Capitalist Socialism

In my opinion, no country in the world today is purely capitalist or socialist. To make the political, economic, and social system effective, it has to be a mix of the two, although the economical impacts are usually determined by how pro a government is towards each idealism.

I'd like to think of capitalism, which may have came about during the industrial revolution, as being more inclined towards the rich and wealthy, meaning that the rich keeps getting richer and the poor keeps getting poorer. This is largely due to the allegedly unfair allocation of property, wealth and resources, which are owned and controlled by capital rich individuals, corporation or companies. Socialism, on the other hand, reminds me of Robin Hood, where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor, only legalized, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the poor gets richer, as it doesn’t focus on their development but acts only as a form of much needed aid.

In both cases, the poor loses but at least with the interjectory of socialism, it helps ease their burden through these redistributions of wealth. Now, how well and fair the management system works on these allocations are subjective. Socialism, as a controlled mechanism, can be exposed to massive corruption, a fact which is apparent in many third-world countries today.

The capitalist systems taxes the poor first on any income they make whereas the income of the rich is taxed last. This is because governments are dependant on capitalist individuals, factories, businesses and corporations to continue providing jobs and sufficient infrastructure for the poor, who works for a living. This, then, directly helps sustain the economy.

The prices of goods in the centralized capitalist markets are mainly determined on the law of supply and demand. This results in a large gap in disparity between the people that owns capital and the ones who don’t. As bad as capitalism may sound, especially to the poor, it is on the contrary a more productive system, as it encourages the development of individuals and their interest while tapping into their unlimited potentials, as well as rewarding their hard work. It also promotes free trade and is not controlled by the government, (although many may disagree), hence encouraging competition, bringing down prices, enhances the quality of service and skirts around inflation effectively. The harder you work, the more you gain. It has very independent ideals as oppose to socialism, which is collectively dependant. This makes capitalism a driving force behind strong striving economies.

Socialism, regarded as a more humane, just, caring and sympathetic system, is also essential in developing nations as it protects the interest of the poor, the backbones of industries, which will in return help fuel capitalism. This is because the capitalist market is solely dependent on mass spending, and the masses are poor. Over time in history, this realization, which was slightly influence by Marxism, bridged in the drastic disparities and helped create middle class societies.

History has thought us the many failures of being an extreme socialist or capitalist, at some point. I for one, am a self proclaimed democratically liberal capitalist socialist (no pun intended..) ;)