The Land of the Free: Entitlement and Capitalism

The United States of today bears little resemblance to the nation born in 1776. America made a conscious decision then that it would sacrifice peace, a reasonably stable economy, and a few years of prosperity to win its independence.  For a relatively conservative country, the U.S. has become remarkably attached to the freedoms it won. Pass any law you wish, but know that if you even suggest to an American that you might take away a few of his precious freedoms, be prepared for war. The key difference between the colonial American and the American of the 21st century is entitlement. While the colonial American made very real and very serious sacrifices for his freedom, today’s America knows little of personal sacrifice. We’re free, we’ve always been free (or so many seem to think), and we’ll always be free. We can’t imagine what it would be like to not be free. And as a result, we take our freedom for granted. Legal and moral lines are no longer factored into the equation. We can do whatever we want, since we’re Americans, and we’re free. Our most closely held right is the right to ruin our planet, our society, and doom future generations. See, unlike the Americans of 1776, we make no sacrifices; we just exercise our freedom, regardless of what the consequences might be.

We certainly have little idea of what freedom truly is. Few Americans seem to understand what the First Amendment actually permits them to do. Many love to evoke it to defend their imprudent actions, but few realize how limited it is in scope. Everyone’s heard the classic example of “You can’t shout fire in a crowded movie theater”. True. But nor do you have the right to wear a shirt with vulgar words printed on the back into a local mall. When a security guard throws you out, he isn’t violating your First Amendment right to free speech. The First Amendment doesn’t exist on private property. It only defends you against the government infringing on your rights in a public place. Countless other examples exist, and the First Amendment has no special significance. But it illuminates the fact that we are under the impression that we have the right to express ourselves anywhere, at any time. In our minds, we don’t have freedoms, we just have freedom. We can determine what we can do. After all, we’re in a “free” country.

For example, this site is not immune to the demands of such Americans who have deemed their own opinions incontrovertibly correct. An individual has recently been repeatedly spamming our posts, berating Academic Perspective and its writers and demanding that we allow his or her comments to appear on the site. Most recently, the anonymous commenter demanded that we “MAKE A FORUM FOR CRITICISM.” This commenter was indignantly protesting the fact that our staff was not investing the time and money to provide him or her with an avenue by which to publicize “criticism” which was rife with personal attacks. We’d repeatedly deleted his or her comments, but apparently the message wasn’t clear enough. Clearly being taught our right to free speech in our early schooling has informed people such as our spammer that they have a right to free speech everywhere. Like our commenter, the majority of Americans feel their opinion is paramount to all else, and they insist that they deserve the right to force others to hear it. As a society, Americans are about the most selfish and closed-minded people in the western world.

But while issues of free speech are interesting topics of discussion, the problem becomes very real when we turn our feelings of entitlement to tangible things. Our greed becomes even more evident when it comes to our money, property, and other possessions. No matter our financial situation, we as Americans feel entitled to money. A wealthy man will argue that his taxes should remain low, since he is entitled to his earnings, a valid argument. But the family on welfare will also express its entitlement to money and social services from the government. These are clearly two incompatible points of view. Thus is the conundrum of capitalism; both the wealthy and the poor man will decry the government’s favoritism towards the other, neither willing to give up anything for his fellow man. The wealthy man’s argument, would seemingly be weakened by the fact that his extra money will be spent on cars, houses, and vacations, while the family on welfare will, in theory, spend it on food and rent. But in fact neither person will spend the money wisely. One just has more money to waste.

The existence of severe and irreconcilable gaps between the rich and poor is the result of our fading morals and inability to consider our fellow human beings. We put our perceived right to personal prosperity ahead of others’ needs. While we’ve largely moved away from strict capitalism, such relics of capitalism remains prominent in our society and our fiscal policy. Wall Street traders took tremendous risks in the years leading up to 2008. They knew what they were doing was irresponsible. And they knew it would eventually fall apart. But the system fed itself because each financier knew that once he had sold his sub-prime mortgages to the next guy, it was no longer his problem. People buy Hummers even though they’re gas guzzlers. They are willing to destroy our environment and keep our troops in the Middle East just so they can have their car. There are such simple steps that could be taken to create a more stable society. But no one ever wants to take responsibility for the trajectory of mankind if it means giving up something they have a “right” to.

This is the issue with capitalism and a social structure based on capitalism. Human nature is to try to be the most successful today. Carpe diem, seize the day. For this reason it’s difficult for us to save our money, since it means we have less today. The future is distant and intangible; it’s hard for us to resist something that can make us happy today. This is why you can find expensive cars with shiny chrome rims sitting in front of $20,000 houses in America’s poor neighborhoods and the same reason why Wall Street bankers take extreme risks. As Americans we’ve largely failed to place our morals and logic ahead of our fundamental desires.

Still, capitalism is, in theory, the best economic system. It maximizes productivity, and would allow the greatest growth over time. If people were totally objective and rational, capitalism would succeed. But it’s difficult to convince people that we should allow the economy to collapse so that the markets can rebound stronger. You’d be hard pressed to find someone willing to live in dire poverty for decades so that future generations will be more prosperous. Math is logical, and lends itself to capitalism. Humans, on the other hand, are not so logical. We are selfish, short-sighted, and frequently plain stupid. We need a government of some sort which engages in far-reaching interventions into the market and social structure to check our actions. It would be nice if we could be responsible enough to, well, be responsible on our own. But sometimes it’s the role of government to force responsibility upon us.

Put plainly, we shouldn’t be free. Because when we’re free, we don’t know what to do with our freedom. Whether we misinterpret our rights, pass on a financial bomb for profit, or demand unreasonable things from our government, we like to abuse our freedom. When we’re free to ignore our fellow man as we are, we will. If society says we can do it, we’ll do it. “Consequences” is a word absent from many Americans’ vocabulary. Society and the free market rarely know what’s best for their long-term health. Capitalist and Democratic theory assume that we as human beings are driven towards survival. But in reality, we’d poison ourselves for $100 today even if it might kill us tomorrow.

Photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/branditressler/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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