Only capitalism upholds individual rights

Thursday, March 5, 1998

Only capitalism upholds individual rights

CAPITALISM: Government should protect rights, not violently take
them away

A group of students gather in a public square in order to
protest the brutal, oppressive government that they are forced to
live under. The government responds to this by opening fire and
killing most of these students. Which government is this? The
communist government of the People’s Republic of China.

The PRC, like every communist regime that has come to power, has
imposed death and human suffering in the name of the collective
good. In fact, communism can lead to nothing other than tyranny and
oppression. It has been tried and tested on every continent of the
world, and each time it has been a miserable failure, leading to
famine, poverty, mass killings and torture, and imperialism.

The massacre at Tiananmen Square is only one of many examples of
how communist governments turn into repressive regimes. Communism
cannot function without tyranny. The whole essence of communism is
to deprive an individual of his or her liberty and to force the
individual into working for the state. People are subjected to
government control.

Communist governments have advocated the abolition of all
rights, the expropriation of all property, torture, executions
without trail, slave-labor camps and mass slaughter. How can anyone
look at the bullet-riddled bodies of those trying to flee East
Berlin, or of the protesters in Tiananmen Square, and still believe
that socialism will bring about the emancipation of mankind?

In addition to political repression, socialism has brought
economic paralysis and collapse to every country that has tried it.
For every country that has been through a socialist revolution,
famine has immediately followed. This was the case in the Soviet
Union, in the PRC and in Cuba. The people of these countries have
existed in poverty and misery, which led to the collapse of the
Soviet Union and which will lead to the collapse of every socialist
state.

Imperialism has also been a uniting factor in communist
countries. The Soviet Union invaded Eastern Europe and imposed its
will onto it. It later tried, and failed, to invade Afghanistan.
China continues its occupation of Tibet, even while relentlessly
threatening Taiwan.

If one wishes to espouse the idea of a free society, one must
recognize individual rights. Without individual rights, no liberty
can exist. The only system that can uphold individual rights is
capitalism. The essence of capitalism is for people to pursue their
rational self-interests in absence of any government interference.
The government plays a minimal role in life, existing only to
protect one’s life, liberty and property. Individuals are free to
make choices and judgments in the absence of force.

It has only been in capitalist societies that humankind has
existed without tyranny and misery. A capitalist society has never
experienced a famine, nor has it ever had its citizens executed on
political grounds. This only results from government exceeding its
power. Capitalism does not give government the power to institute
force. Imperialism is a result of excess government authority, as
seen in the aforementioned examples of China and the Soviet Union.
That is what a socialist revolution will bring: imperialism and
oppression. It is ironic how people such as Michelle Oberman
believe that a system whose whole essence is to deprive individuals
of their freedom is going to liberate humankind. Since when is
giving the government complete authority to do as they please a
path to liberation?

Communism only results in the deprivation of liberty and in
human suffering. It is only through capitalism that people will be
free to pursue happiness in the absence of oppression. Viva Ayn
Rand!