“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill said this.
We used to call it communism, but the Russians blackened the name of communism so thoroughly that lefties now call themselves socialists instead of communists. What ever you call it, it goes back to Karl Marx, writing in the 1850s and 1860s, very early in the industrial revolution. Things were rougher back in those early days. Marx observed that the capitalists, those who owned the businesses, took home a lot more money than the ordinary workers did. Marx called this unjust (and a bunch of other things too) and proposed his solution. Private ownership of nearly everything would be made illegal. Government ownership of “the means of production” would pay everyone in the enterprise the same wages.
This sounded pretty good, and the Russians, the North Koreans, the Cubans, and the Columbians, and some others too, fell for it. The results were not good. “The means of production” were operated by government bureaucrats, who are never very good at anything, especially something difficult like management. Lacking anyone to cut deals with suppliers, and truckers, hire and fire, and take risks, the businesses languished, lost money, did layoffs, or went out of business. Government wages were skimpy at best. Production fell off. Plenty of misery was created. “They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”.
Capitalism has incentives. The capitalists are strongly motivated to make the business a success, mostly because they wanted the money, and partly because they wanted the fame that came to successful capitalists. The more valuable workers get pay raises to keep them working for the business, as opposed to quitting and going to work for a competitor. With everyone in the business motivated to make it a success, it will succeed. That is why they say the streets in America are paved with gold.
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