• flossdaily@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but the United States has a capitalist economy.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      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.

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Libraries are not socialist. Socialism is not, in fact, when the government does things.

        • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          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.

      • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          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.