a Christian or even a Non-Christian who was considering the viewpoint of devout Catholicism, but by no means was highly convinced of it, do you think that this would at all suffice???

It really seems to be the case that many Catholics who take on the prospect of apologetics really don't sincerely care that the arguments they use are convincing, much less logically consistent and coherent.