Are You Happy with Capitalism

I have been born and now living in the country whose society is called "Capitalism". As you know, Japan is the second largest developed country of capitalist society. In this society, we can run a company freely if we want to, and can produce what we want. We can work for what we hope and the more we work, the better lives we can live. We can earn enough money to get a better life. Most of our trades, producing and selling goods and services, are not restricted by the central government. (Of course, for example, producing and selling drugs, chemicals and foods is, to the large extent, regulated legally by some governmental agencies.)

What on earth is capitalism defined? Wikipedia says;

"Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately owned, and capital is invested in the production, distribution and other trade of goods and services, for profit. These include factors of production such as land and other natural resources, labor and capital goods. Capitalism is also usually considered to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" (or corporations) to trade in a free market.

The term also refers to several theories that developed in the context of the Industrial Revolution and the Cold War meant to explain, justify, or critique the private ownership of capital, to explain the operation of such markets, and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets."

There are two ways of the term capitalism. It is defined as (1) an economic system and (2) several theories. We usually use this term with (2). In Japan, economics has for long been taught as a research field of studying the dynamics of capitalism. So has the Maxist economics, for instance. Recently many departments of economics at universities in Japan have taught economics as a research of the behaviors of consumers, firms and their interactions with market economy. Microeconomics teaches so and has become the central and fundamental economics in many other economics such as public economics, labor economics and so on.

We don't usually use the word capitalism when studying microeconomics except in the old economics textbooks. Microeconomics can be regarded as a mathematical theory of the system of capitalism. And the economic system we now enjoy has not been recognized as "capitalism" but "normal system" that forms the economic basis of our lives.

The term capitalism is used well, compared to socialism or communism. Wikipedia also says;

"During the last century capitalism has been contrasted with planned economies. Most developed countries are usually regarded as capitalist, but they are also often called mixed economies due to government ownership and regulation of production, trade, commerce, taxation, money-supply, and physical infrastructure."

Socialism (or communism) is, so-called, an economic system and thought of perfect government ownership and regulation of business. Socialist thinker says in the capitalist economy the private ownership of capital always devides the people between the rich and the poor. The people who have capital become richer than the people who don't.

Capitalist system results in a severe disparity and thus harsh frustration and the loss of humanity in the society. Such a situation caused by the development of capitalism is said to be an "alienation", which means the cases of the people left out of their society.

The prime problem of capitalism is the private ownership of capital, which brings about the serious conflicts between labors and capitalists, in other words, have-nots and haves among the people. That is why the capitalist society will be someday broken up by the civil revolution and then the society for the working class will be come true.

Some socialists advocate the above prophetic theory on the gradual development of history. However such a thing has not happened yet. Now in the capitalist society the collapse of capitalism or the revolution by the working class does not seem to happen. By contrast, the attempt of socialist society did not ever suceed historically. It seems the US, the largest capitalist society won against the USSR, the largest socialist system.

The system of capitalism seems to work better than that of socialism. However in fact it is not obvious whether the capitalism is better or not. We are now content with the performance and outcomes of capitalist society; wealthier lives, substantial medicine and well-developed social infrastructures. Strictly speaking, we cannot help enjoying our lives in the capitalist society.