Episode 223： 10 Reasons To Love Capitalism
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Summary
In this episode of Valuetainment, Patrick explains why he loves capitalism and why you will never look at capitalism the same way again after listening to this podcast. He explains why capitalism is the best system in the world, and why it s better than crony capitalism.
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start.
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Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, turn the stars up above.
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Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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I'm Patrick Bedev, your host of Valuetainment, and today we're going to talk about 10 reasons why I love entrepreneurship and capitalism.
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Yes, I said it. I love capitalism, but it's going to be a complete different approach than you've ever heard in your life.
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You will never look at capitalism the same way ever again after this podcast.
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So first of all, before I get into telling you all these great things about capitalism,
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I want you to know that it is very naive to think that any system is perfect.
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I think a lot of times when people want to bash something, they're expecting 100% of people to do it right.
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For example, there's a lot of bad teachers in the world, a lot of bad parents, bad CEOs, bad bosses, bad journalists, bad bloggers, bad YouTube channels.
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There's a lot of anything that's bad that they abuse the power.
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But all of these guys give an opportunity for somebody who's a good parent, good CEO, good boss, good capitalist, good journalist,
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to become a hero where somebody says, oh my gosh, look at the way this guy does this.
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So I'm not here to be naive and tell you all the great things about capitalism because I read all the negative stuff about capitalism.
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Competition, destruction, adverse selection, externalities, monopolies, free riding, pointless cause, under consumption, inhumanity, inequality,
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which by the way, monopolies don't exist without the help of government.
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The only way a monopoly can happen is with the help of a government.
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This is where you see crony capitalism taking place.
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I'm simply talking about a system, on what a system does.
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So here's what I want you to be thinking about.
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Let's talk about some of the capitalists that they don't care about, you know, the environment.
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They don't care about what the world looks like.
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We're specifically talking about environment on point number one.
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It's like, listen, I just want to make money, man.
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I don't care if the solar is going to be dirty.
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I don't care if the sky's got all this smog because our cars barely pass the smog.
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That's perfect because it opens up the opportunity for a young guy that's watching and saying,
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What if we created cars that were driven by batteries and I could put chargers all over
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the country, all over the world, and you just go, would go charge your battery for like
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two hours and you go charge your battery for 20 minutes and you go for another 20 minutes.
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And then he becomes a hero and he creates Tesla.
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And people who own Teslas, they swear by Teslas.
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Every friend that I have who owns a Tesla, it's like they're part of a cult because they
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feel good that they're making the world a cleaner place, right?
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A capitalist that didn't care about the environment gave birth to Elon Musk.
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It's a two-minute commercial, Mario, let's put the link below if somebody wants to watch
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the whole commercial, but I'm just going to give you 30 seconds of it and we're going
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I want you to guess which company's commercial this is.
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Watch it and tell yourself, I think it's such and such company.
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When we look across the globe, we have growing populations.
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This really puts a lot of pressure and an increased demand on water supplies.
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That's why we're intently focused on being good water stewards.
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Most of them are around restoring and protecting watersheds or water resources.
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It might be working with farmers or growers to implement better irrigation best management
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It's a night and day difference between the before picture and the after picture.
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We're really spreading new messages about what sustainability looks like, not just for
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For those of you that had never seen this commercial before, in your wildest dreams,
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did you think that was going to be a Coca-Cola commercial?
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Did you think that was going to be a Coca-Cola commercial?
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Because if all this water supply goes through, they're out of business.
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They better pay attention to the water supply in the world.
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They better pay attention to water being clean.
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They better invest billions of dollars of research to make sure water's going to be okay.
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Capitalism becomes a business that you have to pay attention to the environment or else
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the capitalists running the business will be extinct.
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You know, a lot of countries you live in or states you live in, in America, there are
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some states that whether you vote or not, it's going to be Republican or it's going to
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Your vote doesn't matter in a lot of different places.
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States like California or New York, your vote doesn't really matter a lot.
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Illinois, your vote doesn't really matter a lot, right?
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So a lot of people are like, does my vote really matter?
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There is no place to go complain about a government official.
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Like there's not a Yelp for government officials.
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No DMV cares if you want to go out there and say bad things about them.
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The following month, all the people that were using Uber, everybody went to who?
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And the reason, the reason that they know how much your vote matters, they have to treat
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Because if they don't, you may be voting for somebody else very soon.
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You know, I'm always curious when the person that complains about a capitalism video I make
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about entrepreneurship, something like that about business, the person complains.
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And they're complaining on their iPhone or their smartphone, on YouTube, all started by
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Which, by the way, this is a complete different perspective to give you for you to be thinking
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Well, how many of you today watching this actually like what you do for a living?
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By the way, would you replace doing what you do right now versus, I don't know, being
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Let me explain to you what the conditions of a farmer is.
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If you said no, for some of you that are watching and saying, Pat, I don't get the
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Does Pat want us to go back to being farmers and working in agriculture?
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In America, during colonial times, 90% of all workers in America worked in agriculture.
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In 1900, in America, 41% of all of us, we'd be doing agriculture.
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I wouldn't be running an insurance company where I know we're doing value team and videos.
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Today, only 2% of people in America are farmers.
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The capitalists said, we can figure out a better way of doing this.
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And because of capitalists, they figured out ways to do it better.
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They figured out ways to make it more efficient.
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And that gave you the opportunity to have a different kind of a job where you can work
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behind a desk or whatever it is that you do out there.
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And you don't have to be outside 12 hours a day working hard because of a capitalist
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figuring out a way to add advancement and innovation that gave you the opportunity to
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do what you do today rather than being a farmer.
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You know, here's another thing that capitalism did.
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Capitalism took us for the longest time wherever you live, you know, all over the world.
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For many years in America, everybody, you know, if you were a certain age and if America
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needed soldiers, you were forced to go into the army or the military.
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Many of the younger generation is not going to know about it.
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Because a lot of people would tell me stories who were older that it used to be by force.
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People would make up all these different excuses to avoid being drafted, right?
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Do you know why the draft went away in America?
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Well, a Nobel Prize winner named Milton Friedman, who, if you haven't watched any of his videos,
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just go on Google, type in Milton Friedman, and watch every one of his debates.
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He said, if America's about capitalism and capitalism's about choices, we should make
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the same with military and get away with draft.
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Because if you get people who join the army by choice, you have better soldiers.
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Then you get people who you force to go to war.
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Why not let people choose to serve their country where it matters to them, then force them to
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It's like making somebody do something they hate.
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The spirit of capitalism got away with the spirit of force.
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And that's why there's no longer draft in America.
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So you know how you hear this entire thing about redistribution of wealth?
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You know, socialism sucks because you've got to redistribute wealth.
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It sucks because it forces you to redistribute your wealth, unlike capitalism.
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Bezos was recently interviewed, and they asked him, they said, hey, how do you feel about
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He says, I don't feel bad about it because the company's worth $1 trillion, and I'm worth
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$160, that means I have redistributed wealth to other people and made them $840 billion.
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A company, Amazon, goes from $0 to $1 trillion.
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Redistribute by choice and effort, and result, $840 billion of wealth is spread amongst other
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people that brought value or invested into Amazon.
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Now, that is my kind of redistribution of wealth because it's by choice, not by force.
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So remember, the whole concept of capitalism is a lot of different spirits.
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Another spirit about capitalism is the fact that you have to improve.
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If you don't improve, you're going to take a hit.
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And this happens all the time in business, but it also happens all the time in life.
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How many times have you met somebody that doesn't take care of their health?
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They eat cheesecake, sweets, Coke, all this stuff.
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They smoke, they drink, and they just look unhealthy, right?
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They live 93 years old, and 99 years old, and 91 years old.
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And for some of you that always look for the anomaly,
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well, I know my grandpa that smoked for 58 years, and he's 92 still alive.
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The point I'm trying to make to you is the following.
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If you don't improve your business, and your name is Sears,
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you could potentially be put out of business by a guy named Amazon,
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ran by Jeff Bezos, who constantly is focused on improving.
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And by the way, here's the part that everybody has to realize.
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They overcame a World War I or II, a Great Depression.
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Well, you mean to tell me they cannot make it through this thing that Amazon's given them all this competition?
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Today, no one in the world thinks Apple will ever go out of business.
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No one thinks today that Jeff Bezos, Amazon, will ever file bankruptcy.
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If Jeff Bezos all of a sudden got comfortable, the guy that replaces him does,
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fast forward 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, a new company may come out
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that is more focused on improving and making it better for you,
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This whole concept here is why prices went from being expensive to being cheap,
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I don't like the way they're doing a fast food day.
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If you look at the people in the marketplace, they're looking for healthier.
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If you look at the marketplace and you listen, they want speed.
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If you listen to the marketplace, customer service is very high.
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People want you to pay attention to social issues.
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Why don't we do that and we improve and we'll gain the customers?
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So I want you to look at the list of Fortune 500 companies.
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I want you to find a company that is a Fortune 500 company with one employee.
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The beautiful thing about capitalism is the capitalist starting the company needs, needs people.
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You see, when I was working at Ballets and I came out of the military, I had no idea what
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I was always like this, you know, I sold hats and all this other stuff, but not an organized
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I worked at Haagen-Dazs and it was in the military.
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I got into sales and I noticed, oh my gosh, that guy quit.
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I said, I'm going to learn sales so much and master the scripts on phone calls, on guests
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coming in, on walk-ins, on telephone inquiries, on going and shaking hands with all the members.
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I would literally walk around Ballets and I would see somebody that needs a set.
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Remember, anybody that wants a membership, you can come and talk.
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I went through it and all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute.
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That same principle was applied because people need people like that.
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All corporations out there need talent like this.
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There's this notion about saying that, well, you know, companies don't treat their people
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But at the same time, I also know a lot of people who have jobs who are entitled, who kind
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of feel like, well, they got to do everything for me, yet they don't give that additional
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That's why bad employees, there are plenty of bad employees, just like there's plenty
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Bad employees allow the good employees who go above and beyond everybody else to constantly
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And eventually, if that's not going to work out in the company you're with, I guarantee
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And by the way, why are you not even thinking about the fact that maybe you only have two or three
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1900, the average life expectancy of a citizen of the world.
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You mean to tell me in 120 years, my life expectancy increased by 41 years?
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Is it because global warming makes us live longer?
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Is it because all of a sudden the trees are better trees?
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Ken Langone, one of the founders of Home Depot, wrote a book that said, I love capitalism.
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He said, my dad died in his early 60s at a young age.
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Because back then, we didn't have blood thinners.
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Because he's on blood thinners, he hasn't had a heart attack.
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But if you look at him, you tell yourself, this man is probably going to go for another
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So the reason why you and I are living longer today is because somebody who is a capitalist
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used their capital to advance medicine, which is why you and I live longer today.
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You know, if you speak to any parent and you tell them, listen, what do you want your kid
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Most parents will say, I just want my kid to be happy.
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But happy to you may be different than happy it is to me.
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Maybe happy to you is working nine to five, Monday through Friday, taking Friday afternoon
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off to golf and you have Saturdays and Sundays off because that's what happy means to you.
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I may say happy to me is running and gunning, working 80 hours a week, building something
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that's never been done before, spreading a message that's going to change the entire
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Somebody may say, Pat, you're absolutely miserable.
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Somebody else may say, happy to me is working for a non-profit.
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Every time there's a crisis all over the world, I go and I contribute.
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I went and contributed when the earthquake happened.
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The problem is sometimes everybody's imposing their happiness on you.
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You're like, for you to be happy like me, you have to be doing exactly what I'm doing
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I had a friend here who's the number one backgammon player in the world, Victor Ashkenazi.
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Okay, he originally was born and raised in Russia, lived there for 20-some years, under
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a communist stagnation, went to St. Peter's, but came to America, went to NYU.
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After NYU, worked at Sun Guard, then goes to Goldman Sachs for 11 years.
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Today, he's a grandmaster, backgammon player, the best one in the world.
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So today, and we start talking, and one of the things that came up was a story about
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a lady who would pick out my outfits at Nordstrom's, and I would go buy it from her, right?
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And she was a person that was from Russia, and she left Russia because she had a son,
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and she didn't think her son had the same opportunity in Russia as she would in America,
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She would say, Pat, I miss the fact that after work, everybody would get home at 4 or 5 o'clock,
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and we would just play cards, we would play games, we'd have drinks, we'd laugh, we'd play music.
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That is an element of happy to most people, me and you included.
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But the question we've got to ask is the following.
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What different types of happy can coexist in communism, in socialism, in capitalism?
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Happy to Elon Musk is starting a business on the moon, right?
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Do you think Elon Musk in a communistic nation would be happy?
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Do you think Elon Musk in a socialistic nation like Greece would be happy?
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America, the person in America who works for a non-profit organization, do you think she
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or he can coexist in communism that they're giving back?
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Do you think the person that's an executive here, they don't want to be an Elon Musk, but
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they want to work 60 hours a week, and they want to make a half a million dollar of your
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They're low-key people, but they want to make a half a million.
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Can that person coexist in Russia or in Greece?
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See, what capitalism allows to do is, it allows multiple different types of happiness to coexist.
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Because Elon Musk can't live in America, that non-profit person can, the one that wants
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to be an executive can, and the person that just wants to work nine to five and get Friday
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This is why capitalism system allows all kinds of happy to just mesh and live together.
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I want you to think about that relative that you have, that judges you all the time.
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How do we feel when somebody judges us all the time, right?
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You know what's the great thing about capitalism?
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You know what's one of the great things about capitalism?
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Like, very quickly, capitalism gets over your old mistakes.
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See, you see a lot of people at the top that they make it, but you only see they'll find
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If I had to make my list, my list is a very, very long list.
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Matter of fact, I even made a video about it called 12 Mistakes I Made As An Entrepreneur.
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You can go work another job, save your money, three years later, start a business and come
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And by the way, you can fail once, twice, three times, four times, five times.
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Because the only thing anybody matters, the only thing anybody cares about is your last
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Because you win one time, everybody forgets all the past mistakes you made.
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So you're watching this right now saying, oh my God, I just failed last year.
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.