[Whale biologist]

Originally Posted by Ooloo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Socialism only works on paper because you're assuming you care about strangers as much as you care about your own (friends, family). This is fundamentally opposed to human nature. It's appealing in a utopian sense, but never ever works out on large scales because human nature is not so simple.

The self-interested nature of capitalism incentivizes people to produce goods and services for the betterment of the broadest group possible, because the producer wants to make as much money as possible. It may seem greedy, and in many cases it is, but the net result is that more people have more access to more things. Hence, the United States is the most productive, prosperous, abundant and most importantly *generous* nation in world history. We directly subsidize the military of dozens of countries, we provide humanitarian aid in the billions to dozens of countries, all while being spat upon for our terrible greed.

You need to think outside of black and white notions of "utopia good" and understand what actually works and what doesn't.

This America of your imagination sounds like a capitalist utopia, friend. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]