What does "Capitalism" mean exactly? And what does "Socialism" mean?
Does "Socialism" mean an overarching Government that allocates resources as the central committee sees fit? Does it simply mean government programs? Does it refer to state control over the finances? Over the agriculture? Does it mean fighting inflation through artificially fixing prices in a way that disrupts the supply-chain of profit? Does it mean implementing government programs and forcing people to accept them whether they like it or not, especially when they benefit their cronies? If that's the definition of "Socialism", then it will not work, and intrudes on people's freedoms to a degree that is not helpful except to the ones who abuse the system, it will only lead to black markets.
And for "Capitalism" does that mean that whatever goes, goes and that there's no controls over the markets to prevent Cartels and Crony Capitalism (i.e. "Fascism") and Plutocracy in which the wealth and resources are ultimately owned by a select few, and in a way which the cartels do their best to stamp out local competition and manipulate prices as they please? Will the Lobbyists manipulate the votes on the representative level that bypasses the common will? There's so many ways to abuse "Capitalism" that there's a reason no country lives in a purely "Free Market", though they are under the equivalently worse collusion of Business with Government in which the interests of the most moneyed dominate everyone else's.
It seems both Capitalism and Socialism inevitably lead to meeting in the middle through Cronyism and corruption, in which the power elites will inevitably work the system to their advantage, leaving everyone else less and less.
But what about the concept of individual local Communes? What about the idea of limited socialism or simply having a Centralized planning authority to oversee the market and correct market errors (i.e. greed and manipulation) and having each local society determine what's best for them, what programs are best, what measures are best to curb abuses of industry and government alike? Will a Free Market necessarily lead to infrastructure and roads development? Why is the government required to give approval to individual states to develop energy and transport systems? Why is the government the only entity nowadays that is interested in building roads and rails? Why has the Private sector lost interest? Would a completely free market dump industrial chemicals into the river with impunity? Would they make Monsanto's grip on the food industry look small in comparison? Is it Socialist-style policies that enable Monsanto to dominate food production with genetically-modified abominations, or is the free market producers who will always look for the cheapest product while keeping the consumer in the dark about its consequences? Would a totally free market mean more Monsantos or less?
And what about distribution of currency? Under a Totally free market, would we have it even worse than the Federal Reserve? Would we have more examples like the crash of 1907 which spurred the Fed? Was Andrew Jackson's battle against the Second National Bank a battle against or for Capitalism?
In the end, the best system is a style of "socialism" in which it's mostly voluntary and elected, not done at the whim of an Oligarchy who uses the social programs and financial controls to further their own individual agendas, one that doesn't involve a one-size-fits-all approach, and encourages a semi-free market (a semi free market would only help the small-to-middle by preventing the large businesses from stomping on the competition and forming price-control cartels) while still having a watch on private measures designed for maximum exploitation. Only through a mix of a Free-market and a Socialist-style distribution of available opprotunity (as opposed to resources themselves) can there be a balance. In my opinon.
