The Inverse Law of Socialism and Capitalism

Since free market capitalism took hold in our society, there have been a couple of trends notable in our economy. Starting as small examples of business ingenuity or rare government insight, these trends have grown into international macro-economic movement. That is, private business tends to be more successful if they take care of the social welfare of their employees and the members of their community, and the government tends to be more successful in the application of social and economic programs if done through the channels of the free market.

They’re many striking examples of this law in action already. The purpose of making this an established law is to give a framework of thought when we, as private citizens or as a community, take on the endeavors of our day rather than starting programs in a traditional way, then after partial failure patching the problem with these general ideas.

Private business tends to be more successful if the business devotes part of its resources to the social welfare of its employees and its community. Taking on the social welfare of employees has obvious benefits. First, programs such as health care benefits, daycare, and other such devices are perks that give a business an advantage in obtaining and retaining employees. Also these kinds of benefits help employees stay healthy and keep them from having as many stresses from personal life get in the way of productivity. There is also a “good will” factor. If a business’s employees feel like their company is taking care of them, then they will be more likely to want to take care of the company, i.e. be more productive and put more thought and creativity to the task at hand.

The other half of this part is slightly more abstract. Businesses who give resources, whether through direct action or giving some product or money, to social causes in their community tend to be more successful. Most of this phenomenon is due to the personal “feelings” of those involved. The leaders and employees of a given company will feel better about there work since at least part of the proceeds go toward the betterment of their community. When someone feels better about his or her work then they will be bore productive. Also the people who do business with the business at hand will either know of these charitable actions or be able to feel the charitable character of the company and its personnel and thus want to continue to do business with them.

Public sentiment has something to do with this phenomenon. If the public is aware of a company’s charitable character then there will naturally be better public sentiment toward that business, if the company at hand enjoys good public sentiment then either more people will want to buy from that business, as in the case of a retail establishment, or the public wont be as quick to make rules restricting that business, as in the case of a manufacturer.

Public works and government social programs tend to be more successful and more efficient if they employ the free-market private sector to accomplish the goals of the program. There have been many examples of the government employing the private sector to accomplish its goals; roads, bridges, canals and other large scale construction being the most common. And recently there has been a sometimes-successful movement towards “privatizing” the programs of the government. The United States Postal Service and some of the states Medical programs are good examples. In all cases the more the private portion of the programs are open to competition, the more efficient and successful the program is. There have been many smaller instances of this phenomenon including opening up such services as, motor-vehicle departments, child foster-care, and public transportation. All of these examples were funded by the authoring government but outsourced to the competitive private sector to the great benefit of all involved. In many cases, such as Fresno Counties Foster Care system, the act of privatizing some, or all of the program transformed it from something that caused only pain to those involved, to something that actually helped those involved in the way it was prescribed to do.

This is a success; we need to implement the idea in other aspects of our economy, especially the governmental side. As a nation we have failed some of the most important jobs prescribed to our government. We have done well with some very important aspects of our government. None rivals our military; we have the best University system in the world, the best postal service, the best highway system, and a few others. Some or all of each one of these programs are open to real competition or run by the private sector.

We need this kind of competition in all of our government services. The most grievous case is our K-through-12 school system. There must be a way to open our schools to real competition so that our young children can enjoy the kind of top-quality education our universities provide to the rest of us. Other services that could benefit from outsourcing are; the accounting and financial oversight arms of government, all the various paper movers like people in the social security office and the IRS, social services like social workers and public housing administrators. These could all benefit from the motivations of the free market.

Some notable exceptions to this rule would be; the fighting arm of our military and intelligence offices, police services, and the actual lawmakers in the three branches of government such as, law-makers, judges and executive office holders and their cabinets.

Additionally, business leaders of all stripes (if they haven’t already) would be wise to make sure some of the fruits of their business are going to the health and welfare of their employees and community alike, as this has proven time and time again to help business to be successful.