Comment Re:Vive le Galt! (Score 1) 695
I've an idea. Let's look at the countries who have the happiest populations, and do what they do.
So who’s the happiest? As has been the case the past five years, that distinction goes to countries that enjoy peace, freedom, good healthcare, quality education, a functioning political system and plenty of opportunity: Norway, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand.
So capitalism, tempered with socialism. The strength of capitalism is that customers flock to the best products, and others have incentives to create them. Its biggest weakness is that a small advantage can be leveraged to a strong market position, making them successful not because they're good, but because they have too much power to dictate the market. Similarly unchecked capitalism means the wealthy use that power and money to make themselves wealthier still at everyone else's expense by rewriting the rules that benefit themselves at the direct cost of the rest.
Socialism - i.e. good public healthcare, good schools, a fair and accessible political system that works for all, not the few, a social safety net, economic regulation etc etc paid for by redistributive taxation ameliorates the rawer edge of a capitalist system, and means many have the opportunity to be happy, not just the people who lucked into being at the very top. Taken too far it can impede or even punish innovation, and there's always the risk that the people dictating who gets what become the ones who get the most.
So a hybrid system it is.
But no matter the system label, if it allows a small group to exercise all the power (religious-run states, the leaders of the only allowed political party, military dictatorships, a country run by the most wealthy) then it will be a bad system where the vast majority suffer, to serve those at the top.