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The United States was an extremely wealthy country with exceptional freedom up until the Great Depression. And this was only a short episode in US history.
by DominikR 10y ago
The United States was an extremely wealthy country with exceptional freedom up until the Great Depression. And this was only a short episode in US history.
- robotresearcher 10y agoSure. The US had been rich since about 1850, and was broke like everyone else for a short time in the 1930s. But the grandparent said this kind of disaster is 'only possible with socialism', which the Great Depression proves is not true by counterexample.
- DominikR 10y agoThe big difference here is that in Capitalism you have boom and bust cycles where on average people still get more wealthy over time while in Socialism you'll always and without exception end up in abject poverty - and what's even worse than poverty - an authoritarian government that will attempt to control and regulate every aspect of its citizens lives including persecution of wrong thoughts.
- coliveira 10y ago> an authoritarian government that will attempt to control and regulate every aspect of its citizens lives including persecution of wrong thoughts. I think this is a perfect description of capitalist countries, including the US. Of course, they try to give people thousands of perceived options, like what color of car to buy, but in the end everyone needs to abide by rules that are increasingly more coercive.
- njharman 10y agoCountry being wealthy doesn't mean all the people in it are. Just a few percentage points at the top. US citizens, esp those under so called middle class, rank worse than most other western countries. Ya know all those Eurpean socialist ones.
- gwright 10y agoSome data that provides a different picture: http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/08/us-is-doing-better-than-europe-on-poverty-an-economics-rorschach-test.html http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/08/us-is-doing-be...