Usa destroying its ring wing leaders e.g Donald trump, is a major concern for democracy.

@Gloomy Trump is a symptom of the far right sickness. Capitalism is generally functional if properly monitored and regulated.

@originnone While he is also part of the far right and has aided their grab for influence and power the underlying problem is Capitalism.
Two party system with only rich elites being able to make political decisions. All you need is money and you can become anything in the US.

It's functional in the sense the system is able to be kept afloat but its outcome for so so many people is devastating.

@Gloomy My very short opinion on capitalism is that it has gotten more people out of poverty than any other system by a mile. If its corruption is monitored and minimized, it still works. But....those things are true for the past; we can do better. We just can't trash the first system that ever worked to any extent.

@originnone It has elevated people in the west and to a very minor degree globally while being responsible for severe exploitation and inequalities. The only reason it ended up elevating people was the necessity to treat lower classes better so that the system won't collapse. The Bourgeoisie is still accumulating insane amounts of wealth on the backs of people and our environment.
Capitalism worked for a while and was a necessary step but should and simply cannot be the end.

@Gloomy Well....I agree....

@originnone China lifted 800 million people out of poverty in 50 years. That's a lot more people than the entire population of Europe and more than double the population of the USA. While China watches the welfare of the bottom 10% in planning their economic policy, we in the US live at the mercy of the top 1% running the country.

@sree251 there are people in china still living in caves. I think you overestimate how effective China has cared for its population.

@originnone It impossible to overestimate China's effectiveness at caring for her people and running the country. I travel to Asia every year. Each time I visit China, I am stunned by the pace of improvement. Of course, there are the backwoods in China where people live a basic existence. They may not have much but they are neither unhappy nor homeless like our miserable bottom 10% in America. There is no smell of urine stink where the homeless sleep in the streets like they do in our cities in the US.

I have not visited China since 2020 when Covid broke out. I very much doubt I know how to find my way into the city from the airports in Beijing or Shanghai if I were to go there now. They have gone cashless and God knows what technological advances they have made to their way of life in a matter of 3 years. And I hardly noticed law enforcement police in the cities, and none of them wear guns the way our cops do in America. Theirs is a civilized nation.

@sree251 fair enough. I guess I was wrong.

@originnone You are a good man who is willing to listen to what others have to say. If we are all like that, there would be no more wars. Why can't all Americans be like you?