Economics

The false dichotomy between capitalism and socialism that is presented in many political debates is a ridiculous oversimplification, a straw man argument coming from both sides. We have never had a system with total communal ownership of all industry and property, nor have we ever had a fully privatized anarcho-capitalist dystopia.

Capitalism is by far the best economic system for promoting innovation, increasing efficiency and production, and distributing the goods produced with fair prices. However, this system breaks down when the incentives created by the profit motive are in conflict with promoting happiness and well-being in society. The quintessential example of this is healthcare, where it is more profitable to treat symptoms than cure illnesses and people have little choice about when and how they consume healthcare services in an emergency.

Socialism is more appropriate in systems that are "natural monopolies" like utilities and roads that are consumed by everyone and would require unnecessary redundant infrastructure to allow competition. Education benefits everyone in society who prefers not to be surrounded by idiots, regardless of whether you have children yourself. The social safety net cannot be privatized without leaving out the poorest people who need it the most, and for many reasons charity will never be able to make up the difference.

The world's happiest countries all have strong socialist institutions that serve the public interest while allowing for free-market capitalism in industry and commerce. We can have good faith arguments on the margins about whether certain specific parts of the economy could be privatized or socialized, but anyone advocating for 100% one of the other has fallen for the fallacy of the Trump good and chooses ideology over reason.