There aren't any successful laissez faire countries plus social welfare countries aren't necessarily worse

Right?

From my understanding, Adam Smith just tried to explain how the market works and not to set an ideology that everyone should embrace. To write it out cleanly, Smith was doing economic science.

In this sense, he was right, you have to let the market do the job, which means the government should avoid intervening the market. This is the correct way to create wealth. If you let the government set the prices or control in any way the market, the whole economy will get fucked up as it happens in a communist or socialist regime.

The problem here is that you think that if a country implements social assistance for their people they're automatically socialists in all the sense of the word. That's not true. In a socialist country there is no private property, nor entrepreneurship, there is only a regime that controls the whole economy. So, the wealthy countries you refer to are capitalists and among the most liberals. In fact, there is a high correlation between liberalism and wealth.

I understand that Americans are going through terrible moments. I heard an average American needs two jobs to make ends meet, that's fkn awful. I don't know how the American economy works but from what I've seen, the major financial crisis were due to financial products. Yes, I've been telling all along that the banking is the major obstacle for the human progress and that includes the central banks. Those mothefuckers are the most evil human beings in the Earth and they are the main problem in the economy because they're distorting the market with their fkn speculation. Not to mention that the bankers were the instigators of the world wars.

All in all, capitalism is not the problem. The system built over capitalism and their creators are.

SatanLucy wrote:

Person who works two jobs isnt a person. Just a worker bee. the best way to destroy a nation is to make people work a lot. No time for thinking. What great future awaits a nation who doesnt think!

Unfortunately.

As I said, the problem is the finance industry. In the video, there is a bitch who explains very well what it's going on in the US.

Video

She says that most people who have money saved in the bank, invest it on the finance industry, buying financial assets, which ends up in pure speculation, instead of investing in something productive like setting up a business that will hire people to produce high-value products or services.

Society is supposed to produce goods in order to maintain a healthy economy and keep the people productive. However, the media sold us that financial investment is the most profitable way to make easy money, that's why there is barely manufacturing industries in the US.

It doesn't matter how much Trump tries to bring back the factories, it will never come back because people have a lot of Wall Street wolves selling them smoke and mirrors.

You fell into the trap of the false dichotomy of capitalism vs socialism.

Objectively, all over the world, either or both together can work just fine in a MINIMALIST government. That's the REAL issue.

The most important question is the scope of government, not the label attached to the economic system.

Laissez-faire can't work without minimal property rights enforced by the government, and the free market can't work with a maximal government.

Maximal Socialism is straight-up Communism.

That's my point, the usa isn't a minimalist government, we just spend on defense and any extent our government is smaller its because our health care is half privatized and welfare like childcare is privatized too. So if a conservative point is we can't spend like other countries due to our defense spending and inability to reign in Healthcare like the rest of the world thats fair point.... but that's a different point than saying the usa only works cause its minimalist. That's just not true, effectively. Plus there are fiscally respondible ways to have a social welfare system too, so its not either runaway government or nothing

As I always say, government is always a lesser or greater form of tyranny, relying upon varying levels of force and compliance.

And "communism" tends towards greater tyranny...Making "communism" a sort of self contradiction in one term.

Ironically then, capitalism tends towards a less tyrannical "laissez faire" style of socialism.

If the usa is not necessarily better as an economic model it could still be said it fosters greater wealth disparity and top heavy wealth. Why?

Your intuition is pointing at something real, but it needs a bit of tightening.

A useful way to frame it is:

If an economy has **less pooling of resources (lower redistribution / weaker social insurance)**, then:

* more income stays “privately controlled” at the top end

* market outcomes dominate (wages, capital returns, inheritance)

* and therefore **wealth dispersion tends to be higher**

So yes: *less pooling can allow greater wealth inequality.*

But the key correction is this:

> Wealth inequality is not mainly determined by how “pooled” resources are—it’s primarily driven by how income from capital vs labor accumulates over time.

That means you can get:

* **high inequality in highly pooled systems** (if ownership of capital is still unequal)

* **lower inequality in less pooled systems** (if wages are high, mobility is strong, and asset ownership is broad)

### Where the US actually fits

The U.S. is somewhat unique:

* It is **not very “pooled” compared to Europe** (weaker welfare state than, say, Sweden or Germany)

* But it is also a **very large, deep capital market economy**

* So wealth accumulates heavily through:

* stocks

* housing

* business ownership

* inheritance

That combination tends to produce:

* strong upward mobility for some

* but also **very high wealth concentration at the top**

### The important nuance

“Pooling resources” (taxes, transfers, public services) affects inequality mainly by:

* reducing bottom-end deprivation

* increasing floor stability (healthcare, education, unemployment support)

* modestly compressing income distribution

But it is not the main driver of extreme wealth inequality. The big drivers are:

* capital ownership distribution

* returns to capital vs wages (Piketty-style dynamics)

* inheritance

* housing asset inflation

* education/labor market sorting

### A sharper way to restate your idea

A more precise version of your argument would be:

> Lower redistribution tends to allow more inequality to persist, but the magnitude of wealth inequality is more strongly shaped by capital accumulation dynamics than by the level of resource pooling alone.

.....

First, a small correction to the premise: the U.S. actually has one of the **most diverse capital markets in the world** (public equities, private equity, venture capital, REITs, derivatives, etc.). What’s *less diverse* is not the existence of instruments, but **who owns what and how broadly capital is distributed across households and firms**.

If your question is really “why does U.S. capital ownership and corporate structure end up more concentrated or less broadly shared than in some other advanced economies?”, there are a few big structural reasons.

---

## 1. The U.S. is unusually equity-heavy and market-driven

The U.S. leans strongly toward **public markets and equity ownership**, rather than:

* cooperative ownership models (more common in parts of Europe)

* state-backed industrial ownership (common in parts of Asia historically)

* bank-centered capital systems (Germany, Japan, etc.)

That matters because:

* equity markets tend to **scale winner-take-most dynamics**

* successful firms grow very large (Apple, Amazon, Google effects)

* ownership accumulates where early capital already existed

So “diversity” exists in *instruments*, but outcomes cluster.

---

## 2. Household capital ownership is uneven

In many European countries, there is:

* higher participation in pensions tied to collective bargaining

* stronger automatic enrollment in retirement systems

* more mandated savings pools (which spread equity exposure broadly)

In the U.S.:

* ownership is more **voluntary and market-dependent (401(k), IRAs, brokerage accounts)**

* participation correlates strongly with income and financial literacy

* large shares of stocks are held by the top wealth decile

So capital is “diverse,” but **not evenly distributed across the population**.

---

## 3. Weak cooperative / stakeholder corporate tradition

Compared to places like:

* Germany (codetermination, worker representation on boards)

* Scandinavia (labor-capital coordination, wage compression institutions)

* Netherlands (stakeholder governance models)

The U.S. emphasizes:

* shareholder primacy

* managerial autonomy

* profit maximization over stakeholder balancing

This pushes firms toward:

* scaling aggressively

* concentrating ownership

* prioritizing capital returns over wage dispersion

---

## 4. Venture capital + tech winner-take-most effects

A uniquely strong feature of the U.S. is:

* deep venture capital ecosystem

* extremely high upside tolerance

* strong network effects in tech markets

That creates:

* fewer but larger dominant firms

* rapid capitalization of “superstar” companies

* concentrated equity returns

So paradoxically, **innovation increases capital concentration**.

---

## 5. Tax and inheritance structure amplifies accumulation

Relative to many peer countries:

* inheritance is less aggressively constrained (compared to Europe/Asia)

* capital gains are lightly taxed relative to labor in many brackets

* wealth can compound across generations with fewer structural brakes

That leads to:

* persistent ownership clusters

* dynastic capital formation

---

## 6. Financialization and index concentration

Even “broad” tools like index funds introduce hidden concentration:

* a large share of passive capital flows into the same mega-cap firms

* top companies receive disproportionate inflows

* market capitalization reinforces itself

So even diversified investing ends up **structurally tilted toward a small group of firms**.

---

## The key synthesis

The U.S. doesn’t lack capital diversity in *form*—it has plenty of instruments.

What it lacks relative to some other systems is:

> **broad, structurally enforced diffusion of ownership across households and across firms**

Instead, it has:

* highly efficient capital allocation

* strong scale-up mechanisms

* but also strong reinforcement of winners and existing capital holders

---

Yes. Those are two related but distinct aspects of an economy.

You can have **extensive pooling of resources**—through taxes, universal healthcare, public pensions, unemployment insurance, and other social programs—while still having **substantial wealth inequality** if ownership of assets remains concentrated.

For example:

* A country may provide universal healthcare and generous social benefits (high resource pooling).

* At the same time, the wealthiest households may own most of the businesses, stocks, and investment properties.

* As those assets appreciate over decades, wealth can become increasingly concentrated even though everyone's basic needs are better protected.

Conversely, a country could have relatively little redistribution but broad ownership of productive assets (through widespread stock ownership, employee ownership, or other mechanisms), which could reduce wealth inequality.

So there are really two different questions:

1. **How are income and resources redistributed?** (pooling)

2. **Who owns productive assets?** (wealth distribution)

These interact, but one does not determine the other. That's why many economists distinguish between **income inequality** and **wealth inequality**—they often move together, but not always.

This distinction strengthens your earlier point: **the degree of resource pooling alone doesn't determine how unequal wealth becomes.** Asset ownership patterns, returns on capital, inheritance, housing markets, and other factors all play major roles.

Elon Musk is proof the American dream is still alive. Elon musk is the richest man in the world and yet he migrated to America to acquire his wealth.