That the United States is a "capitalist country" is a mantra that is ceaselessly repeated in and out of the media, most often by some who think that just repeating that will, in itself, automatically make them successful "capitalists". Ultimately, however, this mantra emanates from those who know the United States has always been far from a ‘capitalist’ country, but would like it so much if it really was. These characters never stop trying to make it into one.
Below the fold, I will state why I believe not only that the United States isn't a "capitalist" society, why it is by our good luck that it isn't (yet). In the course of that, I hope to help bust one or two myths, and begin to lay the bases of a different view of which economic system benefits society. This view isn't necessarily new, but is still much more robust than the "capitalist"'s dystopia.
The "capitalists" of today would like us to think that "capitalism" is the sacred private ownership of the means of production, which provides a net contrast to evil communist collectivism. Bullshit to that! The means of production have always been privately owned for as long as there have been means of production, with the exception of a smattering of collectivist experiments, mostly under communist governments, for a few decades out of 10,000 years in the history of humanity. Out of those millennia, only for a couple hundred years have we had "capitalists", a period most of which was utterly awful for most people, with the result that communist utopia, until put to the test, was a popular aspiration for a time.
I know that actual "capitalism", as it is practiced today, is very different from what its promoters would like us to think:
First, "capitalism" is the idea that wealth can be created purely through the application not of knowledge, or talents, but just of a lot of other money to begin with. Using money to make more money is a process that has a legitimate role in modern economies, when coupled closely with talent and knowledge, like for example in high-tech entrepreneurship, and only within a strict and well-maintained system of incentives. But when it is foisted without restraint upon a society, this money "capitalism" has negative economic consequences that are grossly disproportionate to its small and short-term benefits. It is already well known that capitalism benefits disproportionately very few people, and ends up benefiting fewer and fewer as time goes on. In addition to that, however, unlike before, it is now painfully obvious that pure money capitalism is inherently parasitic, generates no new value, holds back actual innovation, leads to gargantuan asset bubbles, and generates instability of the very economic infrastructure that it requires. I don't think I need to give examples of these, as it would be enough to catch a glimpse of the news of the last few months.
Second, money capitalism is founded on the belief that economic power derives its right from itself, rather than from a separate absolute authority, like during feudalism or in theocracies, or, more relevant to us, from a negotiated social contract, like in ancient and modern democracies. This is why money capitalism is anathema to democracy, and in time, it corrodes and undermines its foundations. And we have seen this as well, under the republican party.
It is clear that this form of "capitalism" isn’t palatable to most people. The measures which the new Administration and democratic congress are now taking with overwhelming popular support clearly show that the United States is rejecting the consequences of unrestrained money capitalism and is taking some steps back from the edge of the abyss it has led us to. These steps are decried by the fools and lackeys of money capitalism, but it is worth it to note that insofar as the public is dissatisfied with the measures being taken, it is mostly because they do not go far enough in punishing parasitic money-hoarding bankers, incompetent and self-complacent auto executives, and self-deluded "capitalist" wannabes like the house-flippers.
Because most people inevitably come to dislike money capitalism, huge effort goes into confusing the meaning of terms, and other paid-for sophistry aimed at disguising its true nature. But rather than take their pretty words at face value we should observe how modern ‘capitalists’ behave, in order to understand what they really think. Wanting the notion of money capitalism to be the engine of the economy is to look back with lustful nostalgia to the pre-Roosevelt eras, when the innovations of the past centuries came under the control of a very small elite, and economic might made not only political power, but even legal principle as a result. But that is exactly what "capitalists" want, and it is exactly what the morons that parrot them will end up with, if things are left to them.
The required alternative to this catastrophic money capitalism is not communism, which is only a "capitalist"’s red herring, but knowledge capitalism. Knowledge capitalism is different from money capitalism in one crucial respect: its framework of laws and policies rewards the application of knowledge, not the application of money.
Many of the principles of the democratic party of promoting affordable education and investment in technology are effectively part of knowledge capitalism. But these have always been minimized by avoiding a contrast with catastrophic parasitic money capitalism, and presenting them instead as measures needed to be "competitive in the global marketplace" or to "give everybody a shot at the American dream". Laudable as those goals are, they do not have the same enduring meaning as a new economic philosophy that rejects the catastrophic nature of money capitalism. Also, absent are any specific and expressed punitive measures towards the accumulation and application of financial capital without a corresponding application of and increase in knowledge.