Nate,

I have tried to address your essential points as they appeared in your reply. I’m sure that I missed some nuances for which I apologize.

Government is bad—More common ground:

I’m so glad to hear that you’re against “government existing at all.”

Less common ground: You are against Capitalism because you view it as exploitation. This is a non sequitur. Capitalism is voluntary trade. A worker trades his time and work for money. There is no force involved. Any business enterprise that uses coercion or exploitation is not a capitalist enterprise.

Common objectives: “Common objectives” are individual objectives that two or more individuals share in common. There can be cooperation among the individual members.

Poverty: Sadly poorer people do have more children than first world people, but you are ignoring the fact that poverty is moving in the right direction: less than 10 percent of the global population lives in extreme poverty per the World Bank—read Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.

Capitalism and money: Capitalism isn’t about money, it’s about producing and trading goods and services that improve human lives. Money is only a medium of exchange. Access to more affordable goods and services is a problem. However, this problem is the direct result of government intervention—read Bryan Caplan’s Build Baby Build and Open Borders.

Your utopian village: Your utopian village where food is grown and shared and neighbors help each other is a beautiful dream. If you find it, I would be happy for you. But if you do find it existing somewhere you need to look closer—there are no free lunches and thus someone is paying for this actual dystopia.

Your view of Capitalism: Even though unfettered Capitalism doesn’t exist—it never has—no human beings living in first world countries are earning $2/day. Anyone who is poor in a first world country has given up on their life—not my problem.

Your view of tribal life: This revisionist view is objectively false. Anthropologists have been studying tribes like the Yanomami for hundreds of years, and I would dare say that no one would want to exchange places with them. Having said this, there are plenty of historical examples of peaceful natives. The point is not that tribes are bad or good; the point is that such a social system inevitably leads to violence because it is a zero-sum game. As for the quality of their lives, good science and even good social science never ignores the facts of reality or offers counter factual conclusions about what “would’ve happened” had better medicines or medical treatments developed earlier than they did. Capitalism is the only social and economic system that produces such wonders on a scale that transforms the world by increasing the lifespan of humans and decreasing the mortality rate. But before you object and point to places where people are living and dying earning $2/day, those places don’t protect individual rights and have corrupt governments. Take a look at Africa in general.

Adam Smith: Adam Smith is a hero, but he didn’t get everything right. No, I don’t view the world or any country in particular as being made up of different economic classes or that workers in general are exploited by capitalists. Most importantly Smith pointed economics in the right direction: the division of labor and specialization has achieved more in 200 years than humans achieved since they began walking upright. Frederick Bastiat and Ludwig Von Mises are two of the best minds in economics who bridged the way from Smith’s achievement to present day. Today Thomas Sowell at the age of 94 is a must read for any one who desires to understand economics and larger social and cultural issues.

The despicable rich: Alas Adam Smith was a college professor and an intellectual so he quite naturally despised the rich. But, to be fair, in his day many businessmen were corrupt because the existing economic system was flawed. However, most capitalists are not rich, if you mean multimillionaires and billionaires, they are skilled workers and professionals who voluntarily trade their services for fees or wages.

Sam Walton and Walmart: Unskilled workers who live in first world countries should thank men like Sam Walton everyday. They can voluntarily trade their work for a paycheck and then get more for less in stores like Walmart. That my friend is a moral system. That is what Capitalism has achieved.