Very few people are actually "capitalists". How many own the means of production? Very few. Shareholders do not qualify. While they believe in "capitalism", they maybe unaware of the huge public investment that stokes those fires, all the while thinking their crumb is bigger than their neighbours. Maybe it is?
Capitalists often confuse communism with socialism.
You are correct, but I use the terms loosely because the general population misunderstands them.
Nazis were socialists. Means of production was privately owned, i.e. Krupp Works.
Russia is communist and the state owns the means of production.
What is amazing with these systems is how a few people benefit greatly and the rest share the crumbs. Put simply there is a why work attitude when you can not get ahead. There was a saying in Russia "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us".
Shareholder is perhaps capitalist partly because he owns the means of production as the partial owner among many of a company.
The trouble we are having today is taxing and regulations are so onerous that people of means chose to make money by stock, bonds, financial dealing and not by owning companies and employing people which grows the pie. This is the reason why 90%+ of the gains in the economy in the past decade or two have gone to the top percent of the people, i.e. already rich. Could this be why socialism seems attractive?
Then you have the government and student loans. College always was expensive so uncle sam came along and provided loans. College answer was to say the customer or student has access to more money so we will raise our fees. Cost of higher ed has grown way out of proportion to other costs.
Secondary cost is graduating students have a huge debt load and can not afford houses and cars. This hurts the economy badly.
China is coming along very slowly. You can start a business and become owner if you can get the permits which is not easy.
I will pass on what happened here very recently. A relative has a small business that helps others with human resources, i.e. payroll , training etc.
He had a great idea to improve that segment in functioning and he met a congressman in Washington. He agreed it was a terrific idea and would improve things. He wanted to know what it was worth to get it into law, i.e. solicited a bribe or campaign contribution. What a way to run the government.
The government is trying to address these issues now because it is the only way to grow the pie. Resistance is high. I leave it to the reader to determine why.
