‘Capitalism, Tradition and Traditionalism’ – An Overview
. The Reactionary sees no problem with wealth inequality, which reflects differences of aptitude, however the people at large will be prone to complaints of wealth inequality if their entire world is centered around capital, that which they may be unsuccessful at accumulating. Marx himself said that communism could never have gotten its start had capitalism not done away with the older system, which was able to effectively distract from common economic hardship.
Wealth inequity between the top .1% and everyone else keeps widening, especially in the past three decades, yet public opinion of wealth inequality is unchanged since 1985:
Predictably, democrats are more concerned about wealth inequity than republicans:
The fact fact that public opinion hasn’t changed in over three decades is more of a reflection of America’s persistent left/right divide, which has remained proportionally unchanged for decades, with approximately half the country holding conservative economic views and the other half more liberal.
Many people understand that wealth inequality is an inevitable byproduct of economic progress. People who produce more economic value are rewarded in the marketplace with more wealth than those who produce less. Those who create a lot of indirect economic value are rewarded the most, examples being entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill gates, whose inventions have created millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity, both directly and indirectly. Donald Trump, for example, is the highest polling candidate in the GOP primaries despite being much wealthier than his opponents. Revolution occurs when fundamental needs are unmet, typically due to economic collapse, not because of class envy. In addition to other factors, the October Revolution (food shortages due WW1) and French Revolution (flour war) were engendered by economic collapse resulting in shortages of food and hyperinflation. Although wealth inequality is high, it’s not like people are starving; in fact, there is so much abundance there is an obesity crisis and many people are choosing not work.
Some on the right want to see a more ‘holistic’ or ‘nicer’ version of capitalism, but what does that mean? It’s like saying you want to see a ‘nicer’ version of evolution. It doesn’t really work that way. Capitalism, like evolution, is autonomous, as a way of converting inputs (money, labor, etc) to achieve an outcome or state that is more efficient than what proceeded it.