What's the Bigger Question

We confuse the two terms and use them as weapons.

The baseline is that both systems require money, and in America, the government takes money through taxes, fees, fines, tolls, or whatever other mechanism is available. What happens with that huge sum of money collected from citizens is where the two ideologies take hold.

American socialism argues that our taxpayer money goes to public services like better schools, first responders, defense, and infrastructure, among other pro-citizen services.

American capitalism ideally operates separately from the government because businesses would prefer fewer regulations and more profits. At the core, capitalism produces the products Americans buy in the open market. The beauty of the system is that good products sell and bad products don’t. It is debatable whether cash cows stall innovation, since the money is too good to risk on what may benefit the consumer.

Government can influence the products produced through regulation and subsidies. But the moment free tax money was offered to corporations was the moment they worked to get more of it. Thus, came the era of tax breaks, tax credits, bailouts, and whatever else they can directly transfer from the Treasury Department.

True capitalism would not lean on the government, but American capitalism does everything it can to ensure Big Business influences Congress. It creates a conflict of interest and motivates those with influence and money to call any funding that isn’t going to Big Business socialism, when, in essence, that very behavior is a form of socialism for corporations.

Ultimately, people’s money should go to the people, and corporate taxes should fund the infrastructure that helps them do business. What makes us different is that, as Americans, we can vote on the system.