This election cycle has seen a return of the old boogey man….the “S” word….and it seems to be popular with the electorate……it will be Trump’s whole campaign in 2020.
The rising star (for now) in the Dem field for the 2020 election has used a term that his me concerned……”Democratic Capitalism”……I read the term in an article about an interview he had for VOX…..a great interview so please read the whole thing and learn about this candidate for he has a lot to offer the American people……
In the past few weeks, Pete Buttigieg — the 37-year-old gay (why does this matter?) mayor of South Bend, Indiana — has become a surprising standout in the crowded 2020 Democratic field.
But as popular as Buttigieg is right now, there are still a lot of questions swirling around his candidacy. Can a mayor of a moderately sized city really make the leap to be president? Why is he getting so much media attention when female candidates with similar policy chops, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), aren’t? And where does Buttigieg fit in the big questions dividing the Democratic Party,from the rise of socialism to the direction of foreign policy?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/28/18283925/pete-buttigieg-mayor-pete-interview-capitalism
I wrote that I was concerned about the use of the term and now I shall explain……
As an old fart I am a child of the Cold War and the term means to me……… Democratic capitalism, also known as capitalist democracy, is a political, economic, and social system and ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on a democratic policy, economic incentives through free markets, fiscal responsibility and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism. This economic system supports a capitalist free market economy subject to control by a democratic political system that is supported by the majority. It stands in contrast to authoritarian capitalism by limiting the influence of special interest groups, including corporate lobbyists, on politics. It is argued that the coexistence of modern capitalism and democracy was the result of the creation of the modern welfare state that allowed for a relatively stable political atmosphere and widespread support for capitalism during the Golden Age of Capitalism in the post-war era. The United States is often seen as having democratic capitalism as its political-economic system, although Robert Reich argues it has become more authoritarian in recent decades.
To me “Democratic Capitalism” leads to inequality as we see it on the rise today…..(below is a European look at DC but it holds true everywhere)….
When the question “Does inequality threaten the sustainability of Western democratic capitalism?” is asked, we need to break the question into three constituent parts in order to come up with a solid answer:
https://www.theglobalist.com/inequality-and-democratic-capitalism/
I have deep problems with what I see as unrestrained capitalism and the steep rise of inequality….but I want to be fair in my presentation…..below is a “pro” article on the issue of democratic capitalism……
For all its faults and limitations, “democratic capitalism” has one very attractive feature: It embraces many different kinds of capitalism and many different kinds of democracy. It is obvious that France is not the United States (Tocqueville recognized that in 1835). Sweden is not Italy. The United Kingdom is not South Korea. Japan is not Singapore. And so on.
When I wrote The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism in 1982, there were many fewer political economies than there are today that could be described as democratic in their political part and capitalist in their economic part. Consider the “Asian Tigers” plus the Philippines and Bangladesh in Asia, several Latin American nations (led by Chile), several of the nations formerly under Soviet control in Eastern Europe, and the many others that have emerged since the early 1980s as capitalist, but not democratic.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/09/democratic-capitalism-michael-novak/
I still have reservation about unbridled capitalism…..all you have to do is look at the facts where corporate bonuses have out performed wages by many percentiles……capitalism only is working for the uber rich and the rest of us have to be thankful for the scraps they throw at us.
When it comes to Mayor Pete for me he is an attractive candidate, at least for now……but is he anti-war?
Why did I lead with the “S” word?
Because I could.
Turn The Page!
