Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics The Debate: Is America’s future capitalist or socialist?

Low labor costs incentivizing off shoring and executive boardroom decision making.
Artificial demand creation, manafactured scarcity, regulatory capture, political lobbying, tax avoidence, etc, etc...
Those are not 'restoritave forces' of your mythical hand but one of many strategies that national/transnational corporations are using to tilt the board in the favor of a small minority.
A recent study was conducted that showed how undemocratic western Democracies have become when they compared legislation that was passed to public opinion. It found that the vast majority of actions being taken were not what the public supported but instead was what a small group of interests wanted.
It would say that that sentiment applies to the economy as well. For some the economy is already great. For a large and growing majority, not so much.
Now how can that be with the 'invisible hand'?
Invisible hand is a story conservatives to tell their children at bedtime.

Ironically, the apparent objective of Capitalism (its Manifest Destiny) is to become super rich, yet a healthy economy depends upon everyone having plenty of money to spend. The concentration of wealth is in opposition to a healthy economy.

Socialism implemented by a government is at its root an artificial redistribution of wealth in an attempt to correct for the advancement of the cancerous disease of concentrated wealth. A truly healthy culture would accomplish that without governmental imposition - but when have humans naturally tended towards natural cultural health?

As a species, we have several screws loose. Always have had, I fear.

And more often than not when socialism is implemented by government, whether by revolution or decree, the changes are too much for a rather delicately balanced economic system. And ALL economic systems are delicately balanced.

Evolution doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen on demand. It comes one candidate and one ballot box initiative at a time.

It used to be that them with the bucks at least made an effort to prove they were responsible and recognized that their wealth brought responsibilities with it. During the great depression they actually had a book written about such a person to prove their point. All that stuff no longer exists. Now, the rich just get richer, more self indulgent, rarely responsible, and, basically deserve what will eventually rain down on them.

There are, however, some which do believe they have a responsibility. Bill Gates, for instance, does a LOT of good works and there are others as well. Unfortunately they seem to be in the minority. It always gives me some humor when one speaks up about their tax situations and point out that they pay fewer taxes than the hired help. I have full faith, however, that the worm seems to be turning they are are going to get a lot of opportunities to whine about how badly they are being treated. The strange thing will be the people who will buy into that one.

I aint sayin' all rich people are bad. Or that in my socio-capitalist Utopia there won't be any rich people.

Oddly...the ultimate goal is for there not to be any poor people. I got nuthin' against rich people. I wish I was one of them.

JGW, Greger...back in those "used to be" days, the Bible's Book of Amos talked about social justice and made numerous references to the fate that awaits those who abuse the poor.


In this day there are many false gods who are preaching that "God" smiles on the wealthy and visits evil on the poor, because in the scriptures of these false gods, it is said that the poor are thus because they are wicked, and the wealthy righteous.

Even if you did away with the Christian God altogether, such a thing can't even be true in Nature, let alone in Biblical Scripture. Such a notion goes against anything and everything in the Universe.
It's an impossibility.
And it's pure evil.

Wellsir...if being poor is a virtue then my entry into Pair-O-Dice is all but guaranteed!

But in my tragic fall from the middle class I bounced from safety net to safety net and came in for a soft landing.

It just amazes me that the wealthiest among us, are for the most part shooting themselves in the foot, that's all.

It simply isn't possible to have a planet of seven billion souls where a thousand people own 60 percent of the wealth and assets and the rest are on the road to destitution, but that's the roadmap at the rate we're going. I'd say that as soon as it hits the point where that thousand own seventy or seventy-five percent, the sh!t most definitely will

Those are all failures to regulate the capitalist impulse properly. I never believed all that BS about the invisible hand delivering the ideal world. That's not economics, it's religion or philosophy. I'm talking about the effects individual decisions have on the economy. The problem with "invisible hand" with no regulation is that people may decide robbery and murder are the best economic approach. Obviously, you need the caveat "within the law" and the government has to actually regulate the hell out of our economic decisions. (pun intended)

This is why we need a mixed system. Pure capitalism equals cannibalism. Pure socialism fails be cause people are not virtuous. A mix of the two with all the regulations needed works. If you push it one way or the other (like since Reagan) it does not work as well. AOC wants a 73% top income tax rate. Eisenhower had a 93% top rate. Lots of economists think AOC has the right number, seeing as how she got it from them, not the other way around.

All government is, in essence, "redistribution of wealth." That's what "taxes" are. "We" take from "somebody" to pay for "our" benefits. The goal of whatever government should be to make that distribution as fair as possible. What we're really dickering over is what is "fair".

Americans (and people, generally) are profoundly ignorant of how things actually work - the economy, the government, the environment. In many respects that is a manufactured ignorance. I remember taking "Civics" in high school. It covered not just government, but society, culture, history, etc. Do schools even do that anymore? We live in a "Representative Democratic Republic." Each of those words has meaning. It is time we took that to heart.