Where in the US Constitution does it state our nation must have a Capitalist economic system?

I want to open up this conversation with the question posted in the title of the thread. I will be honest that I do not know the answer to this question, but it seems that in all my time looking I never have found a concrete answer to this question. I know our founding fathers wanted a economic system that benefited the people and gave the people the ability to prosper from their creativity by regulating the money supply backed by value. I also know that the founding fathers were against the unlimited accumulation or hording of ideas that would benefit the collective good of all people (eg the general welfare).

In a effort to get closer to the truth please tell me what you know on this subject. Like I said, I do not know the answer, I'm hoping someone does.

S&F!

As an answer to your question posed in the title, to my recollection it doesn't state that at all.

I'm no expert, and will try to research you a better answer when I get a little time. I believe that your answer to what the founding father's intentions and thoughts were on the economic system they envisioned can be found in the Federalist Papers.

www.foundingfathers.info...

I'm pretty sure that the Constitution doesn't say what monetary system must be followed. As far as I understand it, we could become Socialist or even Communist, assuming we didn't take away the rights the Constitution guarantees us. And even then, since the government has taken away many of these rights, maybe we could go fully Communist.

I don't know that turning more to the left would be so bad. Some people scream about it, but the countries that have gone that way seem to have much happier people, much less abject poverty. They also apparently have fewer insanely wealthy people, but that's probably a good thing.

Nowhere on the Constitution does it state which type of economic system should be prevelant in the US.

The Constitution as written gives only limited powers to the federal govt and as such, leaves no room for the govt to take a heavy hand in running the economy.

Alternate economic models would require the govt to wield great powers over the people which simply ARE NOT ALLOWED BY THE CONSTITUTION.

Nowhere in the Constitution is the govt permitted to arbitrarily take away one's property or tell a person how they are to use their property.

Capitalism is the system which fell into place due to the lack of govt control and it has served us well, although it is not without it's problems and abuses.

[edit on 20-11-2009 by FortAnthem]

^^^ I don't know where your living but we no longer have true "capitalism" here in the States. 'Crony Capitalism' at the very best.

reply to post by Paroxysm


Very true. The capitalism we practice is not the true form of capitalism. Capitalism in itself drives innovation, allows people to take risks, and allows the benefit to flow to everyone through supply and demand. We are far removed from a traditional capitalist economic system.

reply to post by chiron613


I agree that there is room in our economic system for some type of social needs projects. Although I see many fight against such an idea, under fear that it would rob them of their hard earned money. While I do have sympathy for that stance, we are not locked into an economic model of our current status quo capitalistic system. It appears our founders only intended that the money system be favored to the people so that each dollar they had was worth something.

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
It appears our founders only intended that the money system be favored to the people so that each dollar they had was worth something.

And then along came the events, and back room deals of 1913...

Slavery is written into the constitution. Capitalism is economic slavery. And the original draft of the DOI stated:the inalienable right to property, which had such an evil ring to it even then that it was changed to the pursuit of happiness.

reply to post by Paroxysm


Yes, this is exactly what I think happened. Bankers realized if the system were truly fair they could wield no control over it.

For all the flaws of our Political System, a Democratic Republic was never as deeply flawed as it became once it married into the Capitalism Economic System. Personally, I could do without the later and believe that the turning point (although Economic Corruption had been rampant in this Nation even before the Civil War, and had become rampant all the way back to Andrew Jackson's presidency) was the decision in 1872 to extend the provisions of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to Corporate entities which were until then temporary chartered entities serving a contract with either the State or Federal government in the public interest (a decision whose impact became all the more acerbated when FDR enacted his New Deal). Corruption has known no limits nor bounds ever since, leading our Nation headlong into a Corporate Plutocracy where the Multi-National Mega-Corps run our government (ahem, Rupert Murdoch!) rather than We the People.

I would be perfectly fine if Congress enacted a new Amendment that no longer extended personhood to Corporations, made them accountable to the Public rather than to their stock-holders, and gave the S.E.C. the power to dissolve a Corporate Charter when a Corporation no longer serves the Public Interest and has proven that monetary fines for corruption and wrong-doing are but a expense of doing business.

I would even be fine if we dropped Capitalism altogether rather than try to find a viable solution to the ages old question of how to restrain the universal human condition of Greed.

I might be vested in the ideals of our Constitution and our Democratic Republic but I am not vested in the least in Capitalism, especially in the form of Corporate Plutocracy.

reply to post by fraterormus


I actually agree with you that if a corporation were treated not as a person, but as a vessel to expand the public good and well being that we could reverse many of our problems in this country. The corporate vehicle in our country is the force behind greed and corruption. There is nothing wrong with a group of people combining resources to make some service available to the public and doing so for profit. But what we have is the mega-corporations getting the favor of the government before the people, as the people need the jobs these corporations can provide. It should be the other way around. Corporations should benefit the people. I am not talking about small businesses as these are the result of a couple peoples individual labor for their own benefit. I am talking about corporations that those reaping the rewards of the business do not work for a living.

Depends on what you mean by "capitalism". It seems to mean different things to different people.

If you simply mean a free market, where people are free to trade their possessions and labor on consensual grounds, this is the default in a free society where the government steps in only to punish violence and fraud. The Constitution establishes this simply by not granting the government the power to extensively tinker with the economy.

Every other economic system requires extensive government tinkering, and is thus the antithesis of a "hands-off" government of liberty.

This includes modern "capitalism", where the market is intentionally distorted to favor large, entrenched firms.

reply to post by fraterormus


Stockholders are the owners of a corporation. You are saying take away the responsibility of the corporation to it's owners and make it serve the "people" who of course are represented by the government. That is not even socialism. That is communism.

You are going to have burocrats tell the companies how to run their companies. Because that is how you get them to serve the "people". We've seen the quality of goods that were made in eastern europe when there was still communism and the government ran the factories. Even the eastern europeans didn't want them when they could get western goods.

Originally posted by Paroxysm
^^^ I don't know where your living but we no longer have true "capitalism" here in the States. 'Crony Capitalism' at the very best.

That's not true.

The true definition of capitalism is 'the private ownership of the means of production'. That does not mean your 'private property', it means the machinery land etc., that is used to exploit labour and produce 'profit' for a private owner or entity.

As long as the economy is owned and controlled by private entities it is capitalism, no matter what they do with it.

The monitory economy is manipulated and controlled by private ownership. An economy based on the wants of a few (the capitalists) rather than the needs of the many (the rest of us).

Private property ownership is allowed in the constitution I believe, but that is a different issue than private ownership of 'the needs of production'. People use private property rights to justify using that 'private property' as the private owner wishes, but the problem is the majority of workers have no choice but to work for a private owner.
This can be considered coercion and exploitation. You have the right to do what you want with your private property, but should that give you the right to coerce and exploit? The majority of workers do not have the right to not work for a private owner. They are given no choice.

Capitalists are always talking about the right to choose, yet the majority don't have that right. Any alternative to capitalism is always demonized and dismissed completely by most. This system doesn't even allow people the right to think for themselves because from the day you can understand the world around you you are conditioned by society to think a certain way. You are conditioned to support capitalism and dismiss any alternative. Your opinion is molded and manipulated by the state system through its schools and media. Questioning your existence in this system is discouraged. You are conditioned to not question authority.

This has lead to an insecure population that can do nothing but look to authority to fix their problems. Authority is parents for adults, the people have not been allowed to grow up and really be free thinking autonomous Human Beings. And you still believe them when they say you are free. What if they told you you're not?

reply to post by ExPostFacto


In response to your title, the US Constitution does not directly state that the US must be Capitalistic, because Capitalism was not really around back when it was written. The way our economic system is run today, however, was. It was called Aristocracy.

The US Constitution does, however, go against Communism, though again not directly because it was not created when it was written. Communism is defined by most to be government controlled. The US Constituion was initially written to limit government. Therefore, Communism is not right for the United States based on the US Consitution.

Of course our founders had a capitalistic system in mind.

So capitalistic, we even bought and sold people.

Capitalism is not free-markets.

This is the lies being fed to you by capitalists in order to maintain their control over the economy.

The true base definition of capitalism is 'the private ownership of the means of production'.

Socialism also allows 'free-markets', the difference being instead of private ownership of the means of production you have the workers ownership.

If you wipe the slate clean of all the BS attached to 'isms', by whomever, then you can see clearly what the isms really mean.

Marxism is not socialism.
Capitalism is not free-markets.

Under capitalism the markets are owned and controlled by the capitalists, not the people. This creates a pyramid societal structure where there will always be the haves and have nots, where they will always be the majority struggling to survive when we have the technology and labour for everyone to be fed and housed. The only thing that keeps this from happening is the need for capitalists to take the majority of the worlds resources and control them in order to make profit for themselves. They do this by keeping resources artificially scarce through under production. Millions starve so the few can live in luxury.

reply to post by Modern Americana


But communism is not socialism, correct?