Many critics of the American economic system have an inch-deep understanding of its history. At the same time, they always have a long list of political “devils,” those individuals with whom they are in disagreement and who, by definition, are behind all negative policy decisions.
In the 20th century, the average standard-of-living increased many-fold and lifetime expectancy grew significantly. During this period, it is fair to characterize the American economy as being more capitalist than any other philosophy.
In assessing the role of capitalism in the much improved standard of living, these are the observer’s choices:
Capitalism had nothing to do with the demonstrated growth
It had everything to do with the growth
The growth was despite the capitalist philosophy
Capitalism was a factor, but not as important as other factors
It brought the growth, but the price was too high
Capitalism was by far the leading contributor to the growth
Obviously line six is the best answer. At the same time, one would be hard-pressed to define our current economic model as being remotely close to pure capitalism. The United States Code of Federal Regulations has 169,000 pages. And government spending is one-third of GDP, versus 7.5% a hundred years ago.
No, the overriding philosophy is consumerism, whatever it takes to create — more stuff.
P.S. While the above was written pre-election, there is no reason to change anything. Unconnected to the election is the logic of drilling down on choice number five above. Another time.
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