In light of the current presidential campaign, Obama’s
federal tax cuts are causing him to be labeled by opponents as a
socialist. The author of this article
brings to attention that though tax cuts may be seen as socialistic, the bailouts
made during the financial crisis are much more socialistic. Think back our
class discussion yesterday. On the topic of socialism vs. capitalism, where do
you think the U.S. heading?
The market I think is supposed to be capitalistic, but that is hard to say as we discussed and also as Okun showed us. There is a lot of problems in the system with regulations and people using money to control what they want. With the bailouts and everything else that has gone on in the past few years, I would think we are turning into a more socialist economy. There is a mix as you can see companies paying a lot of money to try and get decisions by the government or other regulators to play something in their favor. These lobbyists are trying to play the system and it's working. The whole system is corrupt at this point with a mix of different entities. Hopefully after this election coming up, if someone else is in office possibly some changes will be made. If Obama is re-elected, we may be mixed for at least another 4 years with him pointing us more towards socialism.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism. I believe it's relatively simple, we have governmental regulations, yes, but the economy is "In the hands of private interests such as investors and corporations. State power in a capitalist country usually focuses on the creation of standards, public health, safety, and welfare, such things as regulating the currency, protecting the environment, and assuring the health of the populace." Bailouts don't help that case, but if they are left for only extremely delicate situations, I believe we can safely say we're a capitalist country.
ReplyDeleteWe are a capitalist country. Our markets are run as free enterprises that determine prices based on competition. Obviously this is a simplified explanation, but gray area does not change the zebras stripes. There is always going to be a balance and people are quick to throw around the idea of "What is happing to my country I don't even recognize it". At the end of the day its going to take a lot more than a few changes by one president to shift our country to a level of actually being socialist.
ReplyDeleteUS is a capitalist country. Several dilution has been made to the market because of the change in the priorities but the economic activities is still determined by the market.Inadequate and poorly enforced rules are just flaws in the system. A bad capitalism does not mean US is not a capitalist country.
ReplyDeleteI think the definition of what a capitalist COUNTRY is has changed. Not the definition of capitalism, itself, but the way it must be implemented in an era where a human population of 7 billion and growing interacts in more and increasingly strange ways. Its simply impossible to have "pure" capitalism when you have such complicated innovations in capital markets that the average layman can't understand where his money is going, when you have a single company pulling in revenue equal to a small country's GDP, when you have the very fabric of capitalism being ripped by principal agents who have a hand in production and regulation. Pure capitalism was an industrial era technology, its time we invented a new name for what we at current.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with Evan's assessment of the situation. It is not that capitalism has changed much in the last century, more that the relationship of the government to the market has had to change. Recently, companies have shown that the temptation to create cartels and manipulate prices, even through unspoken means has meant that even though regulations are tighter than at any time in the past, companies still flaunt them, and we have become controlled by the market (and it's corporate masters') whims. I think that the article put it well in saying, "Free-wheeling and unfettered profit-making and corporate greed on the way up, backstopped by enormous government bailouts on the way down, represents in some ways the worst of both worlds," capitalist when it helps the rich, and socialist when it helps them too. In this context it appears that the only wages our government feels comfortable subsidizing are those of corporate executives who would have been imprisoned for their misdeeds in many other countries.
ReplyDeleteCapitalist. The us still remains a capitalist country. Although certain actions may have a hint of socialism in them, Overall the main structure has not changed .
ReplyDelete