In Praise of Liberal Capitalism as the Systemic Conduit to Democratic Socialism

A Concise Treatise by Gary Marvin Davison

 

In the liberal capitalist democracies of the world, those of the numerically dominant middleclass wake to a potential Eden.

 

Those in their youth and middle age and, increasingly, those in their early elder years, at the median rise in good health and frame of brain, especially if they have taken advantage of the knowledge that has evolved under capitalist dominance over the course of the last two centuries as to health, diet, and exercise.

 

These middleclass beneficiaries of capitalist innovation go to their place of employment, earn a salary of $75,000 or more and often put that together with another in the family for a combined total of $150.000.  If they have seized the advantage of opportunity to select a job that is compatible with their values, they will work happily at this means of employment for 40 years or so, with options to move from place of employment under the circumstances of liberal capitalist democracy.

 

When these lucky occupants of society’s middle class in a liberal capitalist democracy go to the supermarket, they may select from a cornucopia of edibles from the region of their residence, their state, the nation, and the world---    this as a result of the agricultural productivity under the Green Revolution induced by research, innovation, and economic efficiency in the advanced liberal capitalist democracies of the world;  and the advances in shipping and marketing also made possible by these economic and political systems.

 

In their moments of leisure, middle class people have an extreme variety of options, from the technological to the intellectual to the natural;  these options may be exercised at the level of the home, community, town, city, state, and the nation;  and they may be seized as opportunity to travel globally, to witness the astounding beauty and cultural variety that exists across the world.

 

Living in a liberal capitalist democracy affords one the material means and the temporal space to contemplate the highest ethical principles for living happily and altruistically.  One can imagine life at Life’s best.  One can construct a future in which the downside of capitalism, with potential for class and environmental exploitation, is turned back upward with solutions to what humanity at worst has wrought.

 

Thus, liberal capitalist democracy offers humanity the opportunity to seize the many advantages of the system for application to the solution of the dilemmas created under that same system and forge a future most advantageous for all.

 

None of this would have been possible under primitive communism, slave society, or feudalism;  the advantages of liberal capitalist democracy make possible the creation of the next dominant stage, at which people live equitably and with common joy, according to a sense of purpose guided by the principle of Justice and Joy for All.

 

We already have certain societies---  those of Scandinavia and Taiwan---  that have advanced very far along the continuum that would lead toward the ideal society.  Liberal capitalist democracy made this advance possible, along with specific serendipitous features of those societies that have propelled them to the fore of human development.

 

The role of liberal capitalist democratic policies in forging these ethically most advanced societies raises the question as to whether liberal capitalist economic principles will continue to exist as the human ideal is approached, so that highly advanced democratic socialist society in which common human concern oversees a liberal economic system made ever more humane will in fact be the highest form of politico-social arrangement for humanity.

 

The highest development of liberal capitalist democracy will have made possible the dominance of democratic socialist principles and given humanity the best chance for Happiness.