Last week Obama called NY Times reporter to clarify his position on him "NOT BEING A SOCIALIST". What's wrong with being a socialist? Is it a dirty tag? Is everything perfect with Capitalism? This is my 2 cents on this subject....
I don't think there is anything wrong with being a socialist. Its a form/strategy of setting government priorities and how it impacts citizens. Being capitalist assumes that we all are selfish and if we take care of our own (self, family, business etc.) interest the world would be better place. I totally agree with this assumption of being a capitalist but with a restriction - we shouldn't harm others to take care of ourselves. For an example, my business will be more profitable if I have no competition but that doesn't give us right to harm my competitors. The government regulates this by creating laws. There were regulations (Glass Steagall Act, 1933) in place to separate banking and investment banking till late 1990s and that limited the risk taking abilities of commercial banks. The free market/capitalist principles says less regulations are better for the world and that created the financial mess we are today by repealing Glass Steagell act.
So, government has a responsibility to regulate industries, improve the conditions for its citizens and make laws so that everyone has same opportunities without any bias. Now, here comes the socialist idea.... Make government big in terms of increase in taxes and its budget and improve the life of citizens as a whole. In other way, you tax people/companies who make more money and give services/benefits to the poor. It's some form of redistribution of wealth and personally I don't like it but I think government is just doing its job to help its citizens who need that help to be competitive in market place. Our government has a responsibility to improve quality of life for all the people and not only the productive people, intelligent people. It has to help retired, elderly, disabled, children and others who can't help themselves.
So, it's a fine line between being a socialist or a capitalist. I think government has a responsibility to be capitalist as well as socialist as USA needs both of them at some point of time. Life is not black or white rather it's a shade of gray and Obama has to learn to be both (socialist & capitalist) without offending the other side.
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9 years ago
