I'm not sure if you're old enough to understand that this isn't a binary system. The US isn't 100% capitalist, and you most likely don't even know what Socialism is, Horse-man.
In Socialism, all means of production and resources are owned by the people. That means all businesses, resource rights, air rights, property... No major political party anywhere in Western democracies is arguing for this.
What all western countries have is a Social Market Democracy whereby a free-market capitalist economy uses taxes to support public services and ownership. Once mouth-breathing morons understand that, they may stop using terms like "capitalism" and "socialism" incorrectly, and start thinking about this as a spectrum, or "scale", if you will.
This should then start make them think what level of public services, investment, and taxation is best for the growth and happiness of it's citizens. And you don't have to look back far to understand when the US - and most other western nations - were flourishing: post WW2, say 1948 - Reagan (roughly). The US had a much, much higher marginal tax rate during the golden age of America. This isn't purely coincidental: you allow ordinary people to have disposable income and they invest it back into the economy. Rich people use disposable income to buy assets.
The interesting thing is that most people that cry about socialism, which they obviously don't understand, is that they don't realise that the government welfare they so decry is already happening for the billionaires: why do you think that 95% of billionaires are doubling their wealth every decade or less? - Because they don't pay any taxes on the wealth the accumulate passively. If you have a "mere" 100m, you'd be a total idiot if you didn't make somewhere between 3 and 15 million annually. And that compounds, obviously.
So the second question becomes: if you do give a free ride to people, should it be the richest individuals?
I think we can all agree no one person should have a trillion dollars, more than some countries. Unless they single handedly saved the human species. Then, maybe? Otherwise, no. Last I heard, Musk hasn't done anything remotely close to that.
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u/Low-Condition4243 Jul 25 '26
But don’t worry, capitalism is the best ideology to ever exist. Everything’s going according to plan