This was originally posted on PoodleRose on August 7, 2013. Comments have not been migrated.
This month, the website for the Foundation for Economic Education is hosting a debate over whether advocates of liberty should abandon the term “capitalism.” The argument for abandoning the term essentially comes down to: “‘capitalism’ carries a lot of baggage—much of it negative.” In short, since the term has a tainted reputation, we should use a different word.
In Act II, Scene II of Romeo and Juliet, the heroine proclaims:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
To Juliet, the crucial issue is not the word that we attach to something, but what that word refers to in reality. And that is a lesson lost on those who wish to abandon the term “capitalism.” (The same applies to many other terms, such as “selfishness.”)
Granted, there is much confusion over the meaning of capitalism. But that confusion will not disappear simply by using a different term to refer to a socio-political system in which individual rights are protected. Individuals are not going to reject government intervention merely because we use a different word. Leftists are not going to become advocates of unregulated markets, even if we start calling such a system “socialism.”
Individuals do not object to capitalism because of the word. They object to capitalism because they do not understand how such a social system actually operates, or because they are opposed to the idea of individual liberty. In either case, using a different word does not address their objections. And it is their objections that must be addressed if we are to change their minds.