by Tom Koecke

Created on: November 28, 2010

If the world were a perfect place, and people did not have human natures, my choice would be different. In their purest forms, communism would be the economic system of utopia. Unfortunately, utopia does not exist because people have human natures, and the world is not a perfect place. The choice of whether capitalism or communism is preferable to the other must take into account the realm in which each system exists, and the motivations that each evokes from the natures of humans living under the economic systems. Before doing that, however, we will look at capitalism in its purest form so that its flaws are noted, and why pure capitalism inevitably evolves into Marxist communism.

The Flaws of Pure Capitalism

There are those who argue that pure capitalism is the most just system of economics possible. Robert Nozick argued the economic injustice of redistribution using Wilt Chamberlain as an example. If all the wealth were distributed equally, and people were willing to pay Wilt Chamberlain to entertain them, it is just that he has more money at the end of the day than those who were entertained. It would be unjust to tax Wilt Chamberlain to redistribute his wealth back to those who paid for his entertainment, but were now in need of services that he can best afford to pay.

While it is difficult to argue that there is justice in taxing Mr. Chamberlain to pay for services for the needy, it is not so difficult to understand that, as the number of needy people grows commensurate with Wilt’s wealth, they are more likely to join forces to take Wilt Chamberlain’s wealth than to go home and starve to death. It would not do Wilt Chamberlain much good to amass a million guns to fight off a million people since he would only have two trigger fingers. Eventually, Wilt Chamberlain would lose his wealth by force to the community.

This demonstrates the inevitability that pure capitalism is doomed to fall to Marxist revolution. However, there are other flaws in pure capitalism.

One of the basic tenets of pure capitalism is caveat emptor, or let the buyer beware. Those who argue for such a system usually allow for fraud as a basis for redemption. So, for example, if someone who builds another person a house were to represent himself as using the finest hardwoods in the building, but actually used cardboard and charged the price for the hardwoods, the person who was sold the substandard house could recover his or her investment through an action in court. The problem

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