Political Memes

the thing i like about Karl Marx is he never actually accomplished a damned thing in his life, and he got laid anyway

Capitalism has lead to a lot of nice things (the average person today lives better than a medieval king did) but that doesn't mean it's perfect or can't be changed. Governments ensure people can use roads for free, provide education, pay retirement pensions, and fund all kinds of other social programs. There's minimum wage, industry regulations, health and safety regulations. None of these things are really "capitalist" but they exist in capitalist societies anyways.

I think it's possible to keep modifying what capitalism is until we have a system that does work for everyone.

BUT YOU CAN DRINK THE TAP WATER. NUFF SAID

How many kinds of capitalism are there?

How about a meme looking forward to the solution?

No, it's because despite being worse for the lower rungs of the human experience without strong controls, well-managed market economies lift countries higher than their alternate economy peers. Markets are more efficient because incentives drive the economy to prosperity at a faster rate. Feudalism, communism, anarchism, corporatism, etc are comparatively inefficient and eventually lead to a scenario where the market economies outpace others, and trade imbalances magnify that disparity. You eventually run a high risk of social upheaval when the people look at their more prosperous neighbors with envy, and wonder "why don't we have what they have?" You see either political instability to drive change, or authoritarian strongmen who delude the people that regardless of reality, the system in place is best. Economic power generally leads to military power too.

What happened to the USSR? Why are China and Vietnam now market economies? What kind of economy does North Korea have? Why don't countries still engage in mercantilism or feudalism?