N4mddissent
Active Member
- Sep 30, 2008
- 878
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There has been much discussion about "spreading the wealth" and the benefits and evils of capitalist versus socialist economic philosophy here recently. I wish to express here the limitations in broad terms of extreme capitalist philosophy in America.
If we imagine economic philosophy on a continuum with absolute free-market capitalism on the right end and absolute egalitarian socialism on the far left, I think we can agree that America as currently stands, is at neither extreme. I maintain that there are inherent limitations to the distance our economy can be pushed to the right end of the scale based upon our representative form of government.
The further toward the right end of the scale an economic system is pushed, the likelihood of wealth being concentrated in the hands of increasingly smaller groups of people becomes greater. The natural result of this is that an increasingly larger number of people will have less wealth and feel this is an unjust situation. When those feelings of injustice become strong enough, and those numbers of citizens become large enough, they will choose to elect leaders who will push the economy back toward the left end of the continuum toward a less capitalistic economy.
I believe this is applicable to almost any economy and America's position more on the right end of the scale relative to European nations for example is primarily due to cultural idiosyncracies within our nation and their effects on the political process. Historic attempts to maintain an economy which allowed wealth to accumulate in small numbers in non-representative forms of government have often led to revolution when it reached the breaking point at which large enough numbers felt the situation was unjust. However, in America, I believe that as long as representative government is maintained, we can avoid violent revolution based on economic disparity, but I believe it must also be accepted that attempts to push America toward a more absolute capitalism are eventually futile and may in the end, when reaching the breaking point, could result in a backlash from the majority which pushes us further toward the left than we were originally.
Just something to consider.
If we imagine economic philosophy on a continuum with absolute free-market capitalism on the right end and absolute egalitarian socialism on the far left, I think we can agree that America as currently stands, is at neither extreme. I maintain that there are inherent limitations to the distance our economy can be pushed to the right end of the scale based upon our representative form of government.
The further toward the right end of the scale an economic system is pushed, the likelihood of wealth being concentrated in the hands of increasingly smaller groups of people becomes greater. The natural result of this is that an increasingly larger number of people will have less wealth and feel this is an unjust situation. When those feelings of injustice become strong enough, and those numbers of citizens become large enough, they will choose to elect leaders who will push the economy back toward the left end of the continuum toward a less capitalistic economy.
I believe this is applicable to almost any economy and America's position more on the right end of the scale relative to European nations for example is primarily due to cultural idiosyncracies within our nation and their effects on the political process. Historic attempts to maintain an economy which allowed wealth to accumulate in small numbers in non-representative forms of government have often led to revolution when it reached the breaking point at which large enough numbers felt the situation was unjust. However, in America, I believe that as long as representative government is maintained, we can avoid violent revolution based on economic disparity, but I believe it must also be accepted that attempts to push America toward a more absolute capitalism are eventually futile and may in the end, when reaching the breaking point, could result in a backlash from the majority which pushes us further toward the left than we were originally.
Just something to consider.
