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Originally posted by George Smiley The last few weeks, or indeed, since the credit crunch began, has shown that extreme right-wing economic policies are just as unstable and volatile as extreme left-wing policies. Since the end of the Cold War, and the economic collapse of the USSR signalling the failure of communism, extreme left-wing economic policies have all but disappeared from mainstream politics. The end of the Cold War was also championed as a victory for the primacy of pure free-market economics by its proponents. Now, this extreme economic ideology has also spectacularly collapsed and been proven to be as much of a failure as communism was at the end of the 80s. My question: Will we now view this extreme right-wing economic ideology the same way we viewed communism following the collapse of the USSR, allowing it to disappear from mainstream politics in favour of a more social friendly, centrist ideology, or will the rich elite who profiteer so much from this way of running the economy attempt to force us to carry on regardless of the social consequences?

short answer: no

longer answer: While now is proving to be a difficult time for the financial sector, it in no way undermines capitalism. Many other sectors of the economy are still thriving under the fundamentals of capitalism. To me capitalism is like darwinian evolution: survival of the strongest, failing is an inevitable part of capitalism because of the competitive nature of the theory.

In addition, over the past few decades many nations have been able to compete with the western big boys by adopting market economy principals (e.g., china, india, brazil, etc...). Capitalism is the way.

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Originally posted by George Smiley Ps I never even mentioned the word "capitalist" in any of my previous posts...

Oh, it appears I used that phrase in the title of the thread!

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Originally posted by Capitalizt You consider all of the taxation, regulation, mandates, subsidies, and bailouts that we have in America today "extreme capitalism"? What planet do you live on? You could certainly call it "right wing" or republican...since those sides tend to lean to a corporatist/fascist form of doing things.. But they are certainly not representative of true capitalism. Capitalism is LIBERTARIAN in nature. It is UP on the political spectrum...not right.

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Originally posted by Capitalizt You consider all of the taxation, regulation, mandates, subsidies, and bailouts that we have in America today "extreme capitalism"? What planet do you live on? You could certainly call it "right wing" or republican...since those sides tend to lean to a corporatist/fascist form of doing things.. But they are certainly not representative of true capitalism. Capitalism is LIBERTARIAN in nature. It is UP on the political spectrum...not right.

I always like these maps but they only start to describe how a persons political leanings are situated. It's mostly a simplification.