Capitalism… Forever

The satisfaction that Chavez and our endogenous communists feel, viewing the difficulties of the U.S. financial crisis, can’t be disguised. It’s a delight, the celebration of how the state, by the hands of Bush’s and now Obama’s government, had to intervene in banks, nationalize insurance companies and lend the nation’s money to the automakers and other financial institutions. This violates, according to our domestic communists, the first commandment of the capitalist system: the state should not intervene in the free market. The first thing I must say is that, yes, there is a serious financial crisis originally born in Wall Street that affects not only the U.S. national economy, but its entire sphere. Venezuela (armored against this global crisis, according to Chavez) is included, clearly showing something as fundamental as the fact that the U.S. is our main client, paying us in dollars for our oil and, on top of that, is our primary provider of goods and services.

Is the spiritual poverty of the Chavistas (Chavez supporters) such that they will use this crisis as an opportunity to preach the fictitious kindness of socialism? They are appointing Chavez as a wizard, since he, for decades predicted that this would happen, and due to his sagacity our reserves are safe… Again, pure tales. To begin with, capitalism has been and is still an imperfect economic system; it has never boasted a supposed infallibility like communism does. In fact, the economic crises are its bread and water, making it grow, improve and not make the same mistakes. Problems don’t scare the capitalists. Indeed, they look for them, face and master them, because capitalism is praxis, action, movement, continuous creation: it’s life.

An average economist studies the innumerous crises of capitalism, each caused by different problems coming from monetary issues, markets, abilities, finances, production, prices, values, etc. Each aspect of the market practice has been tested and it has advanced to improve its functioning; to prove its principles, controls and liberties. With each market crisis the system re-strengthens and grows more reliable because the system is relying in trust, in constant change and in creativity.

The economy in the capitalist system always tends toward equilibrium, but it never achieves it. The most it can aim for is a precarious balancing where numerous forces – spiritual and material, act. When that balance is lost, all the parts of the system immediately start reacting: creating gains for some and losses for others. Opportunities arise and bankruptcies happen, and, when that imbalance is too big there is always space for state intervention. This is not to end the capitalist game, but only to recover it and restore its tone. This idea is particularly incomprehensible for those who only regard a state intervention as an end to liberties, productivity and gains. Chavez will never understand that the state is at the service of the society and the commonwealth, and that in a capitalist system the market determines a way of life and work. When that “way of life” is threatened, the state acts to save it, not to destroy it and take what is not his to take: the life and the work of the people.

In a capitalist system the state plays an important part, and due to its fiscal muscle it maintains a safe ground where institutions can sustain themselves. So why not to use it in times of crisis? In the USA, the most powerful and rich country on the planet, the crisis of its system is gigantic. It so happens that, in the exercise of one of its most appreciated attributes – liberty – excesses can be expensive, and that is what is happening. The necessary and normal speculation in investment processes, when in the hands of some unscrupulous groups, gets out of control and creates damage. This is just like the excess of state control, when it imposes unrealistic targets for real estate: such as offering a house for everyone, without concern for the costs, thereby generating a worldwide recession. One idea is to consider doing without the financial element of the economy; to give force to the real and productive economy, leaving behind all those artificial values assigned to products and financial instruments whose objective was to raise the values of papers and auctions that created so many toxic debts in the system.

The North American economy is searching for its balance in the middle of a crisis that affects the entire planet. No one group will have the solution, which is why help must come from all sides. Hopefully the North American people have the material and moral resources to face this situation and forge ahead, reinforcing the capitalist system. Capitalism is an evolving system, adaptable and elastic; not like rigid socialism, controlling and in need of creativity (it can’t generate richness, what it does is to wrongfully distribute what already exists). In terms of welfare production, the market is full of formulas and proposals. If crises are opportunities, then with no doubt we will have capitalism for a while – this pleases me and may cause Chavez further despair.