How to Be a Capitalist in a Changing America

Society’s mind-molders—schools, colleges, news media, and entertainment media—are moving us to believe in a "we not me," community, collective approach to policy and individual behavior.

Yet some people, often cowed by the 3 Cs of Censure, Censor, and Cancel, quietly believe that greater net good accrues from the primacy of the individual and largely free-market capitalism.

Such people believe that the freedom to decide where best to devote their time and treasure will yield more good than surrendering it to the state or even to social pressures. They point to Communist countries, with shortages rife because too many people wouldn’t sustainably work hard when they would get the same pay for doing minimal work. 

Pro-capitalist people may support a taxpayer-paid safety net but fear that additional forced redistribution from society’s taxpaying contributors yields a net negative, eating our seed corn. Thomas Sowell wrote, "One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain."

My Psychology Today article today may be helpful to people who are swimming against the tide.