In Part 1, I explored the red side of the economic spectrum, namely communism, socialism, and fascism. But, what about capitalism and free market capitalism? Basically, communists seek to destroy the capitalist spirit and socialists/fascists seek to subjugate it. The capitalists are on the other side.
The Free Market Capitalists (FMCs) seek to allow the capitalist spirit to run free, while the capitalists would seek to allow the spirit to run free with some slight checks on it. Neutrals are in the middle by being less accommodative than capitalists and more accommodative than socialists. Unlike socialism, fascism, and communism, these other three economic models have robust private property rights and are only economic models. They are not also political structures. The USA is not referred to as a capitalist regime because capitalism isn’t a structure of government.
I created the capitalist and neutral categories to allow for some space between being an FMC and a socialist/fascist/communist because I’ve seen a lot of people who don’t want to subjugate and control the capitalist spirit in the way the socialists/fascists want to or kill it like the communists want to, but at the same time don’t necessarily want it to run as freely as the FMCs do.
The key takeaway on my economic spectrum is that, as we move from left to right, the faith in the government’s ability to control the economy and/or degree to which it attempts to do so increases.
Let’s think of capitalism as a lion (or a pride) and explore how the various entities would interact with it (these can be plural, too). I think it’s a good metaphor to get the key points across.
We’ve already established that the communists would kill the lion…or at least attempt to. Whether they succeed is another matter entirely (and if they don’t succeed, survival is in doubt), but let’s assume they do succeed for the sake of argument. The government would use the lion’s corpse for food, clothing, jewelry, and tools, then throw the scraps to the people. This would be a tragedy, and we’ve seen it play out before with the collapse of the USSR or Mao’s China (as discussed before, they weren’t fully communist, but they’re about as close as I can think of). Present-day examples require the same caveat and include North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.
The socialists/fascists would attempt to control/train the lion. Like above, success (and survival) is not guaranteed, but we’ll once again assume success and survival for the sake of argument. They’d probably turn it into a circus or work animal, which the humans would enjoy. The lion would live a miserable life and die an early, pitiful death. The government would then use the lion’s corpse like the communists. This also would be tragic. It is why Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
Note that socialist and fascist are interchangeable here because both seek to control the lion. Nazi Germany is a great example. Also, during the Mao era, China strived for a communist model, but the China of today is more akin to a fascist or socialist one. We can also consider portions of the slow-motion trainwreck that is present-day Europe here, too.
The neutrals, capitalists, and FMCs wouldn’t try to kill the lion like the communists would and they wouldn’t try to train/control the lion like the socialists/fascists would. As opposed to the socialists/fascists trying to make the lion do what they want it to do, the neutrals may actively try to prevent the lion from doing something while the capitalists may take more passive preventative measures and the FMCs would be content to let the lion do its thing. Once again, survival isn’t guaranteed, but if all else is held equal, they are probably the best in these scenarios than those outlined above because they’re not picking a fight with the lion here like they are above. This is under the assumption the action the lion wants to take is merely an inconvenient/undesired behavior versus being a present and/or future danger to the people.
If that assumption isn’t valid and there is a danger, the willingness to take action increases. Furthermore I contend that, in general, the probability that the lion’s desired action would be perceived as a danger would decrease as one moves from neutral to capitalist to FMC. Said another way, a neutral would generally be more likely to view a given action as a danger than the capitalist would be and the capitalist would be more likely than the FMC to view that same action as a danger. Of course, there are exceptions and whether they’re right or wrong to view the action as a danger is another matter entirely.
Thus, for lions and neutrals/capitalists/FMCs, I see a happy existence for both and no tragedy here. The two would be able to survive and perhaps even play from time to time. Dust-ups will happen from time to time, but nothing Earth-shattering. This stands in stark contrast with the socialists//fascists/communists. The United States historically presents an excellent example and most Americans tend to fall in the neutral, capitalist, or FMC categories. I’ll leave aside the question of certain periods presenting better/worse examples than others to keep this post more brief and high-level.
One question I see coming is why I haven’t included Crony Capitalists (CCs) or State Capitalists (SCs) anywhere on the spectrum. Here, both are entities that find that the best way to profit is not necessarily through conquering their industry with innovation, value, etc., but by using the government to make the economic landscape more favorable to them. Crony capitalism, though commonly expressed as ‘capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down’ or ‘private profits and public losses’, isn’t its own economic system per se so much as a symptom of an economy that is being dragged away from free market capitalism and toward communism (the direction rather than the start/end points is the key here). My view is state capitalism is largely interchangeable with fascism and does not warrant an additional category.
Another question I see coming is why I chose a lion. I did this because trying to control the economy the way the socialists/fascists would is like trying to herd cats. We’re not talking about herding small housecats, however. Rather, we’re looking at big wildcats, and lions are the biggest of the bunch (ligers and tigons, though larger, are man-made hybrids). Also, even though they’re apex predators, lions generally don’t kill people unless they’re provoked or extremely hungry. I wanted to convey both a generally laid-back temperament (some might say lazy, particularly with regards to the adult males and the cubs) outside of confrontation and the far-from-certain odds of survival upon confrontation. Lions fit the bill nicely. Lastly, this also shows the competitive nature of the economic landscape. Survival, much less prosperity, is not guaranteed and requires physical and mental fortitude (plus luck).
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