Agreed. And if I can make a plea to anyone who wants to comment on this thread -- please make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition. Using those words will just lead to tedious flamewars with people talking past each other and rehashing old debates. Rather, talk about the underlying structure of incentives that create this dynamic, and how incentives can be changed, if they can be at all.
please make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition.
This can not be repeated enough. It is absolutely true, if you use the words 'socialism' or 'capitalism' no one will have a clue what you are talking about.
The problem with these discussions is that people usually mean "neoliberalism" when they're talking about capitalism, and "social democracy" when they're talking about "socialism". It's almost as if we never really broke out of the old Cold War terminology and paradigms.
