The below says something I have long thought but never been able to articulate as well as “Mark.”
Probably the closest thing to “Real Capitalism” was what was practiced in Hong Kong between 1947 and 1997; a time when a tiny city-state became one of the most prosperous places in the world and had a tax code smaller than a TGI Friday’s menu.
Chile also became much more prosperous after Pinochet dealt with the Communist there. He left office peacefully, leaving his country and free and prosperous. The same cannot be said of Castro, Chavez, Mao, Mugabe, or any other socialist maximum leader.
Socialism, on the other hand, has led to more murder, deprivation, and poverty for more people than literally any other idea in history.
“Socialism, on the other hand, has led to more murder, deprivation, and poverty for more people than literally any other idea in history.”
The willful ignorance of this fact alone by Progressive practitioners makes me wonder if intelligence exists without sentience, in the same way that intelligence doesn’t necessarily imply wisdom.
I am in the middle of reading a book by frank dikotter called “mao’s great famine.” dikotter maintains that even more people died in the great leap forward then was previously thought. he says possibly 45 million people lost their lives to famine, repression and outright murder during the leap forward. the thing that strikes me the most is the sheer incompetence of the communists in instituting the totalitarian socialist reforms. the Chinese had been farming for thousands of years, yet they were forces by the communists to use new unproven methods of farming that had disastrous results for the Chinese people.
socialism; the economic system of every dictatorship in history.
Perhaps socialism is civil eugenics.
Perhaps captitalism is more of an animal thing.
There surely would be some history involved. Long view, and such.
That definition of fascism is eerily duplicative of socialism, is it not? Are not socialist purity dogmatists on the march to crush dissent and demand obedience?
Capitalism is based on self interest and the rule of law is crafted to keep self interest from being predatory. Socialism is based on the ambiguous concept of “social justice” and the law is relative to the situation and expediency.
Capitalism is meat and potatoes; socialism is smoke and mirrors.