I agree with much of what you say. The only issue I have is that you can't ascribe any results (good or bad) to a single variable, or even two, like "wages" an

I agree with much of what you say. The only issue I have is that you can't ascribe any results (good or bad) to a single variable, or even two, like "wages" and "capitalism". Life just doesn't work like that, nothing does. > my parents' experience in Romania > The actual result was that corrupt politicians sold those factories to corrupt investor One of my neighbors is from Romania. I've had many very interesting conversations with her. She can't comprehend how it is that US youth are so in love with socialism and, some, Marxism. She says the same thing every time "if they only knew". Another neighbor was from Czechoslovakia. Sadly passed away a number of years ago. I have a huge collection of old European and Eastern European stamps because of him. We also had lots of interesting conversations about life in the old country. Same kind of reaction to what has been evolving with US youth, disbelief. A few friends are from a couple of former USSR republics. Once again, they say the equivalent of "if they only knew" and "we came here to escape what US kids and politicians are asking for". My family travelled and lived extensively through Latin America, including living in Argentina before, during and after the military regime. The problems you are talking about are not due to capitalism. They have to do with deeply entrenched cultures of corruption. Once they become "democratic" it takes decades, perhaps a generation or two, for people and politicians to think and behave as those in mature western democracies. I mean, in the USSR people had to cheat, lie and steal to live. As they migrated to other nations it was very common to see enclaves of ex-USSR residents continue to game the system and take advantage of everything, just as they had to back home. One of the most commonly known problems in the US was entire families taking advantage of our welfare system, even going as far as not declaring when family members died in order to continue to receive payments. They also worked for cash in order to appear unemployed and keep their benefits. I go back to the same thing: Not a single variable problem. Yes, capitalism has problems, nothing is perfect. We do need controls and rules in certain domains. While not perfect, we tend to do OK over time. At some level it is very simple: Make a list of nations that elevated the standard of living of their population and how they did it. Create columns for any category you can think of: Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Dictatorship, etc. Now give us a list of nations that succeeded without capitalism. You can't. Capitalism has, quite literally, elevated billions of people from dirt-poor agrarian societies to the point of almost everyone in the US being able to walk around with a smart phone, have a smart TV, etc., etc., etc.. The first step is to be truly honest about what we are talking about. Nobody has found any alternatives that work better. Maybe one day someone will.