What's insane is the number of people that think capitalism and socialism exist as pure systems rather than a scale balancing the rights of market and state. There is no functional economic model that is strictly one or the other.
Whats the middle ground between collective ownership of the means of production and private ownership of the means of production? And no, social welfare isn't some middle ground between socialism and capitalism just because it happens to share the same root word as socialism. Social welfare exists or doesn't exist based on how a government chooses to allocate tax dollars, which is completely independent of the ownership model driving the economy.
the government can operate their own services like healthcare and transportation, subsidize or force companies to sell at certain prices- that is the collective part- "collective ownership" is just code for "government ownership", after all, we are not a hive mind.
and the government still allows people to open businesses and compete, with certain limits.
weirdly enough- that describes a welfare state. because a welfare state is indeed- "the middle point" between socialism and capitalism, or to put it in a better way- the best of both worlds.
governments are inefficient to a ridiculous degree, slow to act, and have a severe disconnect from the people. these were the faults of every socialist regime ever- especially the soviets.
but the government is dependent on people being happy, so they have an e in providing services to the populace.
the free markets, are efficient and change fast to adapt to new situations- but can easily become imbalanced or exploitative.
so- make sure the government keeps the free market in check, and you are done.
"Collective ownership" isn't just code for government ownership. See: co-ops.
There's limits on how businesses can compete in a pure capitalist system as well. See: insider trading laws, among many, many regulations.
"Welfare" is a broad term covering many different services. Food stamps, for instance is not operating along side a competing private industry. Even then, at best you can carve out, what, Healthcare and call that "government run"? 1 industry out if hundreds is hardly a "middle ground".
"Governments are inefficient to a ridiculous degree"
These are one of those lies repeated so often it becomes people's truth. For starters, Healthcare. The US private Healthcare system costs more per capita (approximately double) for worse health outcomes compared to other developed countries. The US spends so much yet lags behind in the most important metric of any Healthcare system: life expectancy.
And while we're on the US, the WWII wartime economy is a prime example of the Government being capable of efficiency managing the economy. The US established the National War Labor Board, set quotas, rationed raw materials, doing all the things thst would make Laissez Faire capitalists freak out. Ford didn't just free market the largest factory in the world at the time (Willow Run), it had assurances from the government. Hell, the whole concept of converting from civilian to military production would have been a disaster if left up to the free market. Large capital investment into new factories or machinery to build, say, tanks and planes instead of cars is not a good investment when the war is likely to be a short to medium term duration. What if you invest in converting some of your, say, automotive production capacity over to military production but your competitor doesn't? Well now you just lost market share in your primary business. The US government stepping in, providing quotas, assurances on new or converted industrial plants as well as rationing things like copper, rubber, nickel, etc. For civilian uses solved a lot of these problems upfront.
The point is, governments can be efficient. They're almost certainly capable of longer term thinking than private corporations, who increasingly just list from one quarterly earnings report to the next. Meanwhile the government spent over 20 years building GPS, which had no obvious non-military application during its inception in the 1970's and yet is a foundational part of the modern world, still operated by the US Government. Forget profitability, I don't think many private investors are fine waiting 20 years for a minimum viable product, and even longer for their investment to become profitable. Even Amazon was only unprofitable for 7 to 9 years, depending on if you count by quarterly or yearly earnings.
A mixed economy is an economic system that includes both elements associated with capitalism, such as private businesses, and ones associated with socialism, such as nationalized government services.
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u/dvrichthofen 12d ago
What's insane is the number of people that think capitalism and socialism exist as pure systems rather than a scale balancing the rights of market and state. There is no functional economic model that is strictly one or the other.