[quote=Brutus]If you design an experiment to prove that a particular philosophy is a failure, you will succeed, without regard to the merits of such philosophy.
For instance, if the teacher had wanted to prove the inefficacy of socialism, he could assign the smartest students only half their grade points and give the other half to one of the dummies. How long do think it would be before the smart students rebelled?
Pure Capitalism is a miserable system, but it’s better that ALL the other systems because it takes into account the diversity and fallibility of human nature and free will.
None of the other systems, such as socialism, take these factors into consideration. Socialism can only work (without being extremely oppressive) where the population is small and homogenous: Sweden, for example. Where the population is large, like China, socialism requires that the government not allow for much in the way of individual liberties. All large, strongly Socialist (communist) countries become very oppressive, very quickly. That is because Socialism is rule by the weak and ignorant.
The corruption of capitalism is a walk in the park by comparison.
I would rather live on the streets and be free, than live in a mansion and owe my life to the government..
If we keep creating and supporting weak people, if we continue to reward bad behavior, we will only create more weak people and bad behavior.
I say this as I figure out how to pay taxes on my $30,000 a year job.
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You’re conflating socialist and communist. They really aren’t the same (at least not in modern usage).
China is not a socialist state, it is a communist state.
We’re not pure capitalist either – we have less socialism mixed in than most Western European systems, but there is plenty of socialism already here.
No child born of poor parents in a country which did not practice some socialism would have much of a chance to rise above their beginnings. As one direct example, government funded student loans are a socialist enhancement.
Just as an aside, I’m not sure how you get the rule that only “small” and homogenous countries can practice socialism. As one example, you could fairly easily view Europe as a loose federation of states, which are quite diverse, but all of which practice socialism to a much greater extent than here. They seem to do alright, and as I pointed out in another post, their vertical mobility between classes is far greater than ours.
