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Townhall...
Capitalism’s
Biggest Users
by Katie Kieffer
9/26/2011
What
do Google Chairman Eric Schmidt,
business tycoon Warren Buffett, Dallas Mavericks billionaire owner Mark
Cuban,
and movie star Brad Pitt have in common? Each man is a high profile
capitalist
asserting that American capitalism propagates greed while government
redistribution of wealth produces justice.
It’s
easy for Cuban, Schmidt, Buffett
and Pitt to criticize capitalism after they’ve used it to achieve
financial independence,
fame and influence. Now that they’ve made it to the top they can
criticize and
dismantle capitalism without fearing significant negative impacts on
their own
lives.
To
illustrate their hypocrisy, I’ll
analyze Pitt’s viewpoints. Pitt thinks it’s greedy to pursue wealth
through
capitalism—but not to grab millions by making movies and posing for the
cover
of Sports Illustrated.
This
month, Pitt told PARADE: “You
know, we bitch about raising taxes. I think the argument is that it’s
my money,
I earned it, why do I have to pay for other people? I get very
frustrated with
that argument. I don’t mind paying taxes. I live in a country that gave
me the
opportunity to make money, and most people on this planet do not have
that.”
Pitt
blasts people who “bitch about
raising taxes” but he isn’t jumping to pay more taxes before other
wealthy
people do. Perhaps Pitt feels like he needs more recognition before he
ponies
up. After all, he’s adopted three children from around the world,
supports
Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian efforts and creates Hollywood movies (by
far the
greatest service one can do for mankind).
Pitt
laps his family in luxury and
continuously pursues wealth for himself. He told PARADE that if he’s
globetrotting with his kids and they are away from home “for a long
time, we’ll
fly their friends out so they can be together.” If he practiced what he
preached, he’d be living a bare-bones lifestyle and giving all of his
own
surplus cash to the poor, not condemning people who are tired of paying
soaring
taxes into a broken system.
While
Pitt may have good intentions, I
get the feeling that he doesn’t understand the purpose money or the
value of
capitalism. Capitalism isn’t dishonorable. Capitalism is noble and
practical.
For, a man must seek material riches “in so far as they are necessary
for him
to live in keeping with his condition of life,” says Aristotelian
philosopher
and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica.
There
is nothing inherently wrong with
pursuing material wealth. As Aquinas points out, pursuing wealth could
be part
of your “condition” or vocation. For example, if you’re the founder and
CEO of
a company that creates jobs for hundreds of people, the honorable thing
to do
is to pursue greater (“excess”) profits so that you can hire more
people and
ensure the job security of your employees who currently depend on you.
Read
the rest of the column at
Townhall
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