Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Iwaszko
Hi,
Capitalism has proven to be the best economic system in the world. We are in fact better off then people in any other country as large as ours. The problem is, as any economist will tell you, the result of rampant capitalism is socialism. When the workers of a country are getting abused some social programs are needed to stabilize the situation. examples, minimum wage laws, social security, unions. We have in fact looked to other parts of the world for cheap labor, as our labor is no longer cheap, and cheap labor is the coal that stokes capitalism. So we don't make anything anymore. We have become middle men for their products. Cheap labor has long been abused and still is, it's just not our people. My point here is that we have to accept some social programs so that capitalism won't disappear leaving total socialism and military rule like in many other countries. The trick is the right social programs. All thoughts are welcome..........
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You are right. We had close to unfettered Capitalism at the end of the 19th Century, and while there were Capitalists with lots of capital who got rich, it was a very small part of the population, and the lack of “safety nets” caused a level of suffering for the working class and below that is rare today. In the 20th Century, Capitalism was bridled by the laws you mention. The effect was that the Capitalists stayed rich, but nearly everyone else in the country has a much higher standard of living than we would otherwise have had. Virtually every retired person in The Villages is here because of Social Security, pensions from businesses and the military, union membership, mutual funds letting little folks participate in business investments, government guarantees of savings, Medicare, supplemental health insurance, selling houses that we bought decades ago elsewhere, price supports, and much more. All of these keep Capitalism from being as powerful (and dangerous) as it could be, but they make it possible for all of us to participate in the blessings of Capitalism and even call ourselves Capitalists, even though we aren’t as the word was used in 1890. We could call this Capitalism modified by Socialism, but I’d rather call it something like socially-responsible Capitalism. Many countries have that, and the proportions vary, but wherever it happens, it seems to offer the greatest happiness for the greatest number.