CAPITALISM versus HUMANISM

Capitalism is an economic system designed to increase wealth of investors. Humanism is a doctrine based on the value of human life. The system and the doctrine are fundamentally at odds for the vast majority of humans.

The by-product of capitalism, an efficient system for converting natural resources and labor into wealth, and perhaps its driving force, is a humongous uneven distribution of that wealth and the benefits that wealth provides for those who possess it and control it. In the United States, as in much of the industrialized world, the disparity between the wealthy and the lower working classes in their way of life, is not grossly evident. Significant differences exist in education, health care, leisure time, military service, and quality of transportation and food, clothing, and shelter. If "choice" in all aspects of living was measurable, the humongous differences would become apparent immediately.

Only in the State of Alaska is there a distribution of the fruits of the capitalist system to non-capitalist investors. The state's constitution provides for payment to citizens a portion of revenues derived from some of the state's natural resources.

From the Alaska government website: "The Permanent Fund was established through a constitutional amendment approved by Alaska voters in 1976. The constitutional amendment and its supporting statutes set aside at least 25% of certain mineral revenues paid to the State for deposit into a public savings account to be invested for the benefit of the current and all future generations of Alaskans."

Well how about that? Let the citizens of every state in the Union vote for such a state and federal constitutional amendment. Alaska is called the "Socialist State," because of that collective ownership of natural resources that is given away or sold or leased by the federal or state governments to private enterprise for the benefit of private enterprise, despite the fact that the resources are owned by ALL the people of the state or the United States.

Think of the land as we do of the air, of sunshine, of the oceans. Or will the states and the federal government sell and lease the air and the sunshine and the ocean waters to private enterprise for the benefit of investors as they do the national forests, the oil, ores, and coal under the ground. After all, citizens pay the taxes which is where all government money comes from. All taxpayers are therefore investors in the development and use of natural resourses.

Here's a good example of a method of combining capitalism and humanism.