It's easy to blame capitalism when you're an American who has never traveled to a country with strong social safety nets and checked capitalism. I also assume most people who call themselves communists aren't actually communists though, they just want stronger systems in America to help the poor (Healthcare, education, etc)

Pure capitalism allows many to abuse the system and that results in what we have today here in the us. Overtime politicians have continued to do patchwork to simply get by for the next one to take over and scrap whatever agenda the previous one had in play. Which makes the problems worst and in turn takes longer to address.

We need both legislation and accountability for alot of things but it seems to be impossible to get both of those things. Hell, I dont care that your rich. Just dont bring everyone down with you when you take that one gamble and it causes everything to crash!

I think people often mix up capitalism with market-based economies. The former describes social relations while the former describes how commodities are distributed.

I'm personally not a fan of either. A planned economy geared toward people's need, with the withering away of socio-ecomic classes (no more worker and capitalist distriction) just makes better sense to me.

Nothing substantial to contribute ... just wanted to say that I came in here expecting a shit show (maybe I've been on mastodon too much :) ) and am genuinely impressed to see a bunch of polite and good discussion, not least from the OP!!