"We have seen corporate landlords—who own a larger share of the rental market than ever before—use inflation as an excuse to hike rents and reap excess profits beyond what should be considered fair and reasonable."
The US has lots of socialized losses but privatized profits. To call it a capitalist economy is a gross oversimplification which glosses over the fact that no corporation is actually competing in a free market at this point.
Semi. It’s got bits and pieces of all systems, which is a hint that the “-ism” powering any country’s economy doesn’t have as big an impact as its leaders.
Unfortunately, capitalism tends to reward corruption, it’s much easier and profitable to be corrupt than to do the right thing™.
Libraries are socialist. Otherwise every person in a fully capitalist system would be expected to buy their personal copy of a book.
It truly depends on the definition of socialism. Is it socialist anytime a service is provided by the govt? Or solely when public policy limits the abilities of capital?
You and I disagree, and that’s ok cuz I don’t care.
Libraries replace the need for privately owned books with collectively owned books (through a democratic government). It is in fact a socialist leaning policy. Socialism is when you increase democratic ownership. Other examples include coops (democratic, collective ownership of businesses) like credit unions.
And you’re right - there are scales with capitalism and socialism weighing against each other in basically every economy. Finland, Norway, France are examples where it’s tipped a bit more in favour of the “socialism” side. But the US has plenty of elements of socialism, from housing coops in the Bronx, to utility coops in the midwest (that helped pave the way for the electrification of rural America), to credit unions, to welfare policies, to the Alaska social wealth fund, and I could keep going.
Finland and Norway have among the highest percentage of private investment in the world, to the extent that investment is the leading economic driver in Nordic countries.
The Norwegian state owns 1/3rd of the domestic stock market. Norway has a union density that is higher than China. The Norwegian democratically elected government has a sovereign wealth fund that is insanely massive and can tell the corporations it invests in how to behave through voting shares. Norway owns and operates 70+ state owned enterprises that are well above the average private enterprise in how they profit. Norway heavily taxes natural resource extraction so that private businesses don’t get unfettered access to the land they supposedly own. 65% of wealth in Norway is owned by the state.
Try again buddy. It’s very funny that you respond to “socialism-capitalism” is measurable with a dichotomous, reductive statement that Norway isn’t socialist at all. It really highlights your bias lmao
But I’ll do you one-up: I predict you’ll respond with “socialism is not when the state does stuff”. No, it’s when a country increases democratic ownership of its economy. You’ll notice that is the pattern in all the stuff I listed above.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but the United States has a capitalist economy.
The US has lots of socialized losses but privatized profits. To call it a capitalist economy is a gross oversimplification which glosses over the fact that no corporation is actually competing in a free market at this point.
Semi. It’s got bits and pieces of all systems, which is a hint that the “-ism” powering any country’s economy doesn’t have as big an impact as its leaders.
Unfortunately, capitalism tends to reward corruption, it’s much easier and profitable to be corrupt than to do the right thing™.
Libraries are socialist. Otherwise every person in a fully capitalist system would be expected to buy their personal copy of a book.
Libraries are not socialist. Socialism is not, in fact, when the government does things.
Thank you, boring and incorrect pedant.
It truly depends on the definition of socialism. Is it socialist anytime a service is provided by the govt? Or solely when public policy limits the abilities of capital?
You and I disagree, and that’s ok cuz I don’t care.
Libraries replace the need for privately owned books with collectively owned books (through a democratic government). It is in fact a socialist leaning policy. Socialism is when you increase democratic ownership. Other examples include coops (democratic, collective ownership of businesses) like credit unions.
What you’re referring to is called a “mixed economy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy
And you’re right - there are scales with capitalism and socialism weighing against each other in basically every economy. Finland, Norway, France are examples where it’s tipped a bit more in favour of the “socialism” side. But the US has plenty of elements of socialism, from housing coops in the Bronx, to utility coops in the midwest (that helped pave the way for the electrification of rural America), to credit unions, to welfare policies, to the Alaska social wealth fund, and I could keep going.
Finland and Norway have among the highest percentage of private investment in the world, to the extent that investment is the leading economic driver in Nordic countries.
They are not socialist countries.
The Norwegian state owns 1/3rd of the domestic stock market. Norway has a union density that is higher than China. The Norwegian democratically elected government has a sovereign wealth fund that is insanely massive and can tell the corporations it invests in how to behave through voting shares. Norway owns and operates 70+ state owned enterprises that are well above the average private enterprise in how they profit. Norway heavily taxes natural resource extraction so that private businesses don’t get unfettered access to the land they supposedly own. 65% of wealth in Norway is owned by the state.
Try again buddy. It’s very funny that you respond to “socialism-capitalism” is measurable with a dichotomous, reductive statement that Norway isn’t socialist at all. It really highlights your bias lmao
But I’ll do you one-up: I predict you’ll respond with “socialism is not when the state does stuff”. No, it’s when a country increases democratic ownership of its economy. You’ll notice that is the pattern in all the stuff I listed above.
And it’s failing