[mopsi]

> let's just continue on with a system that produces mountains of unnecessary waste

If you want event more pollution and not even toilet paper available on consistent basis, then socialism is indeed a good alternative.

This is not an emotional exaggeration, but the cold hard reality of my childhood in the USSR. The trendy "post-capitalist" kids have no idea what the alternative looks like and how much worse their lives could be. So much is taken for granted.

[neumann]

For a entrepreneur's forum, HN is pretty averse to the idea you can learn lessons from failure when it comes to political systems (especially if it would come at the cost of your own material wealth and comforts).

If you think the USSR is bad, take lessons from the best case (I'll throw up a mix of the Scando countries with no citation) and let's not be ideologues.

[mopsi]

> I'll throw up a mix of the Scando countries with no citation

There's a widespread, but very misguided belief that Northern Europe is a socialist utopia.

Denmark and Norway rank higher than the USA in ease of doing business, Sweden closely behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index#R...

As to government programs, yes there are many, but to finance them, half of your wage is taxed away upon payout and then you have to pay additional 25% of VAT on almost everything you buy. Everyone gets taxed like that, not only "the rich" or Amazon. This gets rarely mentioned when bringing up Scandinavia as an example.

There's no socialism, but capitalism with very high taxation on everyone, even the poor. I'd be very surprised if American climate activists would voluntarily subject themselves to such taxation to finance similar environmental programs like in Scandinavia.