Sign me up for some social democracy, please and thank you. There are some days where I feel like going total socialist but then I remind myself of just how unfettered U.S. capitalism is. The innovation from capitalism is great (Frequency Therapeutics), but the inequality needs to be addressed and greed has to be held in check. If we look to the Scandinavian model and Nordic countries, we can see that social democracy is a way better path forward than free-market capitalism and unchecked neoliberalism. That's where my ideology stands.
As a social democrat, progressive, whatever have you — it's exhausting trying to advocate for a social program or policy such as Medicare for All or the Green New Deal only to be labeled a socialist. Here in the U.S., we are taught to embrace individualism and this vague notion of "liberty" — and reject anything that resembles a policy striving to help the greater good. The indoctrination runs so deep.
What you mentioned about capitalism and innovation can be applied to feudalism. Textiles came out of feudalism for example.
It's just a way of organizing things. In theory, profits go to the owners in capitalism, while under socialism the profits go to the workers. Just that in the former, it only goes to a minority of people which at some point is not sustainable without the majority getting a little angry. If there's surplus profits from imperialism then yeah it's sustainable, but Iran overthrowing the CIA backed dictatorship shows that doesn't last forever either. Before Operation Ajax happened, Iran was about to nationalize their oil industry that would have benefited the average Iranian instead of a small number of ultra-rich foreigners. The result of this "free" market? Iranians got piss poor and angry enough to overthrow the government after decades of their wealth being sucked out of them dry.
If all the governments just spent their money on getting the cure for hearing loss and tinnitus decades ago instead of the military for pointless wars, then we wouldn't be on this forum.
Are you using your phone right now to read this? A lot of the earliest research on touch screen technology, were actually government projects. The first people from Russia that went to space weren't exactly done by private companies either, to say the least. There's many examples like this.
Stuff like intellectual property stunts progress which is basically a monopoly on an idea. Imagine if one single corporation had complete control of the production of cars where they can charge whatever they want on this essential product. Only that organization can contribute to the development, and nobody else, except that they would only improve the technology by 1% every year just to show that off in their advertisements (ads can be considered propaganda).
My opinion? You can't own an idea and these things should be public knowledge, because imagine if all those companies working on treatments for hearing loss and tinnitus just shared their knowledge and resources, then we would have a cure by Friday. Hopefully you get where I am coming from here.
Funny enough, socialists and anarcho capitalists tend to agree on the "you can't own an idea" part despite both ideologies being radically different. The difference is that anarcho capitalists advocate for a system that would just end up forming a government anyways, because that's simply more profitable and they would have the power to do as they're still the rulers.
If I was part of the ruling class in the hypothetical anarcho capitalist society (even in theory, it's still the ultra-rich, unlike the normal anarchism), then I would definitely advocate for forming a government that serves my class and interests, because it's way more profitable if I can have some sort of protection racket. Then I can just blame the government for all the problems in society, even though I helped form it. When there's a potential hungry and angry mob outside my house, then I would just advocate for a band-aid.
There's a reason why many billionaires advocate for universal basic income, and it's not because they care about their workers, just that they're saving their own ass. They have a chance to turn their companies into worker co-ops like Mondragon or Huawei, but they don't and mind you those companies are extremely successful despite technically not having owners ruling them like Jeff Bezos.
This explains why I don't believe in the free market and the "free" is simply propaganda.
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