Hard Knocks and the Facts of Life: Why I am a Capitalist

Recently, I published my senior thesis, A Biblical Defense of Capitalism on Amazon.com. This is an uninteresting topic to most people, so I doubt that very few people will purchase a copy. However, I wrote this thesis for myself and for my own thinking processes regarding economics, arguing for the basic ethical legitimacy of personal property rights and earning a profit. I wrote my thesis at the height of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement a few years ago.

In A Biblical Defense of Capitalism, I argue from the moral validity of owning your own property from the Mosaic Decalogue (Exodus 20:15). I essentially argue that the Scriptural injunctions against theft and coveting are predicated upon personal ownership of property and not communal ownership.

For if God intended all property to be communal and socialistic in nature, and then the prohibitions against stealing and coveting would be rendered obsolete. This is obvious, since the object or objects under consideration would be collectively owned. In other words, if all property was equally and socialistically owned by everyone, then it would be impossible to steal or covet another person’s “belongings,” since they are in fact communally owned.

I also argue that it is ethically justifiable to earn a profit and that legitimate profit earning is commendable.

I am not arguing for some sort of “exploitive capitalism” wherein an individual is recompensed unjustly for selling something. All I am arguing is that it is justifiable to earn a basic profit in selling or trading something.  I believe the time and toil one expends in producing the item or items for sale are commensurate with the profit earned in selling the item.

I learned economics the hard way. At one time, I lived a hand to mouth existence and was a drain on the American economy and my family and friends. I learned to respect basic capitalistic principles through hard knocks and the facts of life...