Capitalism is the economic system where the people choose who gets what resources.

Socialism is the economic system where the government chooses who gets what resources.

Obviously there is a mixture in the U.S. as well as the European nations. There are examples however where a part of New Jersey has privatized their water system and the residents enjoy cleaner water for cheaper and the employees are paid better than before. It was also necessary for Philadelphia to privatize the garbage collection at one time. What ends up happening in a situation where the government owns/operates/controls the business there is no reward for initiative and ideas and hard work. When you have a system where efficiency, ideas, hard work is rewarded because the “people” are choosing you start to see the nation prosper. This does NOT make other country’s citizens poorer at all.

You do NOT have a point Steve. In our nation, we are taxed pretty heavily. This is revenue to the government. Our government is very very very generous with this revenue spending on all sorts of things. Almost every state in the nation spends about 50% of it’s budget on education (yet liberals still have bumper stickers saying if you think education is expensive try ignorance). This nation is spending the smallest percentage on national defense than over 60-70 years. Most of the money is spent on duplicative assistance and entitlement type programs and liberals ACT like Republicans are cutting when nothing has been cut in over 6 decades.

In capitalism people choose who gets what resources via choosing:
1) who they work for
2) who works for them
3) what product they want to buy
4) what they will sell for
5) how hard they will work
6) what capital they want to invest in
7) what services they want to provide
what services they need to purchase

It’s important to understand that this nation is a nation of laws based on the constitution and the bill of rights and the amendments. The courts and laws offer protections. We are protected from our government as well as from others. What also offers protections for non-able bodied and elderly are safety net type programs.

Unfortunately these safety net type programs offer too many able-bodied people hammocks.

There isn’t a set amount of money in the world divided up to be 12% for Americans and 88% for all other countries even though we are 5% of the population of the world. That isn’t the way it works at all. Companies are entities that exist because someone or a “group” of people are allowed by governments to take a risk and provide goods and services. The reason why France has 10% unemployment rates is because companies aren’t willing to take risks and “employ” people in France because taking on ONE hire in France means that person is hired for almost life. Due to this “GOVERNMENT CONTROL” most companies will only take on “temp” workers and contract out if work needs to be done. Many of the youth in France are sick of this system as they have a 25% unemployment rate for the young French and can’t get employed like their parents were. In other nations where the government isn’t so coercive/burdensome/overbearing companies are willing to take on a many hires. And why? Because there is work that needs to be done. There is a product or service that needs to be provided to a consumer. If there is more demand from consumers the companies try to meet the demand with supply. In order to meet the supply they need to hire. When there is more hiring that means there is more consumers because people who are employed pay taxes and buy things. There are higher rates of economic activity like this in a freer nation that has capitalism as their system. There are lower rates of economic activity like this is a more restrictive nation that has socialism as their system. The poor are poorer in nations with more government control. In this nation the poor are relatively well off. See this explanation of the poor in this nation. In fact, according to this report the poor in America are better off the the AVERAGE European.
That isn’t because we are mean and they are nice or because we are lucky and they are unlucky

Bring the troops home after they have finished creating… Peace

LINK

Thanks for the laugh Steve. – Lorica

Steve – this is your final warning on off topic chatter. Do it again and you’ll find yourself on an ST-imposed break from posting here. PEACE. –ST

Saying “capitalism requires a winner and a loser” is the same as saying “I have never been involved in a business deal where both parties profited”. If that’s the case, I feel sorry for you It’s not a zero-sum game as you seem to believe.

“Taxes are the only mechanism that the capitalist system has to drain off excess gain.” Draining off excess gain (I assume you mean people’s paychecks) is a good thing!?!?!

Socialism in every attempt ever tried, is extremely destructive. It harms the producers, decreasing their desire and ability to produce. It’s worse for the recipients. They become part of the welfare state, locked in a system they cannot leave that slowly destroys the soul. If they have freedom (like in France) they will riot. If they don’t (like in N. Korea or Cuba), they flee or just die.

Socialism truly is a zero-sum economic system. If one man produces, another man gets the product without the need for him to produce anything in return. Socialism weakens countries and creates the very inhumanity it would ideally resolve.

So I still agree with what Steve first said, “Capitalism, you gotta love it.”

Humorous indeed.

Thank you for your anti-Christian rant.

How exactly does socialism eliminate conditioned response? How is eliminating conditioned responses a good thing? How does Capitalism require awful behavior for success?

I guess I can kind of see that capitalism causes people to have excess money with which they want to get the best deals they can, but I can hardly call that a negative.

Socialist countries either have negative growth rates, or tiny positive ones. So socialism might remove the disposable cash from it’s citizens which lead to such black friday fiascos, but I can hardly call that a positive…

Who, in their right mind, would put themselves in that situation for the sake of a ‘bargain’?