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I don't know if I'd describe any choice between two non-perfect alternatives as "idealistic". The question was "which is better", not "which is great"? Governm

I don't know if I'd describe any choice between two non-perfect alternatives as "idealistic". The question was "which is better", not "which is great"? Government suffers from bureaucratic overhead and tyranny of the masses. But most of the other things it suffers from — control by special interests, regulatory capture, buying elections and politicians, are caused by billionaires and rich corporations. At least going through taxes and government has some amount of public influence instead of just abdicating the whole thing and submitting to becoming an complete oligogarchy.

rayiner 7y ago
> But most of the other things it suffers from — control by special interests, regulatory capture, buying elections and politicians, are caused by billionaires and rich corporations. Billionaires and rich corporations caused WMATA and MTA to completely neglect maintenance for decades and let their systems literally catch on fire (despite being just as well funded as European systems?) Billionaires and rich corporations cause our education system to underperform (while being among the most well funded?) Billionaires and corporations cause our intractable housing issues? I just don’t buy this. European countries have billionaires and big corporations, regulatory systems that can be captured, etc. In fact they’re often the ones more overtly pushing pro-corporate policies. (Trump’s corporate tax cuts, for example, came long after similar cuts in Sweden, France, Ireland, and the U.K. Trump is fighting to cut the capital gains tax, for example, while many OECD countries don’t even have one.) Yet their trains somehow run on time, their schools are good, their crime rates are low, and their cities are generally nice and orderly.