but if we look at the countries on this planet that are the most successful in terms of economics, equality, personal freedom, human rights, etc. then we find countries that made it work through regulation and strong government institutions
Yeah that’s socialism. The best societies were all degrees of socialist, this includes western Europe and the USA at its mid-century peak. These societies all had aggressive, borderline confiscatory progressive taxation, large scale government intervention in the economy (in the US especially aggressive anti-trust), a generous social welfare state, and a large and professionalized civil service.
They also had large and well-organized labor unions capable of wielding power on behalf of their members and disrupting plans of the elites.
Remove those things and you quickly slide into a dystopian fascist nightmare state as the US and parts of Europe like the UK are discovering.
You’re forgetting that these countries also have among the highest economic freedom in the world, protect personal property and investments, provide a stable and reliable environment to conduct very capitalist business. The economic system is capitalist, not socialist. There is no planned economy, most industries are in private hands. Strong regulation keeps capitalist excesses in check as you’ve correctly identified, while the high taxation levels the playing field by financing a robust safety net and other government services everyone benefits from.
In Germany, the term for this kind of system is social market economy, with social being a qualifier and market economy the system.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Nearly every real-world economic system sits somewhere on a spectrum instead of neatly slotting into one category only.
Sure, but the difference is that they (European countries) do not profess to be staunch Capitalists (and staunchly anti-Socialist), whereas by large America does. That is a big difference, because it informs policy drastically. There’s a reason we’re much much closer to a corporate oligarchy than European nations are, and it’s our idealization of a system that literally is based around Corporatism.
America is the one dealing in absolutes. “Are you or have you ever been a member of…”, “better dead than Red”, etc.
This is incorrect. When the concept of the social market economy was first brought to the public attention by the conservative German CDU in the late 1940s, it was meant to be a counterpoint to the “unsocial command economy”. Being staunchly anti-Socialist was a core policy of most large democratic parties in Western-European countries, not just West-Germany, as a reaction to the massive and very close threat from the East. Relations only began to thaw in the 1970s, only for the Cold War to heat up in the 1980s.
Yes, I know, this is the past and today, things are different in terms of rhetoric on the old continent, but this was when the economic systems that are still in place today were created.
Yeah that’s socialism. The best societies were all degrees of socialist, this includes western Europe and the USA at its mid-century peak. These societies all had aggressive, borderline confiscatory progressive taxation, large scale government intervention in the economy (in the US especially aggressive anti-trust), a generous social welfare state, and a large and professionalized civil service.
They also had large and well-organized labor unions capable of wielding power on behalf of their members and disrupting plans of the elites.
Remove those things and you quickly slide into a dystopian fascist nightmare state as the US and parts of Europe like the UK are discovering.
You’re forgetting that these countries also have among the highest economic freedom in the world, protect personal property and investments, provide a stable and reliable environment to conduct very capitalist business. The economic system is capitalist, not socialist. There is no planned economy, most industries are in private hands. Strong regulation keeps capitalist excesses in check as you’ve correctly identified, while the high taxation levels the playing field by financing a robust safety net and other government services everyone benefits from.
In Germany, the term for this kind of system is social market economy, with social being a qualifier and market economy the system.
So, still not Capitalism tho
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Nearly every real-world economic system sits somewhere on a spectrum instead of neatly slotting into one category only.
Sure, but the difference is that they (European countries) do not profess to be staunch Capitalists (and staunchly anti-Socialist), whereas by large America does. That is a big difference, because it informs policy drastically. There’s a reason we’re much much closer to a corporate oligarchy than European nations are, and it’s our idealization of a system that literally is based around Corporatism.
America is the one dealing in absolutes. “Are you or have you ever been a member of…”, “better dead than Red”, etc.
This is incorrect. When the concept of the social market economy was first brought to the public attention by the conservative German CDU in the late 1940s, it was meant to be a counterpoint to the “unsocial command economy”. Being staunchly anti-Socialist was a core policy of most large democratic parties in Western-European countries, not just West-Germany, as a reaction to the massive and very close threat from the East. Relations only began to thaw in the 1970s, only for the Cold War to heat up in the 1980s.
Yes, I know, this is the past and today, things are different in terms of rhetoric on the old continent, but this was when the economic systems that are still in place today were created.