I've been mulling this over a lot lately.

I think the biggest issue the western world faces is the decision by American conservatives to equate socialism with communism and put capitalism and socialism as two systems, rather than two directions.

It seems to me that every successful society since the Sumerians has been some balance of socialism and capitalism. We miss this because Europe had about 1400 years of barbarism and feudalism, but the highest achievements during the age of faith were towards socialism, capitalism or both. And it seems to me that there's no perfect balance; a successful society has the ability to bounce back and forth. Yet the Republicans took one look at The New Deal and went "we must tear it down" while also taking one look at post-war Europe and going "we must socialize the shit out of it."

I think there are times for hustle and there are times for safety nets and those times can absolutely overlap. Our biggest mistake was pointing at the Soviet Union and going "that's socialism!" rather than pointing at the Soviet Union and going "that's a kleptocracy." Kind of like how we pointed to the Twin Towers and went "that's an act of war" rather than "that's a crime."

Fuckin' ideology, man. I'm not into it.