After moving to #Germany and seeing the high #QualityOfLife in #Europe in general, I started questioning: #capitalism and the #FreeMarket will always win over socialism? Youtubers #TheBlackForestFamily try to settle the debate once and for all.
Comparing #American & #German #wages, #salaries, #taxes, and #SocialContributions to find out: Who actually has greater #DisposableIncome?
Free markets are not incompatible with socialism. "Free market" is a technical economics term for a commodity market that satisfies certain properties. A free market is usually good because it tends to provide the commodity to the maximum possible number of consumers at the minimum viable price. Its opposite is not "socialism" but a monopoly/oligopoly market, where the suppliers will set the price so as to maximize their profit -- usually much higher than the free market one.
The ideology that commonly calls itself "free market" or "captalism" is quite another thing, better called "laissez-faire capitalism" or "plutocracy". It holds that one has the right to keep every penny that one can get hold of, by any means other than theft robbery, or outright contract fraud , and use that money any way one wishes.
If the "laissez-faire capitalism" ideology is given a chance, every free market will degenerate into a monopoly or cartel, as the biggest suppliers will buy or smother the smaller ones and will use their economic power to prevent new ones from entering the market. Free markets only survive if the gov actively protects them, preventing cartels, dumping, company mergers, etc.
Itamar Medeiros
Jorge Stolfi