Capitalism as the embodiment of reason
A popular contrast between capitalism and socialism is that the former is an anarchic, imperfect system, ruled by emotions, whereas the latter is a rational, planned system. The truth is the precise reverse of this. The market system is the expression of man's rational faculty taken to its fullest extent. It is governed by reason, predicated on man's nature qua rational animal. All the system requires is the recognition of property rights as objective boundaries of man's spheres of autonomy (that is to say, resources he commands by virtue of having employed them in his various schemes of action - action being purposive behaviour aiming at satisfying one's ends with scarce means - and of course, command over himself) and the freedom to exchange titles over this property. The rest follows naturally, all setting into motion in a deceptively mechanical fashion. Reverse valuation of goods leads to ever widening circles of exchange, and the social division of labour sets in; as trade grows, the desire for a common medium of exchange arises. Money is born. Prices - objective ratios of exchange, past and present - are concretized cardinally and homogeneously. Man now has it in his power to extend his plans ever farther into the future and to ever more spatially distant localities. The power of his conceptual faculty, of his reason is infinitely multiplied. His store of wealth increases as his command over nature grows. All he needs is this minimal amount of knowledge, and he is able to direct his activities where they are most urgently needed; the system is self-regulating. It is impersonal, objective and at the same time inherently human. Now, compare this to the bleak image of socialism. Here, we have one central authority - often adopting the facade of "democratic" management - in control of all resources. It is faced with utter chaos. Its decisions are arbitrary, divorced from the desires of market participants, unable to correctly appraise land and capital. It is disorder in the extreme. In trying to sacrifice freedom for certainty, it eliminates both. In the case where it claims to advance freedom by absolving man of "need", it only does so by enslaving one set of men at the behest of another set, to provide for them their survival; Heaven forbid they should think for themselves, act for themselves! Such a notion of freedom is confused, contradictory and little more than an anti-concept. It is to be rejected, summarily, and substituted with a notion of freedom derived from a proper conceptual analysis of man's nature - via abstraction in the Aristotelian sense. Freedom can only arise alongside its correlate: responsibility. To desire freedom yet at the same time evade responsibility is to evade reality. Only the market can advance freedom, as well as increase man's wealth and control over nature. It is by no means perfect - nothing human is. But it is as close as man can get.
-Jon