It feels like lately, it appears that more and more people are attracted to socialism (or even communism). It's like they have contempt for the American system, despite the fact that socialism (and communism) has never worked in the history of the human race (not long term). Everywhere that those systems have been tried, it has pushed the majority of the people into poverty, and power to a select corrupt few.
The American system has brought more people out of poverty (not just in the United States, but elsewhere in the world) than any other system in history. And although it is true that power seems to fall into the hands of a select corrupt few, that does not discount the fact that more people have been elevated in lifestyle with this system (led by the corrupt, or not).
Unlike the totalitarian systems of socialism and communism, at least the American system has a built in system to expose and remove the corrupt. From time to time, corrupt politicians go to jail. From time to time, even the rich end up going too far, get caught, and end up in jail. It happens. It doesn't happen in those other systems.
The critics of the American system, complain that the system doesn't work for the people on the bottom. This criticism ignores the fact that even the people on the bottom live a better lifestyle than the poor in any other country in the world (in history). The poor in the United States have assistance programs that provide meals, shelter. and although they don't have healthcare directly, they all have some form of healthcare in emergency rooms at hospitals all over the country.
The critics assume that all the things that we have in this country are just here and have always been here. They ignore the sacrifices and the work and the struggles that people before us went through to give us these things. The paved roads we have, didn't just happen. People made them happen. Businesses made those things available to us, and there were people that sacrificed so that they could create those businesses, create those products, so that we'd have these things. People gained jobs because of those businesses.
Prior to this age where almost everyone works for someone else, or some company. Before the economy as it is now, most people were self employed. They had to have some skill(s) that they could use to create value in the form of a product or service that other people would pay for. There was no safety net for people who had few or no marketable skills.
As average people sacrificed and saved, and came up with innovations, they used their savings, created companies and employed people. Some of these companies and products failed. But a few succeeded, and slowly our economy evolved where the average worker had a 40 hour week, and a paycheck every two weeks. And we have a social safety net now for the people at the bottom with little or no skill; including people that have bad habits and can't keep a job. The system even provides for them in a limited way.
None of that just happened. People made it happen. Our system allowed people the freedom and incentive to try new things until they found things (products) that worked. That has benefited the majority of the people in ways that the old system never did. Under the old system, almost everyone was poor. A whole middle class evolved out of the innovations that the American system provided for. Everyone has benefited in some way. Everyone is better off than the average worker was a hundred and fifty years earlier.
Every time I hear about the corruption that is out there, I am sometimes encouraged that they get caught, exposed, humiliated, and occasionally jailed. And I keep coming back to the fact that none of the people that complain about this system, would be better off with the system we had a hundred and fifty years ago, and they wouldn't be better off with socialism or communism; and this is proven when looking at those as they are practiced in places like Venezuala.
Some of the detractors will point to certain countries and claim those are shining examples of socialism, but then if you look at those countries, they are not really practicing full socialism (yet), but every one of them is failing economically. Their economy cannot support those systems long term, and many have had to scale back some of the social programs they initially had that made people support them.
Regardless of those countries though, the fact is still that the American system (with all of its faults), has still brought more people out of poverty, than any other system in the history of the human race. This is an undisputed fact.
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