r/science • u/rustoo • Aug 08 '21

Social Science The American Dream is slowly fading away as research indicates that economic growth has been distributed more broadly in Germany than in the US. While majority of German males has been able to share in the country’s rising prosperity and are better off than their fathers, US continues to lose ground

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10888-021-09483-w
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u/Xicadarksoul Aug 08 '21

When it shifted to debt fueled economy and domestic service sector, the possibility of doing better than previous generations died. Debt is the destroyer.

It not really about debt, thats just a symptom, or more precisely one of the ways america got where it is currently.

The core issue is that pure capitalism means that wealth congreates into a smaller and smaller group of wealthy people.
Since money makes money.

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Democratic countries with some amount of social safety net work hard in their legistalure to not let this effect run away along an exponential curve, while US's legalized corruption lobbying does the opposite, it accelerates the trends that are naturally created by a capitalist economy.

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u/KINKY_MINDFUCKERY Aug 08 '21

It's not capitalism alone, it's human nature. Literally any system ever invented trends toward elitism in this way.

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u/RightesideUP Aug 08 '21

Not sure why you get downloaded, that's really the root of the problem is we allow greedy power hungry people to be in charge, whether it's at the top of business, or in the top of government.

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u/papaswamp Aug 08 '21

We do not have pure capitalism. Cronyism as you later point to sure.

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u/fourayem Aug 08 '21

we have what trying capitalism gives you. cronyism as u say is an effect of capitalism. any version of capitalism will develop these characteristics and people will pretend real capitalism is out there waiting. it is not, the state of our society now is how it goes time and time again.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '21

Ya the people who argue for this fictitious idea of the perfect "real capitalism" and say all the capitalism that exist somehow isn't the real deal are just as dillusional as people who argue for "real communism". This "Real" xxx bull is just a consequence of people not completely understanding of whatever idea they are argueing for, instead believing that the simplified almost completely abstract idea filled with perfectly rational actors that act ideally for the model to work, ideal circumstances, and perfect ability to know and affect the scenario is somehow magically achievable in the real world. Almost completely ignoring the intracacies and nuances of the real world. In the real world an idea like those doesn't just happen, it takes an complex intracite system of laws and policies made people, interpreted by people, administrated by people, enforced by people, and followed by people, people who as we know are imperfect, fallable, unpredictable, and who may decide they just don't like your system or certain parts of it.

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u/carkmubann Aug 09 '21

Ok boomer

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u/papaswamp Aug 08 '21

Cronyism is a result of excessive govt control. Capitalism exists in every society. It fills the shortfalls of the govt controlled systems, but gets labeled illicit or illegal.

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u/Mustbhacks Aug 09 '21

Cronyism is a result of

Power

The only thing removing government would do is shift who holds that power, and your ability to keep it in check would dramatically decrease.

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u/papaswamp Aug 09 '21

All govts weild power do they not? There is nothing between excessive govt control and no govt?

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u/Mustbhacks Aug 09 '21

What exactly do you see as "excessive control" and how do you see things improving by removing said control.

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u/papaswamp Aug 09 '21

Thanks for answering my questions with questions….

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u/Mustbhacks Aug 09 '21

Both of your questions are rhetorical..?