Thread by @redlianak

Okay, I lean left, but I also lean factual. Here's the thing, folks...
Nothing in our economic past has been a result of "unchecked capitalism" because we have never lived under unchecked capitalism. Every government has backed up, bailed out, or favored some industry or another.

The reason things are so imbalanced economically right now is because we're in conditions similar to the late 19th century, where corporations keep taking money from government to sell sub-par products or in some cases no product at all.

If you can't get ahead, it's not because of capitalism. A capitalist system would allow you to start a small business fairly easily, without losing everything if the business failed. The unfair favouring of big business is neo-mercantilism, and socialism won't solve that problem.

The entire framing of the issue is wrong. The framing should be whether a government is successfully protecting "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". If you can't get life saving medical care because you can't afford it, that's not treating your life as a right.

If you're so afraid of the police that it's stifling your liberty, that's also a failing of government. If you can't marry the person you want, or be in the body that feels right to you, you can't pursue happiness. These concepts are connected to democracy for a reason.

None of these are issues of socialism versus capitalism. They are issues of rights. In Canada, we have a thriving medical insurance industry without people not being able to go to the doctor due to money. We control the cost of drugs through large scale generic price negotiations

That pharmaceutical bargaining power is NOT socialism. It's capitalism. It's companies being able to compete to manufacture quality, non-patented medications for a lower cost. We have single payer healthcare, yes, but doctors are free to opt out of that system and charge directly

The idea of a community owning or regulating things sounds great in theory. In practice... Ever tried to get more than three people in the same place at the same time to make a decision? It's one of the hardest things in life. There's a reason the military has a chain of command.

Some of the greatest atrocities in history took place under the guise that the collective knew better what was best for the individual than the individual. Natural law theory, religious persecution, these are both COLLECTIVIST "greater good" concepts.

The very things that benefit from regulation, for instance, environmental protections, are being gutted while governments take no bid contracts from huge corporations who fought for decades to be seen as people, when they're actually collective entities. That's not capitalism.

The reason that things seem so unsolvable right now is that people don't even understand the concepts they're dealing with. There have been too many eras of the erosion of basic freedoms that people have forgotten how to think clearly. People only feel safe in the collective.

But the collective can't protect you from the collective, so if you submit to it, it owns you. That's why everyone thought that they could stop children being put in cages by harranging government lickspittles at restaurants. No, silly. That implies those individuals have power.

America's separation of powers has failed because parties became so dominant that the system is not working as intended. And you want MORE socialism?! Trump is a perfect socialist! He's protectionist, a master of bread and circuses, and he throws government money at every problem

The big thing no one wants to admit is that Trump has spent America into so much debt that taxes will have to go up and sweeping reforms will have to wait until America staunches the bleeding from Trump's wild spending combined with killing revenues. There's no way around that.

Which means the private sector is going to have to lead the way on the environment. It's going to have to start training employees instead of relying on public colleges. It's going to have to find a way to make healthcare cheaper because Trump broke government.

True capitalists will not wait for a government handout or regulation. They'll start solving these problems now. And some are, like the companies experimenting with reusable packaging. When corporatists like Amazon and Apple start following suit, then we're on to something.