Socialism is at best, the loyal opposition.
Capitalism works because it is nominally an ecosystem, in which the individual operators, from people to companies, are the organisms populating it.
As socialism invariably operates, some form of parental entity has overall authority. Which creates a dynamic of this entity rising and falling as one, rather then being able to regenerate, through the lifecycles of smaller entities within the system.
The flaw in capitalism is the medium of exchange which enables it is also treated as a store of value.
There can be two types of money. Either it is a commodity, in which the value is inherent, such as gold, or bitcoin, or it is a contract, in which one side is an asset and the other is a debt. Such as vouchers, or receipts, iou’s, etc, being traded around. As our currency is backed by government debt, it is a contract for a public obligation. Some countries even back their currency with debt bought in the private markets, or the debt of other governments.
Since we experience money as quantified hope and security, we try saving and storing it. Even Econ 101 argues it is medium of exchange, store of value and price setting mechanism, but that last is a function of being a medium.
Yet a medium is inherently dynamic, while a store is relatively static. Blood is a medium, while fat is a store. Roads are a medium, while parking lots are a store. Fortunately economists do not practice medicine, or design highways.
So in order to store the asset, similar amounts of debt have to be generated.
For one thing, this creates a centripetal effect, as positive feedback draws the asset to the center of the community, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. Since money and finance function as the value circulation mechanism of the entire society, this would be like the heart telling the hands and feet they don’t need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get.
For another thing, the government has become debtor of last resort. Where would those trillions go otherwise? Derivatives? Junk bonds? Apple stock?
Basically we are blowing up other countries as a consequence of trying to save surplus notational value. Public debt backs private wealth.
The functionality of money is in its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the fluids passing through our bodies.
Just as a complete hypothetical, what if the government were to tax out what it currently borrows?
People would quickly have to start finding other ways to store value for future needs. Since we all save for many of the same reasons, if ways could be developed to invest in these as community assets, rather than everyone saving for them individually, in a thoroughly metastasized financial system, we would have stronger communities and healthier environments.
The irony of our individualistic ethos is the resulting atomized culture is more easily controlled by the very institutional authority to which the hypothetical individual is opposed, as well as having most relationships mediated by this parasitic financial system. Networks matter as much as nodes. Ask the plants.
Not that banking could be a direct function of government, although both serve the entire community.
As executive and regulatory function, government amounts to the central nervous system, while finance, as the value circulation system, is analogous to the body’s circulation system. Given politicians live and die on the hope they inspire, printing excess money has always been a cheap and short term move by flailing politicians. Just like the head and the heart, they are different organs, serving different functions.
Meanwhile our current socialist ideas for making society work usually involve different ways to print more money, from basic income, to MMT, without really getting into the source of the problems in the first place. So they tend to become effective scapegoats, when the system is imploding, to throw the masses and show them There Is No Alternative.
The eventual effect is more public debt and eventually there will be those collecting this public debt at pennies on the dollar, then insisting, by whatever means necessary, that it be paid, with remaining public assets. Then we understand true oligarchy.
