Don’t Eat The Rich: Capitalism Ain’t The Culprit (4 minute read)

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I was just as guilty of it in my 20s as the 20- and 30-somethings (and even older folks) are today: calling capitalism the root of all evil. This is absolutely not the case, no matter what government reports, selective ads, or socialist-leaning teachers and professors drilled into us.

 

First, let’s get the definition straight so we’re not talking past each other:
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production plus voluntary exchange in a free market. That’s it. Profit is the incentive, competition is the discipline, and the customer is king. Businesses succeed only by giving people what they want—better and/or cheaper than the next guy. The height of foolishness is pricing yourself higher than the competition. Why pay $7 for a dozen eggs at a unionized grocery store when you can grab the same thing cheaper at the non-unionized discount spot a few blocks away?

 

Sure, the goal is profit. But you earn it by charging what the market will bear while fighting for every customer.

 

When basics feel out of reach in Canada, it’s not capitalism failing—it’s governments distorting it with regulations, barriers, taxes, and endless money-printing.

 

Grocery stores run on 3–5% net margins. Practically all the “record profits” screamed about in headlines are gross, not net. For Loblaw, a huge chunk comes from everything except food—beauty, apparel, pharmacy, housewares. Blaming Galen Weston for high grocery prices is ridiculous. Accusing him of being Poilievre’s puppet is even more absurd—he’s been cozy with Trudeau’s Liberals and happily took that $12 million fridge rebate handout.

 

Gen Z (mostly) moans they’ll never afford a house because of greed. The truth? High housing prices are largely the fault of voters who keep electing progressive governments that love heaping extra costs, hurdles, and taxes on builders—who then must pass every penny on to buyers or simply stop building. Add near-unchecked immigration cramming hundreds of thousands into cities without mandating matching housing supply, and you get massive artificial scarcity.

 

Then municipal governments cry about needing more revenue for services and jack up property taxes—while wasting cash left and right. Calgarians, remember Jyoti Gondek’s electric bus debacle that flushed millions down the drain with basically nothing delivered? Or her push to send our tax dollars overseas while local needs pile up?

 

But the biggest driver of higher costs isn’t even all that. It’s governments printing “extra” money year after year. The more dollars in circulation, the less each one is worth. Money hasn’t been backed by gold or any real commodity for decades—it’s just fiat promissory notes. Throw in sending billions overseas to fund wars we have no stake in, or pouring cash into ideological projects like turning schools into alphabet-alliance battlegrounds (yes, that’s happened under Trudeau’s Liberals), and you’ve got a recipe for relentless inflation.

 

There’s so much more that could be added to this blog, but this would turn into a novella. Suffice it to say: the next time you complain about Canada’s higher cost of living compared to the rest of the world – global prices have risen too, yet ours remain stubbornly above average – lay the blame where it belongs: on politicians and voters who have an unnatural love affair with spending your money willy-nilly.

Sources & Supporting Links

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