Article: Both Parties are Rejecting Capitalism (free-market, interest, work, government)
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Which would you prefer: Economic authoritarianism? Or domineering socialism?
This might sound like an Econ 101 thought experiment, but in reality, it’s the choice being offered American voters by the nation’s two major political parties. If you thought Republicans and Democrats mainly differed on the matter of how best to distribute the spoils of free-market capitalism, you’re stuck in the 1990s. Each of these parties is now lurching toward anti-capitalist statism, with the main difference being how, exactly, the government should control the economy.
History just does seem to repeat itself, huh? When enough people feel like the system is not working for them (or the majority) there's talk of revolution, a magna carta, a "new deal," etc. The truth is that we've never had one extreme form of an economic model or the other extreme; it always seems as though societies have adopted shades or elements of such theoretical economic models. In the US, we've had quite a run from the industrial revolution to the booming middle class (an invented people). However, the last 40 years has lost a lot of progress and the middle class has lost momentum. Many policies have been installed to try to prop it up, but many did not work or lost their effectiveness.
Meanwhile globalism and technology has served as a catalyst for competition and America is losing its edge. Think about how many how many emerging market countries were doing relative to the US just 15-30 years ago? Look no further than the UAE, South Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and...China. All of those economically fast moving countries either had huge injections from the IMF, had major corruption, or conveniently evolved their economic models over the course of their progress. What an interesting time to be a student in political science.
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