What A Perfect Conservative, Capitalistic America Would Look Like
In the real world, socialism is inferior to capitalism in almost every way that matters. It leads to lower standards of living, higher taxes, less freedom, more censorship, endless bureaucracy and laws, a smaller economy, less money to go around, and an environment where being well-connected to the right people in the government means more than merit.
It’s not a pretty picture. So, how does socialism appeal to people if all of that’s true? Well, that could be a whole column in and of itself, but one of the things socialists do well is tell you beautiful stories about what the world is going to look like when they take over. If you listen to them, you’d think everything was going to be free while we all live in a big, beautiful nationwide commune where you’re free to do whatever you want.
Want to spend your days doing trans poetry or making baskets and your nights getting high and watching AI-created Pink Floyd laser shows that the government puts on for free? You’ll be making as much as the doctor who fixes the carpal tunnel syndrome you got from typing all those poems up — and the medical care will be FREE! Once the country becomes socialist, you’ll have it made, comrade!
Granted, that Utopian vision never works out in the real world and when it really goes south, you can end up eating your pets and stealing copper wiring out of your neighbor’s home to sell on the black market for a pair of shoes.
On the other hand, capitalism and conservatism work great in the real world, but the presentation could be better than, “Hey bro, you’re only working 40-hour weeks? Get a side hustle mining coal, invest it in the latest dog-themed cryptocurrency, don’t buy Starbucks or go on vacation for 50 years, and by the time you’re 80, you may be a millionaire!”
If socialists remind you of some tie-dyed hippie who hasn’t taken a bath in a week talking about “peace and love,” conservative capitalists can sometimes sound like Dean Wormer in Animal House shouting about how there will be, “No fun of any kind!” because there’s no time for fun when you have 5 jobs:
Let me suggest something different than you’ve probably heard before. What could a conservative, capitalist, small-government America really look like? Well…
* The government would be a fraction of the size it is today; the budget would be balanced and taxes would be much, much lower across the board because wasteful and inefficient programs wouldn’t exist.
* Social Security, however, would still exist. It would just look very different. The money you contributed would be held in an account with your name on it and when you retire, you’d get everything you paid in back with interest. The program wouldn’t be in danger, it wouldn’t be a financial drain, and you’d have every reason to think Social Security would be running just fine in another 100 years.
* The cost of healthcare would plunge as we moved to a market-based system that allowed consumers to be informed about what everything costs and allowed insurance companies to compete across state lines. The reason healthcare has gotten so expensive while so many other things have gotten cheaper is that capitalistic competition is great at improving quality and reducing prices over time, EXCEPT when politicians write the laws in a way that makes it impossible. That’s what they’ve done with our healthcare system and the fix more markets and more capitalism, not more government.
* The partisan dog fighting you see in America today wouldn’t happen either because the government would be so much smaller and would do so much less than it does today, it wouldn’t really matter who was in charge. You could genuinely afford NOT TO CARE about politics.
* Our military would still be strong, and our police, Border Patrol, and national security agencies would be better than ever. Securing the country would be one of the few jobs the government would do and quite frankly, any politician who didn’t do an excellent job in that area would be ruled out by the American people. A politician who couldn’t handle national security would be the equivalent of a wide receiver who couldn’t catch passes. If you couldn’t handle one of the few jobs the government had, like securing the country, what would be the point of having you in office?
* Much more power and money would be left to the states, which would use that authority to try new things in the real world. Our system would become much less “one size fits all” and much more of a laboratory, where different states kept adopting what worked best in other states instead of taking direction from DC.
* As a consequence, government in America would be orders of magnitude more competent than it is today. That’s because the federal government would do much less than it does currently while power would be pushed down to the states, which are much more responsive and know the needs of their citizens better. So yes, the federal government would be doing less, but it would be fairly good at the few things it did instead of bad at almost everything. If you only have a few responsibilities, you better be DAMN good at them or it will stick out like a sore thumb.
* Americans across the board would be orders of magnitude more prosperous than they are today not just because of the much-improved economy, but because the massive amounts of waste and corruption in our current government would stay in the pockets of taxpayers. Wouldn’t you rather buy a new washing machine or invest money in the stock market than have that money spent to fund DEI initiatives in the Congo and transgender surgeries on mice? If that’s what you want today, you’re out of luck, but under a perfect conservative, capitalistic government, you could.
* We’d have no fear at all of the country going bankrupt because we’d have no debt, the economy would be even bigger, and taxes would be low with room to grow if we absolutely had to do it for some reason. We’d be the most financially stable country on the planet and the out-of-control inflation that caused the cost of homes, cars, and eggs to surge into the stratosphere would be a thing of the past.
* We’d have a much more ethical group of politicians in America and the level of influence the wealthy and corporations have would drop down to practically nothing. Why? Because the less the government does, the fewer reasons the wealthy have to be lobbying the government in the first place.
If the tax system is simple, you can’t convince the government to regulate your competitors out of business and if we have fewer regulations, the calculus changes for everyone. There’s no longer a point in pouring astronomical sums into government or getting into politics to get rich. Being a politician would draw more of the same sort of people who want to be firefighters, police, or soldiers. People who have a desire to serve their country, not people who want to see their net worth go up tenfold in a decade courtesy of their corporate benefactors.
Do you want a better, freer, more prosperous society? Socialism will never deliver that, but a conservative, capitalist society can.
Oh, my! What a concept! A conservative, capitalist society. But...doesn't this sound a bit like what the Founders had in mind in the first place? A limited federal government. States would rule with the consent of We the People! Could this idea catch on and spread to all freedom-loving U.S. Citizens? We can pray for such an outcome as we share and post this gem to social sites internet-wide.
This vision is what people like myself pray for. Unfortunately, as the American people drift further away from Christ and His truth, our nation drifts towards Big Government as its provider. Absent Revival, this great vision will drift ever further away, until a Crash. Just look at the Left's response to Trump's re-election and his attempts to fix things. Hysterical resistance, doubling down on rejected policies, and desperate attempts to maintain the bloated and wasteful system, with left leaning, unconstitutionally over-stepping judges as their stooges. Thanks for writing this clearly reasoned column, John.