[SPLIT] System Rot

[Nightshade]

Moderator comment. NS started this little discussion with this little cartoon about the evils of Socialism. So countered that Capitalism hasn't done such a bang up job for many Americans either. The reality is that any economic system can be co-opted and corrupted by the powerful and wealthy. I'm going to split off part of the discussion from the Image Dump MEGATHREAD and put it here since there seems to be an interest in the topic.

[Tunnelcat]

Please tell all the sick who can't afford health care, homeless people and homeless vets who can't get a job or afford a home in the U.S. how well the capitalist system is doing for them right now.

[Spidey]

I don’t know…homeless veterans seem more like a government or general society failure than capitalism.

Hell most of the failings of capitalism can be attributed to faulty government…but then most will say the same thing of socialism, which is surely the case in Venezuela…the classic case of crony socialism.

[Krom]

Crony capitalism and crony socialism are basically indistinguishable from each other. The so called "free market" is anything but, concentration of power always ends up corrupting the system regardless of which way it was initially set up as. Blaming it on faulty government may be accurate, but eliminating government intervention entirely will only make it worse.

[Spidey]

I never suggested any such thing.

[Tunnelcat]

I don’t know…homeless veterans seem more like a government or general society failure than capitalism.

Hell most of the failings of capitalism can be attributed to faulty government…but then most will say the same thing of socialism, which is surely the case in Venezuela…the classic case of crony socialism.

Right now the government is essentially leaving our vets to the tender mercies of what little the government already does, leaving the rest to the free market, neither of which is doing a very good job. Sure, the government has continually dropped the ball and every politician up to and including Trump has said that they were going to fix things, but with this continued benign, or deliberate neglect, isn't the government pretty much assuming that society will have to pick up the slack? If government is supposed to be responsible, why not make the effort to at least fix the government? No politician seems to have the will or the way, because either they hate the government, or it costs money the government doesn't have in the first place. Certainly conservative politicians never seem to want to hike the taxes on the wealthy and the multinational corporations and neither party is exempt from the rampant cronyism that infects everything in Washington.

What about the large number of homeless people? I'm seeing stories from all over the country about people camping out in established neighborhoods by parking rundown junk RV's on the public streets or just tent camping in public park areas, which is a prime cause of calls to police for crimes and nuisance problems in the affected neighborhoods. I've even seen it in our fairly upper middle class neighborhood in our small town. Portland is having even worse of a problem and yet, these people seems to just get kicked out and forced to move to another location, putting the problem in someone else's lap. All the cities are doing is moving the problem around like piles of dung as they hold their noses while doing it. Nobody wants to find a solution because the fact is, it costs money to live somewhere legally and these people don't have the money because either they're sick, drug addicts or can't find a job. Plus, a good chunk of this country is dead set against any kind of assistance for what they see as free lunch welfare for a bunch of lazy people. Yet, we all end up paying for it in some form or fashion because of the crime, jail usage and the degradation of our towns and neighborhoods.

What about health care? Capitalism certainly has a solution for everyone, but only if people have enough money to pay for it. What about those that don't have the money? Is our society so callous that the poor and disadvantaged have no choice but to seek charity or else suffer and die on the streets? Right now, even charity doesn't fill the need. What then?