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Years ago my nephew, having taken a college philosophy course, told me that his professor espoused a theory similar to this. His postulation was, that when a society like ours became as opulent as ours, that we would naturally tend toward socialism. A society that becomes rich and therefore want to "reach out" and help the poor will always create ways to redistribute to the poor on the basis of "help".

It's as if the professor was claiming we should do this it was just part of the natural progression. More money means more free help and the cycle repeats till, before you can realize it, we have become a socialist state. Of course, there are many who WANT this to happen but in the end it happens as a matter of course. Just look at the "Great Society".

Even in capitalism there is a dichotomy. We strove to get things to the point where we could have more leisure time and now that people are enjoying the leisure time the same capitalists decry that as sloth.

I always believed that the true coporatists were of the mind that "I want my leisure time but I want YOU to work hard for my leisure time". Now that more people have become wealthy and can have their time off those corporatists are bemoaning the fact that those people are not producing enough.

Capitalism, like socialism, never takes into account human nature. Capitalism can be overcome with greed and avarice while socialism kills the human spirit. A truly capitalist society would kill just as many people as socialism human nature being what it is.

Capitalism mixed with charity (socialism?) is the only way we can have a truly civil society. We cannot have the dog eat dog of true capitalism or the master feeding dog of true socialism - either would kill the human spirit.

Socialism is an ideology, but capitalism isn't...it just another word for free market economy.

Replace the word capitalism in your comment with free markets and it no longer makes sense.

Of course your local hardware store or grocery store or dry cleaners is not concerned with societal charity. Customers don't go there for charity. They expect hammers and bread and clean clothes.

Any college professor who tries to compare socialism to capitalism as an ideology is either a socialist or simply misguided.

The problem with comparing capitalism with socialism is that one is not comparing apples to apples.

Socialism is a system of controlling all or most human activity. Economic activity (the exchange of goods and services) is only a part of that system.

Capitalism (or free market economics) IS NOT a system of controlling human activity. It is simply a means by which goods and services change hands.

The appropriate comparison in discussing socialism would be to compare a CONTROLLED HUMAN ENVIRONMENT (socialism) to a FREE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT. Capitalism/free market economics is but a small part of the Free Human Environment.