>As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous. It's parad

>As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous. It's paradoxical, but the West is falling victim to its own economical success. Inequality is a sign of effective competition and selection mechanism (no matter how moral or amoral it is) where the best (and sometimes the luckiest) gain an edge on others. Natural selection and meritocracy in any free society eventually lead to hierarchy and to inequality. However inequality leads to social unrest. That's why many governments suppress inequality to some extent with taxes, some rich people do charity for the same reason. Suppressing inequality slows down technical progress and development (because it reduces incentive), therefore extremely socialist countries eventually fail (USSR, Venezuela). The problem with the West is not inequality per se. The American dream (work hard, get rich) was long time a painkiller to inequality because it gave a hope that you can change things. The problem with the West now is that people lost that hope. They don't believe they can change things no matter how hard they try. The American dream doesn't drive anymore (although it's still driving many immigrants). And when the anesthetic effect of the American dream has gone, people saw the inequality as it is, despite it has always been here.