Creative Capitalism

One of the arguments against socialism goes along the lines of:
“Creativity and innovation wouldn’t happen if there was no financial incentive”

There are several things wrong with this.

Humans like me, you and all our ancestors are programmed to create and innovate. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. The computer or the smartphone or the printing press wouldn’t have been invented if writing and mathematics hadn’t been invented (centuries before capitalism was)

The wheel was invented before capitalism.

It was invented by people who figured out how to make their lives easier, to do less hard labour, to give themselves more time to think and create and innovate further.
Art existed before the wheel. Even Neanderthals made musical instruments

We as a species, and our distant cousins, love to be creative.
But when capitalism was created, it did nothing to progress our creativity or ingenuity, only to commodify it and turn the natural ability of mankind to innovate into a means to make money. Not even for the inventor or creator, but for whoever owns the means to market, publish or sell another one’s genius.

One of the most disgusting examples of this is Fred Banting.

He discovered insulin and developed a way to synthesize it. He also refused to patent it, thinking that it was so important for humanity that every country should be able to produce it. As he wasn’t a socialist, he didn’t realise how badly capitalists can be cunts.
90% of the world’s insulin production is now controlled by 3 companies. Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. The price of insulin varies from country to country, but at the moment Japan has the second highest cost, in US dollars $14.40 per vial (a week’s dose for a Type 1 diabetic), almost twice what it costs in Britain, but much less than in the USA where it costs $98.70.
This is in the United States of America, the Land of the Free. Not the inventors of capitalism, but, in the modern world, its most vocal and forceful supporters. You aren’t free if lifesaving medicine is that expensive.

There is a very boring film called Flash of Genius I tried twice to watch it, but couldn’t get all the way through.
But to summarize it, inventor Robert Kearns came up with the intermittent windscreen wiper. It’s used on pretty much all cars built these days. He tried to sell his idea to several big car companies, who all rejected it, but used his idea anyway. The film is about the resulting lawsuit against Ford. Again, Kearns was by no means a socialist, he was an inventor who wanted payment and credit for his invention. But in capitalist societies, you don’t get the reward you expect for doing something that you’re good at or anything that would benefit others (unless it also benefits the capitalists themselves)

Another inventor, John Marino, created a moistened toilet paper which was stolen by Kimberly-Clark*,  again after he approached them to see if they wanted to buy his idea and his small company. Again! He wasn’t a socialist, he was a low-level capitalist and inventor in America.

Can you see the pattern emerging here?

Capitalism doesn’t encourage innovation, human nature does. All capitalism does is tempt and trick people into inventing things with the false promises of untold riches, like when the antichrist tried to get Jesus in the desert.

A more niche example is a computer game I enjoyed as a kid called Traps ‘n Treasures
It was developed by a Swiss record producer, who I presume didn’t need the money, but this could happen to anyone. The publisher of the game refused to pay him till it was finished, but kept demanding rough versions of the game and shortening the deadlines. Then they pieced together the rough versions and published it anyway without crediting the original developers. The publisher also went bankrupt, but founded a new company with his wife’s name on all the papers.

Meanwhile, in the USSR, Mikhail Kalashnikov invented the famous rifle named after him. His parents had their farm confiscated during the revolution, to benefit the whole of the country. Did Mikhail whinge about it though? No, he joined the Red Army as a tank commander and, after listening to his comrades complain that their rifles were worse than the Germans, he invented a better one. He never profited from this and is quoted as saying in the Russian Gazette
“In my 90 years I feel myself to be a happy man. Like anyone else, there are things to regret…. But I can say one thing: I would not have chosen to lead my life any other way if I had had the opportunity.”

Someone in a capitalist country could say this too. But the difference between capitalism and socialism is that if you don’t profit from something under capitalism, someone else will. Within a planned economy if you don’t profit yourself, you just make the country better for everyone. No-one profits, everybody benefits. You invent a rifle, make a shoe, clean the streets, you all have cheap housing, food, clothes and free healthcare. So does everybody else who contributes to such a society.

Now you might think Mikhail invented something that harmed humanity, rather than helped it, but all countries invent and use weapons. Kalashnikov’s rifle has been distributed to freedom fighters around the world, from Ireland to Vietnam. They loved it so much in the Mozambique War of Independence that they put it on their flag  after they won!
It is such a dependable rifle that the US forces invading Vietnam and later Iraq used it, as their own rifles were so shite and in some cases, non-existent.

During the Covid pandemic, Cuba developed two vaccines. They had to give them to Iran for testing, as they already had the infection rate under control, and a superb Health Service.

America didn’t want them, even though they were basically giving them away for free.

Finally, let’s not forget Tetris, one of the world’s most popular games. While its inventor Alexey Pajitnov did end up making money from it after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was never his intention to do so. He was a maths genius and loved puzzles and computer technology. He just wanted to see what himself and the newly developing computer technology could do.  Tetris has also been proved to lower stress  rather than the bug-ridden and propaganda driven games marketed in the West today.

We will always invent things, but capitalists want to profit from these things, socialists want to help people with them.

*Kimberly-Clark have done loads more bad shit, just search for Kimberly-Clark scandal.

Chris Haws
August 2025