I guess Im just pointing at the fact that the big corporate interests are pushing the government decision making. Note the heavy consolidation & the creation of big conglomerates. If this country was truly being pushed toward socialism, we would actually see more healthcare & education programs and job protection instead of outsourcing. Yet instead we have big pharma pushing big government to stop cheaper drugs being imported from Canada, middle class jobs being outsourced & wages going down as expenses go up. It seems to be a clever hybrid of right wing big business executing their strategies through a left wing socialism front. Instead of decreasing government power, big business is simply corrupting it and manipulating it.
The more I look at it, the more I think everybody here is right. "We The People" suffer from increasingly socialistic governmental policies -- in areas where socialistic policies will help impoverish, control, or restrict our freedom. In the areas where the taxpayers would actually appreciate some government control (regulating the amount of mercury I just ate in my salmon steak, or preventing anti-competitive companies from abusing their monopoly positions), "We The People" find the government is very pro-capitalist and anti-regulatory -- and again, coincidentally, this stance helps only to subjugate the masses. The link, of course, being that both the governments and the big corporations intend to milk the masses for whatever they're worth. The government only seems interested in enriching itself at our expense, as do the corporations, with governmental blessing. We get all the bad points of socialism, with very few of the good points. We get all the bad points of capitalism, with very few of the good points. I guess I've just discovered Cable's Poor Man's Paradox: Everyone else has found a way to have their cake and eat it too, and we end up paying for their meal while we beg for scraps.
It's difficult to find a balance point between capitalism and socialism. Can you list the contries that have better systems than US and tell us what we should learn from them?
Not only is money not defined as state-created or owned, it does not even have to be officially sanctioned. In prisons, cigarettes act as money. In remote areas of Africa, livestock serves the same purpose. You appear to be confusing money with currency. Even currency has been privately issued in a competitive free market, for example Scotland, the USA. Green Shield stamps, travellers cheques, and air miles are also forms of privately issued money. As for the rant in your first paragraph,who do you think paid the taxes to fund all this state-created stuff in the first place? It wasn't the government, that's for sure. I don't see anything hypocritical about people using what they or their parents have paid through the nose for.
Capitalism clearly doesn't require socialism. For example, the slave trade is entirely capitalist, and requires no law, regulation, government interveniton, licensing, or other state-sanctioned actions in order for it to exist and generate profit. Capitalism can and does operate in a pure anarchy - black markets exists even in firebombed cities or disaster zones. So the proposition, as put, is clearly false.
It's difficult because most countries are more socialist than the US. Also, countries less socialist in some areas (e.g. lower corporate taxes) may be more socialist in others (e.g. greater govt ownership of industry). Finally, the countries that are less socialist overall, may have other problems such as corruption, a much lower base standard of living (e.g. ex-communist countries, war zones etc), political repression (e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong), lack of freedoms (Monaco) and so on. And there are other issues, for example, the US is more capitalist than Sweden or Holland, yet it burdens itself with huge military spending, and has a very expensive and destructive war on drugs that gives it a huge prison population and criminalises large numbers of non-violent members of the general public. Both these policies have enormous social and financial costs, which may well outweigh or at least offset the greater capitalism of the US, and result in overall lower quality of life. Because of the lack of controlled experiments, and huge number of variables, it is difficult to form definitive conclusions about what policies result in what outcomes. It is even more difficult to get agreement on what outcomes are most desireable. An in-depth study of the subject over a period of years may give you a general inkling as to what policies tend to promote the goals you find important (assuming you approach it with an open-mind, rather than looking to justify your preconceived opinions), but it is hard to get any more precise than that. Of course, this makes the topic perfect for the type of imbecile who comes along with a preconceived opinion, usually formed in utter ignorance, and then looks through 100 facts with blinkers on until they see 1 or 2 that support their position. This is why two people can look at identical evidence and form totally opposite conclusions.
That's not always true. Look at kleptocrat dictators, organised crime, slave traders, con artists, fraudsters etc. Hydroblunt is quite correct in saying that pure capitalism is unethical. Pure capitalism means maximising profit for the capitalist, with no other concerns being important. The best way to do this is to use trickery and/or force to conquer others and own everything possible. This could be achieved by corrupting or taking over government, passing laws to ban competition, and thus establishing legal monopoly or even tyranny. Capitalism, like democracy or law, is only good for others when it is forcibly prevented from carrying out morally repugnant actions (e.g. murder, slavery, fraud etc). Good capitalism results from good behaviour, not the other way round.
Law isn't socialism, under any commonly accepted definition of either term. For example, free market libertarians support rule of law, yet oppose socialism utterly. Furthermore, many capitalists (e.g. free market liberatarians) fundamentally object to using law to entrench monopoly or create barriers to entry. Just because some capitalists will misuse the law to entrench their positions, does not mean all or even most will do so. In the same way, just because some socialists will misuse state power to entrench their personal power, does not mean that all or even the majority of socialists will do so. However, one must be on guard against both varieties - corruption is a problem for both socialists and capitalists.
You are not really a raw capitalist if you support any type of regulation of big business. It's supposed to be "laissez faire" and total hands off by big government. Free market libertarians appear to be a hybrid of the capitalist & some aspect of government regulation. I guess it depends which "capitalism" definition you want to use, the theoretical or the historical origin. Let me note that socialism was created through theory & ideas first then implemented while capitalism simply came to life in imperialist Europe and then was noticed by academics. It is completely illogical to expect any capitalist or even any human being driven toward riches to allow free competition and use morality when putting up barriers to entry. So it makes sense to have a higher power that control those aspects while letting the capitalist do what he wants within reasonable boundaries. This is pretty much what US accomplished quite fast in the early to mid 1900s. Capitalism's best feautures were able to flourish while the worst were kept under control. At least until Microsoft's monopoly.