Safety Net?

One of the great appeals of capitalism is the ability of anyone to aspire to and possibly accumulate great riches.

Of course only a few actually do but in general they are admired and serve as exemplars of what can happen if you have the right combination of skill and luck.

Clearly not everyone does, but the opportunity creates hope and enthusiasm that leads to new ideas, businesses and other enterprises which breeds a healthy progression in society.

We have example after example of rags to riches stories and some of our very largest corporations were started by young people working on an idea that worked.

People often talk about the American Dream but I believe the real American Dream is to become incredibly rich, or at least rich enough to not worry about mundane things like making a mortgage or rent payment.

The downside is the income inequality that is created between winners and losers.

The system creates many more losers, people struggling to get by and make ends meet than winners.

This has been true throughout history.

One difference today is that we generally believe that anyone can succeed in America, while in many societies wealth and success were tied into a caste system for the fortunate few.  Most of those societies have been replaced by either an American style capitalism or a European style socialism.

Europe of course has its elites, but it has also taken efforts to assure every citizen has basic things like health care, education and pensions guaranteed by the state.

It does require more taxation and more state involvement but generally it goes a long ways toward eliminating the very poor.

We refer to this concept as the safety net in America but its clearly a pretty low net in comparison to most European countries.

Right now we can't even afford what we have.