Capitalism is required to have a welfare state

Posted on: November 9, 2019 at 10:55:03 CT

In a "welfare state" government supplies many services. The "socialism" popular with many today is essentially a "welfare state", a system in which the government supplies many goods and services that could be supplied by the private sector.

Examples of goods and services supplied by the government today in America abound. The most high profile are probably social security, medicare and medicaid. America's socialista, i.e. Bernie, Elizabeth and the like, are essentially proposing an increase in the provision of these goods and services.

And most of America's socialists assume these goods and services provided by the Government will be produced and paid for with tax dollars imposed on the productive sector. That's the private sector because publicly owned enterprises generally pay no taxes and make little if any contribution to a government budget.

Bluntly, if the private sector does not flourish, if it flounders, it may, almost certainly won't generate the necessary funds to provide these goods and services. And America's socialists seem to not recognize this fact.

In other words, America's socialist want to use government, i.e. the tax and welfare/benefit systems to redistribute the pie. The first priority should be to grow the pie. It's easier to make folks happy when you're slicing up a big pie than it is when you're slicing up a little one. So, grow the pie.