Again and again I find contributions or interviews of lifestyle leftists who like to claim that capitalism is to blame for poverty and that it has to be replaced by something better. By which system? This is usually not answered, but one can ideologically already think where it leads, in socialist or communist systems.
And yet, despite its bad image, capitalism has been able to reduce poverty in many countries like no other system.
On the website Our World in Data, you can find wonderful graphics that show how it has developed over the last decades:
I have created a table here with ChatGPT, which compares different, though not all aspects of the social systems capitalism, socialism, communism. In its pure form, capitalism is not good at first glance, which is why we have the social market economy in Germany, where, for example, people who lose their jobs are supported financially by the state and thus by the taxpayers of the country through unemployment benefits and assistance programs.
Also, the disadvantages such as environmental pollution are reduced by government guidelines and laws.
In the distribution of income, for example, the inequality in wages and access to the labor market is improved. But even here it is not perfect and at least in Germany, there are still companies and cases where women earn less than men despite the same work performance.
Through rich taxation, these are also limited here, although this approach can also turn around with too high taxes and the people, with the capital and the companies, leave the country. Already today, Germany is one of the countries with the highest taxes in the world, and in 2022, 1.1 million German citizens have left the country. So in addition to a capital there is also a brain drain.
What do you think? Is social market economy the solution or is there a better solution?
I for one think that except for the German bureaucracy, actually the social market economy is working quite well and only that there are still problems to be fixed here, such as increasing poverty and support from the state for people to start businesses and become self-employed so that they can in turn create jobs.
| Capitalism | Socialism | Communism | |
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| Disadvantages |
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| Manpower |
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| Innovation power |
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| Progress |
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| Income- distribution |
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Further sources:
English 
German 
French 
Czech