MLM Directory

What's the difference between capitalism and socialism?

At what SPECIFIC point does an economy cease to be socialist and become capitalist, or vice-versa? Examples: Japan is almost always seen as a capitalist economy; however, the Ministry of Finance is heavily and directly involved in the capital markets. This is apparent to anyone watching a large-cap stock on the Nikkei, which will often hover at arbitrary prices for arbitrary times. You might even say that Japan is a centrally-planned market economy, even though it's sort of a contradiction in terms. How would you classify the Japanese economy in terms of socialism/capitalism? Scandanavian countries like Sweden and Finland are generally perceived as socialist, yet despite lots of government participation in the economy, they have free product and capital markets, and rank very highly on indices of economic freedom, available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom_historical_rankings How about it?

Public Comments

1. Captalism is loved in America and Socialism is consider evil
2. When people are in trouble: nothing
3. capitalism - free market, privatized industry socialism - big government, inflation
4. In full socialist societies, the government controls the majority of business and finance. It ceases to be a capitalist country when first, one principle is the majority and the other the minority...and second, when the private sector can no longer compete due to government control in pricing, distribution,etc. We are headed there...and it isn't good. It's hard to come back from given that most federal programs are for life.