The Fruits Of Capitalism; Because Everyone Loves Free.

Despite the falling of the Berlin wall near-on twenty six years ago, in which capitalism was universally hailed victorious over the inefficient and inherent slaughterhouses of socialism, our comrades on the Left are gaining ground. Attribute this to what you will; our terrible education system, perhaps the history curriculum in teaching all about the Nazi’s of the Second World War, yet not of the equally monstrous socialist USSR, at least in my school. I wont digress. The fact is that the calls for revolution are becoming more frequent, that’s if Tweets count as calls and the number of Russell Brand’s followers is a barometer of socialism’s popularity.

Rounding up mobs of disenchanted useful-idiot voters is easy, especially when you tell them how bad they have it. Don’t forget to tell them how the game is rigged in favor of those rich capitalistic swine, that they can never get ahead and shouldn’t even try.

Forget the fact that anybody with a household income of £22,000 or higher, effectively two working adults working for less than minimum wage in Britain, are in the top 1% of world income. The regular arguments from rational people that we need to turbocharge the system that has provided us with this exceptional global status, by lifting the restraints of government, too often fall upon deaf ears. To come at this from a slightly different angle I have devised a very un-exhaustive list of freebies that we enjoy as the richest generation in history.

“Free”, you say? “Capitalism is all about making profits!”

Websites like Google offer us unlimited searching potential from trivia answers like finding the capital of Taiwan in two seconds flat, to its use as a massively understated educational tool. These websites have the ability of giving us, arguably, and especially those in the developing world, far better education than that of public sector teachers and old-fashioned libraries. A person with access to an internet connection can attain billions of articles, studies and journals without having to pay a penny. Simply put, we can access what we want when we want it, and gone are the days of paying a fortune for Bill Gates’ Encarta 95 with it’s shabby graphics and fonts.

Just a decade ago it would be unthinkable to have access to a free service like Spotify. An app that takes a few moments to install yet provides us with thousands upon thousands of the best artists both old and new. All that we have to do for this evil capitalist company to exploit serve us is listen to the occasional advert between tracks, effectively trading a few seconds of our time for more access to music than CD’s could fit in a thousand record stores. No 9-5 opening times, no catching a bus into town to find out the album you wanted is out of stock, no queuing up in line waiting for incompetent employees, just utter convenience.

Remember the old days? By which I mean less than ten years ago when making calls to, or from, abroad cost a fortune. Not so long ago going on holiday and or keeping in contact with relatives in countries like Australia was an expensive affair, phone companies routinely charged anywhere up to £3 a minute. With free apps like Skype, or even now Facebook Messenger joining the party, we can video call to the other side of the planet, providing we have an internet connection, for no cost whatsoever. No biggie? Just imagine the thousands of highly skilled web technicians, researchers and even general admin staff working shifts right now to provide you with that service, for no tangible cost.

Apps like YouTube offer us millions of hours worth of free entertainment; from the funniest cat videos, to TV shows and movies. YouTube has even made it easier than ever for somebody with a little entrepreneurial spirit to go at it alone. Some genuinely well to do teachers are even offering free lessons to students through this medium. The free website and apps allow any individual with some entertainment or knowledgeable value to make money without any start up cost whatsoever. Contrast this to trying to get “out there” twenty years ago, having to beg middle-men like Simon Cowell for a shot at the music game. Fair enough, YouTube make some money from each advertisement, but whats wrong with a little synergy.

Modern banking provides us with instant access to our accounts online. Not so long ago people had to physically walk into a bank to find our their balance, transfer money or apply for an overdraft, nowadays we can do all this from a laptop or smart phone. I can send money to somebody in New Zealand at 4am on a Sunday. What about the convenience of free 24 hour cash machines? I have no idea how much it costs to make one, probably thousands, or to pay the employees stocking it with money. Banks such as Halifax are even offering free cash withdrawals abroad with certain credit cards. The best part of modern banking for the consumer is that we can find current accounts that actually pay us for these services, some offering £5 a month at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I had to make a trip to the bank, having to pay town centre parking charges and queue up in line.

All of these services save us time and money on a daily basis, leaving us remaining with more of our pay-check each month. Time that we can better spend with family, friends or even working extra hours. Money that we can instead now spend on mortgage payments, food or even the extravagant things in life. These real cash savings, driven by the power of the free-market, are too often forgotten in our daily analysis as to whether our lives are improving or becoming richer.

It’s not just the pay-check we get every month; it’s what it can buy, and what it doesn’t have to.