Free Market .com

Does free market capitalism thrive best in a democratic society? Or feudalist one?

I disagree FMBM. Capitalism thrives, and can only thrive, with a strong middle class, where the people are empowered. Capitalism and feudalism both thrive in a society where you have the super rich and the super poor, the owners and the workers. They both create high inequality and a small middle class.

Public Comments

1. Democratic, simply due to that the ideals of Capitalism and the ideals of Democracy are interrelated Enlightenment philosophies. One of the reasons socialist ideology and Communism is more pervasive in Europe is due to its feudalistic past. Edit: I actually agree with you fully and I also disagree with what Capitalism has turned into into modern rhetoric and also recognize that Capitalism is a system based on an agrian society wherein we've had both an industrial and technological revolution. I actually find it amazing that we haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory theory of economics beyond capitalism and Marxism is modern times. Our economies are in such rapid change that traditional definitions and textbooks aren't always applicable. Great question.
2. I don't know? would you be more able to open your own business here in the US or in Cuba? hope this answers your question.
3. Well apparently capitalism is striving in China, a socialist country. Its possible to have a capitalist market in a socialist as well as a federalist society. Trade necessitates capitalist ideology in any society to survive.
4. Actually a more fascist govenment get one the people believe in at its nationalism all over
5. I dont know Let see it has worked to make the US The Strongst, Richest, most powerfull nation in the history of the world. So you tell Me it Dose not take a rocket scientst to figurer it out but you do have to have a little bit of brains. So let see what you have Shall we?
6. In a short 200 year time frame one country grew and developed into the single greatest country in the world by embracing the freedoms given and the chance to acheive granted by Democracy. The free market works when govt. stays out of the way and lets it boom. Why after we have acheived this level would we turn back to a system like socialism that has failed everywhere it has been attempted. Why do you think China has a booming economy since it has allowed a free market to partially replace its communistic govt.? Why has Irelands economy thrived since lowering its capitol games tax to below 15%? Now to the fuedilism point... no incentive to work hard in it as your Lord will always reap the benefits and you will always get the minimum. It leads to starvation.
7. Free market capitalism is its own worst enemy. FDR saved capitalism from its own self-destruction through socialism and strict regulation. As soon as a male bimbo named Ronald Alzheimer deregulated it, it began to implode again: Silverado, Enron, the predatory lending scam, and all the other aspects of organized crime that have led Mafiosi and corrupt Teamster leaders to support Republican candidates.
8. Since neither free markets or democracy have ever existed and capitalism has never been tried in a feudalism system your question is impossible to answer from a historical perspective. What we have today is government by a party for the party not government by the people for the people. Markets have always been tax and controlled by special interest groups/rulers. In theory FMC would thrive best in a democracy.
9. There is no such animal as free capitalism. If you start with a clean plate, soon some will have production and distribution monopoles Bang - over! As example, why have the big three automakers called the shoots her, since 100 years, despite their inability to compete on international markets with inferior products? Or why is Microsoft able to sell its inferior system world wide? The Diamond market is completely artificial! Free market would mean evolution, but there is none.
10. Feudalist societies are 3rd world countries. If you define capitalism's success as making the rich richer and the poor poorer, it would be democracy. This is because democracy will promote a stronger middle class, which in turn means higher consumption, inriching the rich even further. If you define it as the greatest number of people doing well, it's democracy again. I'm guessing that you're a socialist who has a very narrow view of capitalism. Corporatism isn't capitalism. Feudalism isn't capitalism. But corporatists, fascists, socialists and feudalists would say otherwise for their own political purposes. david v's description of feudalism is correct, but he doesn't realize that the same holds true for unregulated capitalism, the lord will get rich from your labor and if you don't like it, some other desperate soul will do your job even cheaper. In a democracy, the govt. regulates such inequities to assure a strong middle class, which is needed to spur demand. In the U.S., the govt. stopped regulating these inequities during the Reagan years, and we've been backsliding relative to European countries and Australia ever since.