Before the industrial revolution, the great majority of humanity existed at a subsistence level. Every day was survival mode, and any community was just one drought and growing season away from extinction. If crops failed, there was no transportation system to bring in massive amounts of food or to evacuate large numbers of people. The industrial revolution changed all of that and it was fueled by capital investment. Wealth creation of durable goods not only raises the standard of living for all human beings, but also enables the production of that wealth to get more and more efficient, as machines do more and more of the work that human beings once would have done.

This efficiency gives mankind a commodity more valuable than any house, car, machine or plaything. It gives us time. Time to think, time to learn, time to explore, time to contemplate our existence and our role in the universe. It gives us time to rest, time to enjoy recreation with our friends and families.

By the 1870s and 1880s in America, industry was pushing the standard of living to new heights. The highly successful were perceived as greedy, but they were also quite philanthropic. For example, Andrew Carnegie gave 90% of his wealth to charity, and private money endowed thousands of hospitals, colleges, museums, schools, libraries, etc. That is not to say that there were not problems. Working conditions in factories gave rise to unions which enabled the working class to have more leverage. This led to other problems, such as violence during strikes and corporations attempting (often successfully) to use the courts to intervene in strikes. But generally speaking, the middle class grew rapidly and the average American quality of life became immensely better.

The setting for this advance in prosperity, including the enlargement of the middle class, was the individual liberty that existed in America, more so than in any other nation, and the presence of a sound currency based on precious metals. Industrialization creates products that enhance our wealth, but they still must be traded to have an effect on the lives of the people. It was under this setting from 1870-1900, with the industrial revolution in full swing, that economic growth and real wages increased at the fastest pace in history. The economic paradigm for this growth was capitalism, with the means of production, capital, privately owned within a relatively free market.

At a time when every country did not enjoy the freedom and widespread prosperity provided by capitalism in America, and where the middle class had not yet fully manifested, the perception of America and a few other western nations as decadent societies emerged. Decadence was the broad brush painted by the envious to condemn free market nations and promote a communist agenda. It became especially popular in nations that maintained monarchies and aristocratic societies which subdued the working class. This stifling of the masses who were envious of their western counterparts erupted in revolutions, but rather than emulate those which they envied, they rejected liberty and prosperity and imposed an iron will in all realms of life including economic, religious, and social activities.

So with capitalism we have one of the alleged seven deadly sins, greed. With communism we have another of the seven deadly sins, envy. The hostility between the two and their worldwide competition in the first half of the 20th century led to the rise of a third and final economic paradigm, fascism. Fascism first appeared in Italy in the 1920s with the political rise of Benito Mussolini. Fascism grew out of the conflict between capitalism and communism. Anti-religious communism was on the rise in Italy, but the powerful church stood in its way. At the same time, the church was not pleased with the liberal decadence that was growing in the west. Fascism was a compromise, rejecting both the debauchery associated with capitalism and the atheism associated with communism. It was also an economic compromise, maintaining the private ownership of the means of production as with capitalism, but with state control of the capital as with communism. Mussolini suggested that fascism could be called corporatism, because it was a merger of state and corporate power. With that power the state, especially with blessings of the church, could coerce, oppress, and pressure any element of society that it did not like. Eventually, the coercion, oppression, and pressure evolved to outright violence. Thus fascism carved out its own deadly sin, wrath.

By the 1930s many Americans, including famous people such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, became enamored with fascism and wanted America, mired in the doldrums of the Great Depression, to adopt the fascist policies that were seen as successful in Italy. It was only after Hitler transformed fascism into a nationalistic form of socialism and became aggressive abroad that fascism began to be seen in a negative light by the public. Although defeated in the field during WWII and condemned for its bigotry and atrocities after the war, the economic aspects of fascism have not only survived, but have thrived in the post war world. Almost every president, senator, and representative of both major parties since WWII have endorsed fascist economic policies, such as Keynesian economics, so when a candidate calls their opponent a fascist, they are probably not wrong, but they are also fascist themselves. America has also adopted fascist foreign policies, but in a much smarter way than Germany and Italy did in the 30s and 40s. Instead of invading and attempting to conquer the objective nation, they have covertly instilled revolutions while applying economic pressure. Military force is used, but only when necessary and always with a public relations program to paint the leader to be deposed in a negative light.

The transition has been so subtle and successful that opponents of the current paradigm still believe they are living in a capitalistic society and blame their problems on the greedy capitalists, rather than the wrathful fascists they are living under. But that is another basic component of fascism, blaming others for your situation.

To sum up:
Capitalism = greed
Communism = envy
Fascism = wrath

Greed is defined as an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs, especially with respect to material wealth. Thomas Aquinas wrote that, like pride, it can lead to evil.

Envy is defined as resentful longing aroused by the desire for the traits or possessions of someone else. According to Aquinas, envy is "sorrow over another’s good as excelling my own" and eventually leads to hatred. Bertrand Russell opined that envy is one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow and the urge to inflict pain upon others.

Wrath is uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person, when it is unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment.

So which do you choose for your economic paradigm, greed, envy, or wrath? Envy and wrath produce nothing beneficial and are both personally and socially destructive, as evidenced by the millions of people who have died at the hands of communism and fascism. They do this because they can only exist within an authoritarian and slavish system. They inherently require forcing people to do things against their will. Capitalism and the greed which may come with it, on the other hand, does produce benefits to the public, because it produces goods and services that enhance the lives of everyone. To benefit its owners, it must serve its customers and workers. It is the only one of the three that is compatible with freedom. It can only harm the public when it morphs into the fascist realm of corporatism, merging with state power. With all its faults, capitalism is the only way to achieve economic growth for everyone without inflicting suffering on at least one segment of society. It is the only economic system that is not inherently evil.

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