Many economic systems have been tried throughout human civilisation, with some leading to the deaths of millions of people. Besides the fact that capitalism has proven to be the only practical economic system, it is also morally superior to everything else. The reason that capitalism is the most moral system is because it allows people to get paid based on how much they have contributed to society.

The ideal communist system for Marxists is one where everything is publicly owned. One where everyone contributes as much as they can to society but everyone lives the same lifestyle. Aside from the impracticality of this as most people would not want to contribute if they are not getting paid to do so, this is essentially just theft. When an individual is not being compensated for how much their labour is worth, their time and effort is essentially being stolen from them. No one has a right to someone’s labour.

One of the huge criticisms of capitalism is that it leads to inequality. Most people see this as a bad thing, but it’s a good thing. People that contribute more to society deserve to get paid more. As a society, we should certainly aim to maximize equality of opportunity so that each individual has the same amount of opportunities. However, outcome should be unequal because the value that has been provided to society by different individuals is unequal.

Every pound taken from citizens in the form of tax to give a benefit to another individual is essentially theft. Human beings do have an obligation to help one another, so in a lot of cases this is justified – such as to provide free healthcare, food, and shelter to its citizens. The government should also aim to create a society with equality of opportunity, so it should spend money on education. There are also instances where public services benefit everyone, such as the creation and maintenance of roads, law enforcement, and the military. But aside from these instances, tax money should not be used to provide free services that benefit some but not everyone, because then you are stealing money from the people that do not benefit from the free service. When the government gives someone something for free, it is being taken from someone else.

A common argument against capitalism is that it causes the ‘exploitation of workers’. The argument essentially claims that businesses will prioritize profit over fair wages and good working conditions. This is an interesting claim as capitalist countries like America and the UK have very good working conditions while the Soviet Union had terrible working conditions, with employees working very long hours. The argument about fair wages is also obsolete as an individual can only get paid a fair wage in a free market. This is because the value of a person’s service can only be determined in a free market where customers or businesses are paying for it. Fair pay for a worker is essentially the maximum amount the worker can get for their labour in a free market because this is how much their labour is worth to society. The only time a worker will be underpaid is if they can get paid more but choose to not move jobs or ask for a raise – which is ultimately the responsibility of the worker. There can also be no exploitation as a contract has been signed between both parties. If the wage and working conditions has been agreed upon by both parties, neither party is being exploited.

A valid issue with capitalism is that, because the two individuals involved in the transaction only tend to think about what benefits themselves, some external harm can be done to another person or group of people via that transaction. An example would be how businesses do not take into account environmental harm when creating a product to sell to consumers and consumers hardly take into account the environmental harm when buying a product. Due to this, many transactions occur in a free market which benefits the individuals involved in the transaction, but can be incredibly bad for the environment. However, the government can overcome these obstacles by taxing transactions which may have huge negative externalities or subsidizing transactions which may have huge positive externalities.

Negative externalities and inequality have caused many to criticize capitalism. However, most negative externalities can be managed by minimal government intervention and inequality is hardly an issue. Capitalism is the only moral economic system as it allows individuals to get paid directly in relation to the value they provide. It is also the only economic system that leads to a tremendous amount of economic growth, improving the standards of everyone living in that society. While communism makes people equally poor, capitalism makes people equally rich.