The dark side of capitalism

On Nov 28 the Gazette Times paper ran an opinion piece from the Las Vegas Review Journal that claims “the US and its free market-oriented economic system has created much wealth for its citizens, as entrepreneurs make money by providing things that other people want”. It also quoted rock-star Bono saying that “capitalism creates prosperity by allowing people to keep the fruit of their creativity and labor”.

While this may be true, there is a darker side to capitalism as well. What followed 16^th century Dutch and British investors financing adventurers to look for spices and precious minerals around the world was four centuries of European colonization of Africa, Asia and the Americas. 

Under the pretense of Christianizing or civilizing primitive “savages”, gun boats followed missionaries, with capitalistic entrepreneurs not far behind, enslaving the labor of native populations, ravaging their lands and looting their cultural treasures, making money by bringing Europeans what they want. 

We know from our own history that capitalistic greed was behind slavery and oversea sweat shops, and if there is wealth, it has always been concentrated in a few, while the masses labor in overtime and falls behind in rents and loans. 

Free-markets sound like good competition, but it’s often on the back of cheap labor and devastated natural resources. When Mr. Bono said “globalization has brought more people out of poverty than any other-ism”, I wish he would also acknowledge that it should only be done without human exploitation, something that capitalism does not have a good historical record of."

(Submitted Dec 1, published in the GT Dec 18, 2022)