re: Milton Friedman: The Rise of Socialism is Absurd

All you capitalists have to do is some tinkering. Your average billionaire will be fine with increased spending on education and universal health care as long as it keeps the basics of capitalism working. Zuckerberg and Bezos and Buffett have no issue with keeping capitalism. They do want it to keep going though.


The issue is that too many capitalists are too greedy and have convinced enough members of the middle-class that increased benefits for those who have not done well under capitalism will come at a cost to them--the middle-class.

The truth is that increased taxes on the wealthy and more protections and benefits like health care and education are relatively cheap when compared to prisons and the increased social and financial costs of poverty and anger. The anger of the losers under capitalism will increasingly become more of a problem for the billionaire class and they will eventually embrace a greater social welfare system since it will entrench them and their interests.

Socialism is about policies as much as it is about an over-arching philosophy. Capitalism is smart enough to eventually realize that give a little here and there perseveres capitalism as the system with some policies that are socialists but at the benefit of maintaining aspects of capitalism that benefit the billionaires.