Appreciate Your Capitalism

These days, we hear cries of socialism (more federal control), environmental justice (redistribution of wealth), “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (group identity, grievance culture), “critical race theory” (social mobility constrained by race), and “environmental, social, and governance” (pushing companies to downshift profits). How about we appreciate capitalism?

You get up in the morning, turn off your alarm clock. The modern alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins, an American in 1787. He lived in a free society, which won the American revolution four years earlier, no alarm clocks.

You rub your eyes, avoid the mirror, put toothpaste on your toothbrush, begin your day. Toothpaste was invented by an American dental surgeon, Dr. Washington Sheffield in the 1850s. He lived in a free society about to self-correct – at big human cost – starting in 1861.

The first Oral-B electric toothbrush – if you prefer – was invented by American dentist Robert W. Hutson in 1950. He hired two salespeople, tried to make a go of it. The electric toothbrush market last year topped three billion dollars. Dr. Hutson died comfortable, in 2001.

As an aside, the mirror was invented by free market Egyptians, 4000 BC, largely agricultural, but obviously interested in what they looked like, even without alarm clocks and toothpaste.

Before using the shower, you may take time on your “plunger closet” – patented in modern form by an American in 1857, created in 1775 by American Alexander Cummings, later called a flush toilet. What makes the plunger closet useful “happens” everywhere, but credit a free society.

Poetically, credit for the first mechanical shower goes to free marketeer and Englishman William Feetham in 1767, little fanfare. Showers did not catch on until the late 20^th century, with rumors afoot in the late 1760s of a revolution brewing.   

Actually, the first showers – in reality – were waterfalls, used for bathing. These are credited to the Creator of Mankind, believed be a free will advocate. They still exist, require a commute.

Speaking of commutes, after breakfast with your toaster, electric stove (note: gas are still legal at this writing), recourse to a refrigerator, freezer, perhaps soy milk, concentrated orange juice, television or computer, all invented by American capitalists, excepting cow and orange, which go back to the inventor of the waterfall, you may…commute to work by car or bicycle.

American Charles Strite in 1921 invented the pop-up toaster, although Thomas Edison gave serious thought to it, then got distracted by the lightbulb. The electric stove did not exist until American entrepreneur Lloyd Copeman, his parents concededly Canadian.

American Fred Wolf invented our refrigerator in 1913, GE pioneering the refrigerator-freezers in 1939. Soy milk made its first appearance in Tennessee in 1931, brainchild of capitalist Madison Foods. American inventor C.D. Atkins debuted concentrated orange juice in the 1940s.

As for television, freedom welcomes genius at any age, and it dates to 1927 – created of Philo Farnsworth, who – if you go read – pulled it out of his ear at age 21, having grown up in a home without electricity until 14.

Almost as interesting, free Russia – before the Bolsheviks – in 1911 had an inventor who toyed with the television idea, but then WWI and the Bolsheviks snuffed that idea out.

So, now you commute – if you still do, after Communist China shared their engineered virus, which depleted the world by three million people. You likely go by car or bicycle. Cars of course were first mass produced – made available to all – by American Henry Ford, his Model T.

Notably, Mr. Benz created the first gas-powered automobile, in happily capitalist Germany. Unified in the late1860s, Germany soon was a capitalist powerhouse – booming until 1873, again end of century, 870 new companies between 1870 to 1873, dividends of 12.4 percent, railways doubling in size, average Germans investing in stocks.

If you happen to commute by bicycle, credit the free Italians, French and English for that, although many technology pioneers in America started – funny enough – building bicycles, including the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtiss. One inventing powered flight, the other our aviation industry – and motorcycles.

We could go on – your medicines, computers, handheld devices, applications (apps), adaptations, industrial strength, automated, calibrated, pioneered, reengineered, plastic, elastic, playful and spastic gadgets – all come from capitalism, not communism, fascism, or theological despotism, many seeded by deeds that would blow the ancient mind – like going to the moon.

And when you see parallel gadgets and mass produced copies from China, which we buy back because slave labor, low wages, “free trade,” and “allowed cheats” give us a cheap version of what we invented, do not think communism allows one iota of individual liberty, creativity, or has spit to do with it.

Bottom line, especially important for those who think government control rather than individual liberty, free and wild thoughts, inventiveness, and creativity, failures followed by successes, and capitalist messes are inferior: Your whole life is made possible by the triumph, glory, stumbles, errors, lessons learned, and money earned – through capitalism, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”  

So, when the alarm clock goes off tomorrow, and you stumble into your wonderful capitalist life, think twice about what you will advocate, when someone tells says they have a better plan, less liberty. My response is “tell me about it,” read your history, and do not forget the plunger closet!

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.