Capitalism

There is a lot of truth in the axiom that Capitalism is the most efficient system for creating wealth but the least efficient at distributing it and Communism is the most efficient system for distributing wealth but the least efficient at creating it.

Capitalism, socialism, and communism are economic ideologies. No real economy is all any one -‘ism and no pragmatist would ever want a pure version of any of these ideologies.

You could graph various systems by how much wealth is private and how much is public. With the baking bailout America has one of the most curious systems of all where most wealth is private while most debt is public.

“Yet the chinese government does not allow freedom of speech. Why are you so determined to punish those who have done well with their lives? You have no right to steal what is mine.”

It was not a question about communism, it was about socialism. The lack of freedom of speech has to do with their form of goverment, not their economic system, although they are related. I pesrsonally don’t think their system is better than ours. I was just suggesting that amblessed’s platitude about it being the best system might be disputed by others. Especially given the current failures due to unregulated captialism.

Well, it depends on how you define “success”. I define success as minimizing dispare, rather than as maximizing ‘happiness’. Capitalism goes a long way toward that, but fails for a small fraction of the population.

The best system for that goal, seems to be a mixed system with mostly capitalism, and some safety nets. This is the same approach most of us take when we insure ourselves against low probability catastrophic events.

“Capitalism to date has been the most successful.”

Based on what criteria? I don’t think the Chinese would agree with that assessment.

Extreme capitalism, just like extreme socialism, is not good. When capitalism is unregulated, like it has been for the past 28 years since Ronnie RayGun, it leads to exessive greed & corruption, and leads to economic disaster.

The best system would be a balance of the two. Where socialist policy would provide for the essential infrastructure and public services, I.e. roads & bridges, defense, security, energy, health care, etc… The free market can handle the rest, but with some oversight.