By Mollie Engelhart at Brownstone dot org.

Nature doesn't lie. If a system isn't found in the natural world, we should question why we were trying to build it.

In a world where more and more people seem to hate capitalism and clamor for socialism, I find myself wondering if we've chosen the wrong villain.

Capitalism isn't the problem. Maybe it's the closest thing we have to nature.

Imagine a small community. Someone opens a business, a bakery, a farm stand, a cafe. That business provides real value to the community. In return, the community supports it. That business supports the family who runs it, and that family pours back into the community supporting other businesses, hiring local, building a healthy

It's a feedback loop of value and care. But if that business doesn't meet the community's needs, it fails. People stop coming.

Nature works the same way: what no longer serves the ecosystem is broken down and composted so something else can grow. In nature, the weak isn't artificially sustained; it's transformed. The strong doesn't dominate; it contributes.

Capitalism, at its best, mirrors that.

It's not about exploitation. It's about exchange: energy for energy, value for value. Systems that serve the whole survive. Those that do not, fade away. That's not cruelty; it's natural law.

I was having a conversation the other day when someone said that one's ability to contribute shouldn't be tied to their financial worth.

And I asked, Why not? What we bring to the table should be connected not to our worth as human beings, which is inherent, but to what we contribute to the mission, the business, the whole.

We cannot force businesses to pay more in the name of fairness if it bankrupts them or shifts costs to customers who are also struggling.

Every person has innate worth as a child of God, but that doesn't mean everyone must be paid the same regardless of their impact. That's not how ecosystems work. That's not how any functional system works.

It must be energy in, energy out.

I'm grateful for the conversations I have with people I don't always agree with. They sharpen my thinking. But I believe that we must use discernment. And as I write in my book Debunked by Nature: Nature never lies.

If an idea is being presented and it never appears in the natural world, we can safely assume that it has been manipulated, manufactured, and rooted in emotion rather than reality. These ideas are often set in motion for ideological or political purposes.

But creation's perfection, nature, itself never tells a fib.

What we blame as capitalism is often not capitalism at all. It's the result of government overreach, unchecked money printing, massive deficit spending, and collusion between the state and mega-corporations.

That's not a free market. That's not the organic exchange of value. It's a distorted system propped up by artificial flows of capital and centralized control. It's feudalism in a new suit, rigged in favor of the powerful, but falsely blamed on capitalism itself.

I've experienced real capitalism. When I ran my restaurant, we were thriving. We fed the community. The community fed us. It was mutual, honest, and beautiful.

Then Covid hit. And overnight, the government changed the rules. Small businesses like mine were shut down. Big-box stores stayed open.

That wasn't capitalism. That was manufactured collapse under the illusion of fairness and safety. People now point to capitalism and blame it for everything from inequality to burnout. But we haven't had true capitalism in decades.

And socialism, the supposed alternative, is being romanticized. But it doesn't show up in nature. You don't see cows collecting hay for other cows. You don't see goats paying for the healthcare of other goats. You don't see lions building housing for rival prides.

Nature is not socialist. It's cooperative but only when cooperation benefits the whole. It's not about forced redistribution. It's about contribution to the ecosystem.

Even a tree gives back...