[qmanjamz]

Is there a country with an economic system other than capitalism that is even remotely competitive with the US?

Saying there's a crisis in capitalism because some people are poor is like saying the Warriors are in crisis because their bench players aren't getting much playing time.

[conception]

We've tended to go to war (hot or cold) with them before they have the chance to compete.

[blotter_paper]

And here, I thought war (hot or cold) was competition.

I get that momentum is hard to overcome, but I think a sufficiently competitive system will overcome that barrier and eventually outcompete capitalism as we know it; we haven't found that system yet, though it's theoretically possible we've tossed out some better systems that weren't better enough to overcome the first-mover-after-WWII advantage.

I think the major innovation of the next paradigm shift will relate to how groups of people handle intergenerational wealth (and perhaps some related structural questions), as I think this is the most glaring inefficiency of the American system. This is a minefield of a problem with a lot of naive, popular answers.

[salty_biscuits]

Plenty of social democracies about that have a good standard of living for more people.

[thesagan]

But if the number of players on the bench keep increasing while those on the field keep decreasing, you might start to wonder if there's a problem, or if the Warriors will be back to play next season.

[randomsearch]

Well, all of Scandinavia have better societies than the US by a range of measures, and they’re certainly much less capitalist.

[codr7]

Having grown up in Sweden, I'd say that's mostly history by now.

It used to work a lot better, but they've been privatizing and monetizing non-stop during my life so far and it's mostly same ice cream/different flavor these days from what I can see.

[njepa]

Yep, Sweden is unfortunately a long way from "the middle way" these days.