I read comments here frequently espousing socialism and condemning the free market. Quite frankly, these make me recoil, steeped as I am in the literary, economic, social and political history of the former Soviet Union.
I grew up with sweet visions of the brotherhood of Soviets and how they banded together to develop an industrialized economy, throw off the shackles of monarchy, and beat the living hell out of the Nazis. As I learned more, those romantic notions became nothing more than sweet, i.e., quaint, since I learned that the Soviets just recycled the oppression of the czars under a different banner and about the atrocities committed against its own citizens Although, from Brezhnev's time onwards things loosened up considerably, albeit slowly (until the US had a belligerent president who called them evil and joked about beginning bombing in a few minutes - which forced a massive cultural/political clampdown for a brief period).
I began my graduate studies in Moscow almost 20 years ago and took all of this knowledge with me. I studied with a few Americans in an American program but spent my time out of the classroom and with Soviets themselves because, as I always have in my travels, I figured, "What's the point of leaving the US only to surround oneself with Americans?".
It was here that I learned that things were both worse and better, in the current and the past, than I had been led to believe. There was great poverty after 3 years of Perestroika because that policy did little more than set the stage for the wholesale corruption, theft and obliteration of a nation's assets that has been the hallmark of Russia post-USSR. It continues and it was clear to many who understood the place that it would continue with Putin at the helm since it was the KGB that held the reins of economic power during those last years of the Soviet Union, as well as having a handle on all the information. The ex-KGB people were the first in line at the corruption trough and the few idealists within the service stayed on with the same, but renamed, FSB or entered politics hoping to one day bring back the strong hand they once had a/o reap the benefits in which they were not able to partake earlier because of their idealism.
Yes, we hear about the wealth of Russians today, how much they travel, how expensive their major cities are, how they are buying assets all over the world, but think about this: they are getting rich in the service sectors built on an economy that is extremely narrow and mostly to support and expand the wealth of those at the top. Furthermore, what we see and hear about is an absolute minority within their major business centers. Outside the cities lies a realm of even more intense corruption, devastatingly grinding poverty, and a landscape so destroyed by years of ecological neglect and abuse that, unless one is stupid, you must think twice before crossing 'that' field or swimming in 'that' lake.
In any event, if you think about the wealth of the 'ordinaries' in these major cities, think also about the fact they collectively receive a pittance of the available wealth in that still vast, vast country. That economy is controlled publicly, to the rest of the world, by a few oligarchs and privately, to the rest of the world (as in Russia it is not something conjectured but absolutely known), with the assistance, coordination and collaboration of a select group of politicians supported by the FSB.
This is where the Bushes and Cheneys (the BCs), and their ilk, want to take us. All the wealth in this country, and, as a result, all the power, should be in the hands and at the direction of a select few and passed on to their children. This is exactly why I have been against the Bush family since I first really learned anything about them, back in 1980 when HW was running for President and then settled on the VP of Reagan's ticket. This is why Cheney can talk a good game of private sector superiority and how the federal government had nothing to do with it but, in reality, Cheney has been one of the fattest sucklings at the government teat in our history (leaving government to join a company that thrives on government contracts and using your government contacts to help sponsor government contracts is not the private sector).
The system they desire is one supported by people who know they and their kin have little or nothing to offer to others and know that without a government specifically propping up their interests they would be nobodies and be shown for what they truly are: small-minded, weak-willed, lazy pansy asses.
The Russians came at this outside the law with a weak notion of what a free market was (based on caricatures of capitalism to which they were submitted during the Soviet Union) and using a mix of Machiavellian guile, retributive violence, and political kowtowing. Cheney, while assisted in his rise in Wyoming, otherwise mirrors the Russians. The Bushes inherited wealth and arrogance and used it, and the connections it buys, to increase that wealth and step into the power structure, i.e., they approached it legally but on the shoulders of others since they lack guile, expect others to kowtow, and did not use waves of violence (unless you count two unnecessary Iraq wars, Panama, and illegal support of conflict in Central America) to get where they are.
But, does any of this resemble capitalism (and I have to ask this question since utilizing my background as a window into the socialism so many seem to promote inevitably leads to the response that that the Soviet Union was not socialist - indeed, it wasn't, but the ideal behind it is the same as that behind many who promote socialism, i.e., forced equality)? Not to my mind but the system itself has rather vague properties in colloquial definitions. To me, this does not resemble capitalism although some argue that this is its natural result.
WRONG.
Capitalism has the same flaws as democracy but that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The Founding Fathers understood this all too well. The same reasons they laid out for a nation of laws not men apply to an open economy, i.e., we need to establish the vague boundaries within which it will work and hold people to account for stepping beyond those defined principles while at the same time offering all the opportunity to act responsibly within that system (instead of setting up a cynical system which assumes the worst before anyone has actually participated).
Any system in its purest form is extremist and not workable given the complexities of human nature and the necessity of human interaction within them. Therefore, mixing and matching by taking the best from acceptable systems to design something is the best approach.
There is no engine as powerful as capitalism for increasing wealth and opportunity when it is governed appropriately. The problem is that it most certainly does invite its own demise through monopolies, oligopolies, concentrated wealth, and union with government. I say "its own demise" because utilizing those opportunities destroys sustainability by fomenting revolutions (as bread and circus only entertain the hungry for so long), asset stripping (as the greed inherent at the top of such a system fears that what can be taken now must be done so lest there not be more tomorrow - thus bringing about the exact situation feared), and fratricide (as, inevitably, there will always be at least one who figures, "I got this far, why not take it farther and make myself king of kings?")
Therefore, a well-regulated capitalism is the most efficient where you have elements of socialism acting as upper and lower boundaries. You have things like inheritance taxes to resist concentrated wealth. You have government control of natural monopolies which, more often than not, serve (at times perceived) basic needs and therefore should not be subject to the whims of profit lest those needs be abused. You have laws that strip the ability of companies to (excessively?) profit from catastrophes and national crises. You have progressive taxation. You have legislation that, at the very least, attempts to right past wrongs. You also have safety nets to ensure that those who do fall (or are pushed) through the cracks can have a chance to get back on their feet and take another shot at the opportunity available. You have public education that should lay the basic foundation needed to go forward and compete with others at whatever happens to be the individual's dream. You have publicly-funded electoral systems to ensure that capital does not infect politics.
And many others. Yes, when the right screams that higher taxes on unearned wealth is socialism, you can pat them on the head and tell them that they're right...technically, if not euphemistically since the intent of that comment is to plant a big picture of Stalin in the listener's head.
To all those who think socialism is the answer. You are misguided. Socialism is a boundary on the potential abuses of a free market but socialism in itself can be a frightening prospect. I prefer equality before the law to equality after it. The latter does little to drive human progress and affords few dreams beyond escape.
We need a free market if we want to progress. That progress is born in a system where people are free to dream up new ideas to improve lives (no matter how inane that improvement may seem to some...to each his own) and to capitalize on their ideas. It is only through a free market informed by socialism (which is informed by capitalism's excesses), especially within the realm of a democracy informed by history's political excesses, that we can continue a cycle of progress.
Give me boundaries. Don't give me shackles.