this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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I believe that the modern proponents of capitalism are fighting tooth and nail against any kind of restraint and that they are winning. I believe that the inherent premise of capitalism - that private ownership of capital and self interest will lead to market forces creating competition and the optimisation of the economy - are naive and false.
Yes, Europe has caged the leopard of capitalism with regulation and social welfare programs. It's just silly to me that so many sing the praises of a leopard when it must be kept caged at all times and watched constantly. Still in this form, it occasionally manages to devour a face or two before it's shoved back in its cage and the bars are repaired. Orbit gets out and rampages for a while, like is happening in the US. Clearly, powering your economy via caged leopard only way to do things.
If you think socialism necessarily means a centrally planned economy then you understand socialist movements about as well as you understand the superiority of capitalism.
It's honestly just a flipping of the premises of capitalism. That public ownership of capital and a focus on collective welfare and democracy rather than self interest is a better central pillar for an economy. The premise is that private ownership of capital driven by self interest will always gain a disproportionate amount of power and work against the public good.
What's really frustrating is that the disproportionate power granted to capitalists under capitalism has allowed them to undermined any attempts to try anything else. Every single time any government has turned to socialist values, whether by coup or peaceful elections, capitalists have used every power at their disposal to sabotage it. It reminds me of places like Haiti - the slaves overthrew their masters and the world made their lives hell for it... for generations.
If the capitalists don't manage to outright overthrow the government of the socialist state, the capitalists band together against it to such an extent that the socialist state often turns to authoritarian tactics to try and keep it's ideals. I'm not here to defend those tactics, just lament that the capitalist forces are so capable of preventing any real experimentation with socialism. It's a plague to them because it threatens their power. Seriously - look up any socialist state and I'm positive you'll find capitalist powers trying to overthrow or sabotage them.
Yes, there are also self proclaimed communist/socialist states that are closer to dictatorships. The Nazis also claimed to be socialists in order to get the support of the people. Clearly an unfortunate circumstance that muddies the water. No true Scotsman and all that.