the biggest oligarchs in the world are politicians, socialism = big goverment, big goverment = big politicians, big politicians = more oligarchs.. ireland,hong kong, US and many more became rich and succesfull after they liberated their economies and their systems.. 120 years ago USA was the biggest fiscal paradise in the world.. we have a big problem today, let's put it this way.. 25 years ago USA political system was like this.. GOP= less goverment Democrats = big goverment TODAY is like this: GOP= big goverment (at least still less tax and more free trade) Democrats= socialist (european style, this is bad!) ever since the creation of capitalism there's has always been tragic predictions.. well we've been wating 250 years for that to happen.. is going to happen??? dont think so, capitalism is about bid and ask, and the market is never wrong!
domi, I believe very much in Hayek when he says: "To the socialists of all parties". The predicament of the modern Western societies is uttermost absolute corruption. The "lo que no se ve" - people of course, but also the citizenry which have been brainwashed with the capitalist/socialist kiddie stories. Margaret Tatcher in her days expressed this very eloquently but in her three 4 year terms, didn't manage to change a thing about it. Disarmed Europe, let's better shut up about that mess, past, present or future, the muslims will come clean it up. The US? The US has in fact effectively implemented big-government-socialism to such a degree the Soviet commie cronies never managed to even dream of. Think Bush is going to screw this back? Think Kerry would have cleaned up that mess? Think Hillary Clinton is ? So, what then? Think China is going to come to bail out the US like the US used to bail out Europe a couple of times? Read about what's coming: "The Road to Serfdom". (I posted details a bit higher up - some really smart US people are already running to Tierra del Fuego).
Just for the record Ireland, Hong Kong and a lot of other "liberated" economies have Universal Healthcare, free or subsidized Higher Education, subsidized public transportation, guaranteed retirement, minimum wage and strong unions (in Ireland) and quite a few other "socialist" features. Could that be possible that it has something to do with their success?
FYI, You roughly had a similar situation in many of the European Middleage cities from about 1200 onwards. You still can visit remnants preserved as museums.
I think pure capitalism works fine, as long as competition is not overwhelmed by any individual market participant. However, history has demonstrated that capitalistic style economies tend towards aggregation of market share in the hands of the most efficient producer (not the qualitatively best, just the most efficient). Given enough time, this producer usually gets lazy and forgets how it obtained its superior market share, and collapses under the weight of its own internal control struggles, and the competitive market returns. However, this inevitable flow from extremes of competition to extremes of monopoly creates some very difficult storms for those who are tossed about on the waves of this continuously rising and falling sea. The best thing that could happen would be for government to aggressively enforce antitrust laws so that no market participant can ever get more than about a 5% share of any market. This would maintain lower prices through competition and encourage continuing attempts to improve products and services in the search of market dollars. As far as I'm aware, no nation has ever done this...but, maybe someday one will.