Post Alpaca Lips Posts

Transcending   “Better”   Capitalism; More Succinct than   “Utopian”   Socialism. Photo by   Intricate Explorer   on   Unsplash . . Essay originally published on Medium . . Each American as a different view of what capitalism and socialism mean, or what they expect from these two theories of economics, and their political underpinnings. Some portion of Americans dislike both, but most have stronger negative or positive feelings about one or the other.   “Better” capitalism,   for many Americans, may just mean more socialism plugged into capitalism, or those focused on socialism as the path forward may dislike my use of the term utopia. Yet that is a big problem with both capitalism and socialism; Americans are all over the map on how they perceive each theory because our understanding of both is varied, and is   anchored   at several levels. Plus each can be multilayered with myth, and misinformation, encouraged or directed by frien...

Photo by   krakenimages   on  Unsplash First published on Medium . . My feelings about “capitalism” were benign most of my life. Of course, my concept of it was mostly the hard striving business, competing against similar businesses in a generally fair,   decently   refereed, economy. Although in high school, I had read about Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting, and as a 20-something consumer, I   experienced   the chopping up of AT&T. . My perspective began changing somewhere between the dot com boom, and the 2008 crash. The housing collapse, and stock market crash solidified my current negative perception of capitalism. Ironically, this happened during the high point of my small business’ boom that lasted about four years, or until 2010. . As millions were losing their jobs in late 2008 and all of 2009, my business was doing better than it ever had. Conversely, I was the same age as my father, 48, when he had the worst couple years of his life, caree...