Capitalism Is Frowned Upon

The Republican Presidential primary races give us a great look into the (sad) reality of the state of America. Currently, the front runner, Mitt Romney is being assaulted by fellow “conservatives” for his previous role as the head of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm. As all venture capital firms typically do, they invest in companies and try to grow them and possibly sell them for a profit.

As any sane businessman knows, profit doesn’t come without risk. When you risk capital to turn a company around, you risk losing it. You risk the company going under.

Since so many Americans fail to grasp these simple economic principles, you can expect that Barack Obama will use these talking points to attack Romney in the upcoming general election – assuming Romney is the Republican candidate.

What many of us didn’t realize is that even the Republican opponents of Romney are using these socialist talking points. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are both attacking Romney for laying off people and shutting companies down while a venture capitalist. Not surprising, Ron Paul is the only willing to defend Romney on these issues (Paul disagrees with Romney on other issues and so do I).

But there’s even a bigger issue here we haven’t mentioned and it goes deeper than even this rhetoric. That issue is that the idea of going into business to make money is frowned upon in today’s world. The media and even a good chunk of society would have you think that people should go into business in order to provide jobs to people and meet the greater good in some other fashion. The idea of going into business to make money or, gasp, get rich, is not something we’re supposed to say anymore.

Indeed, true capitalism is frowned upon. It’s no longer good enough to be an entrepreneur. you have to be a socially conscious entrepreneur now unless you’re just greedy.

Sadly, both political parties embrace this anti-capitalist rhetoric when it suits their political purposes. Only Ron Paul stands alone as someone who goes by principle and avoids the easy hit on his opponent Mitt Romney.