Consumerism Benefits The Poor

These United States represent the first and only society in the history of the world founded on the principles of self governance and freedom of association.

The economic corollary of that freedom was implied by the founders and came to fruition in the development of our capitalist system of enterprise. We became the wealthiest and most prosperous nation in history, because we have also been the most capitalist nation in history.

If they're intellectually honest, even the most die hard socialist must agree that capitalism is exceedingly good at one thing. No economic system has ever been more successful at continuously raising the standard of living, even if it did not do so uniformly. That not everyone in this country shares an identical standard of living can hardly be a mark against capitalism. People are free to choose their line of work, free to sell their efforts at a price of their own choosing, and free to purchase goods and services they deem to be of the best value. As a result America has a degree of economic mobility and standard of living that are the envy of the developed world.

As society becomes wealthier, the cost of consumer goods continue to fall through capitalist innovation. The triumph of capitalism isn’t that it can provide a captain of industry with a Bugatti Veyron, but that it can provide an affordable substitute with equal transportation utility to the entry level worker. The quality and technological capability of the goods and services available to the poor have come to bear closer and closer resemblance to those of the rich.

Take wine. Bill Gates could decide he wants to have a 2003 single-vineyard Côte-Rôties with dinner for around $800 dollars a bottle. At a respectable 94 of 100 points of the Wine Spectator scale, he’d likely enjoy it. While the janitor who cleans his office at night, could stop down at the local Trader Joe’s and pick up a bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay (voted the best California Chard of 2007) for $3 a bottle. Sure the goods purchased by the rich may be of better quality than those purchases by the poor, but they're also significantly more expensive, and the quality is such that cost to benefit ratios heavily favor the lower priced good.

In other words, capitalist patterns of trade and production benefit the poor more than they do the rich. Go tell all of your leftist friends, just to watch them have a fit.