Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 7:28 am
What you are calling "capitalism" is actually a mixture of capitalism and socialism.
Well, no; that's not really how it is. "Socialism" does not merely mean, "the presence of some social programming." It doesn't merely mean, "everybody gets some." It doesn't even mean "government regulation of terms of competition." Socialism is a comprehensive approach to both economics and politics, based on collectivizing the economy, all industry and all social programming. It means the elimination of competition, of alternatives, of political opponents, of free speech and of personal power in favour of a manipulable collectivism.
Now, capitalism has its problems, I don't deny. Left unchecked, it can become greedy and exploitative...and it can kill the very competition that once gave it life, and become monopolistic, as it has today in the case of the social media barons, for example. So you're not wrong that government has a role in doing things like regulating fair terms of competition and busting monopolies. Unrestricted capitalism is not a good thing, anymore than Socialism is. However, the one thing that capitalism does is that it increases wealth. And if competition is fair, it enables the spread of that wealth to all levels of society, increasing the potential for prosperity to all. It is not by accident that the wealthiest and healthiest places in the world all have strong, capitalist economies. That much has to be obvious to anyone. Capitalism's economics certainly work, if managed well. And government, no doubt, has a role in making sure the distribution of capitalist opportunities remain equitable. No question.
Now, as for Socialism, before it's anything else, it is an
economic theory. That's where its chief ambitions lie, and that is where it is a signal failure. Socialist economics destroy countries. They become not just non-competitive on a global scale, but incapable of sustaining their own economic lives internally. And, of course, they are utterly incapable of supporting the very financially burdensome social programs (like Medicare or a living wage) that Socialists want, even with outrageous levels of public taxation: because Socialism doesn't produce new wealth. It just doesn't. And that's the irony: the ambitions of these programs make it necessary that capitalism must persist and grow indefinitely. It can be monitored, regulated somewhat, taxed within limits, and so on, but that's just how the capitalist "cow" has to be "milked."
Socialism produces no "milk." It just drains off resources, amplifies waste, and eventually renders a polity serviceable to totalitarians. Consequently, the only hope for things like Medicare is if a vigorous capitalism is also present. This is what the Chinese found out: for they have had as much means...and I would suggest more means...for implementing Socialism than anyone else has ever had. And yet they have not begun to thrive economically until they abandoned Socialism and went to "Red Capitalism."
But "Red Capitalism" is really a very ominous thing: for it shows that far from it being automatic that capitalism will issue in freedom, totalitarianism can also use capitalism to its advantage. So you're not wrong to be concerned about that. But notice that it is precisely because in China competition of a real type is impossible, a single, monolithic Socialist party rules unchecked, and Socialist ideology persists, that capitalism has become so dangerous to the world. The worst outcome for us all is a Socialist polity with the clout of a capitalist economy. That's a very bad "mixture" -- not just for the rest of the world, but even for the prospects of the people of China itself. (Ask Tibet or the Uighurs how they're doing lately, for example. Or consider how women fared under the "one child" system.)
So Socialism cannot pay its own bills. It runs economies into the ground. And when yoked to capitalism, it becomes
totalitarian capitalism. However, in both cases, the problem is very clear: it's not the capitalism, it's the Socialism.
