Why Capitalism Is Perfectly Moral

It Really Doesn’t Exploit Workers

It’s fairly common for those on the left to argue that under a free-market capitalist economy, corporations exploit workers by collecting profit. This is false.

On the contrary, in a system of natural rights where the rule of law is upheld, corporations are a perfectly justifiable mechanism for distributing ownership the ownership of capital in a way that benefits all stakeholders, including the workers.

(Indeed, it’s quite democratic: anyone can by a share of any public company and immediately become a “capitalist.” And thanks to fractional investing, you don’t even need to own a full share of a company to start collecting returns.)

Corporations may not be the only way to structure capital ownership, but they’re extremely useful have provided millions of workers with immense opportunity and prosperity.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to start small and work my way up from ground principles. (If you feel I made an unjustifiable leap in logic, feel free to say so in the response section.)

Natural rights include the rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as freedom of association. Individuals are entitled to the product of their own labor and their own property. If I own land and grow crops on that land, I get…