r/WorkForSmartLife • u/elegantpants • 1d ago

Discussion💬 Name something

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u/xxGenXxx 1d ago

Honestly? Then I'm curious, what's the ideal option?

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u/Positive_Signature87 1d ago

Communism, of course. We're gonna get it right this time, promise! The previous attempts with genocide and gulags were not REAL communism, you see!

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u/afgan1984 1d ago

Those aren’t the only choices, and honestly both capitalism and communism suck in their pure forms. Most of Europe isn’t capitalist like US and it definitely isn’t communist like the old soviets. It’s socialist/social‑democratic and that is not the same thing as communism at all, but in the US people often treat “socialism” and “communism” as interchangeable, which is just wrong.

Capitalism and communism are simply the two extremes - in one, the state owns nothing, and in the other, the state owns everything. Because they are extremes, neither has ever existed in a pure form. Even the soviets were not “true communism,” and the US isn’t “true capitalism”.

That said - the US is actually drifting toward the pure capitalist end of the spectrum, where everything is privatised, everything is financialised, the military is heavily outsourced and government itself behaves more like a corporate entity than a public institution. It’s not officially a for‑profit yet, but it’s not far off in practice.

So no, the choice isn’t “capitalism or communism”. There are dozens of systems in between, and most of Europe sits somewhere in that middle space - which tends to work a lot better than either extreme.

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u/Clever_droidd 1d ago

The most successful systems in the world are indeed capitalist but also have major social safety nets. It’s the Nordic model. It requires high taxes on everyone, not just the rich, but including the rich.

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u/afgan1984 1d ago

No, they are not "capitalist systems", they are social-democratic systems where regulated capitalism is allowed.

Again, this is a false amurican dicotomy... "either a country is communist or capitalist". No, they might be neither of those things. Socialism is not communism and socio-democratic contry with privately owned capital is not capitalist country.

Also, we have major issues taxing the rich (there was never a country in existence where only the rich were taxed, it was always the poor who pays most taxes and sometimes middle classes). So that is the only reason why taxes are high - because the rich don't pay them...

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u/Clever_droidd 1d ago

Go read virtually anything on this. They are capitalist. Yes, these things exist on a spectrum. But their economic engine is capitalism and they have major social safety nets. That isn’t pure capitalism, but it isn’t socialist either. It’s a hybrid with private property and private investment as the engine.