quote:

Originally posted by Bernard:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/28...apitalism/index.html

quote:

Last year, a Gallup survey found that only 45% of young adults in the United States have a favorable view of capitalism, while 51% see socialism in a positive light. Among all US adults, only 56% gave capitalism a positive rating, the lowest since 2010.

I'm surprised those those numbers are as high as they are. I don't think socialism is a better system than capitalism, but neither is good enough. We need a hybrid.

I have thought capitalism as practiced in the US a horrible, exploitative system since I was a kid. Argued with my dad about it as far back as age 12. Europe has the right idea.

I always find these 'capitalism vs socialism' discussions to be near fruitless, because people have vastly different ideas of what the two concepts are. They quickly devolve into arguments over who gets to define the words.

Often times, people mean something like 'I don't want the US model, I want the Swedish model'. But calling that 'capitalism vs socialism' is just overloading the discussion, as that is more a question of how big a social safety net to have in your capitalist economy.


Of course plenty of other people take a more traditional view of socialism like the DSA party and Jacobin magazine.



Probably the best way to have the discussion is to 'taboo' the words 'capitalism' and 'socialism' and then talk about specific ideas rather than these broad labels.

I'm with jon_nyc. Everyone wants to talk about capitalism v socialism in pure black and white terms. We've probably all squirmed at hearing someone interviewed who thinks that Obamacare is the work of the devil, and they'll get by "just fine" with Medicare. :bangs:

Having seen a more socialistic (if that's the word) model in action, I'd LOVE if we had more.

Interesting side note (at least to me): the number of medical breakthroughs (esp in pharma) in the US is declining because the calculation between research and monetization is too risky. So we get retreads of old drugs, slightly tweaked, just enough to not run afoul of copyright. I'll see if I can find the article.

piqaboo might have some interesting insights as well

So dont use labels. Instead, ask this: are you in favor of guaranteeing everyone a decent quality of life, or do you believe that if people dont have what it takes to be entrepreneurs, for whatever reason, then they deserve to suffer?