I would totally agree with you about Islam. However, I am not reflecting the opinions of other people in the west. I am stating what I believe to be factual information based on decades of my own thought after reading many books and analyzing outcomes.

No, it’s not borderline communism – it’s how human beings evolved. We are a social species, and we depend on each other for survival. Communism has never been tried, so you can’t say that it has never worked. What has been tried is totalitarianism, fascist socialism, and fascist socialism.

Business co-ops in which all the workers in the company own the company or share in the profits are communist. There are some very, very successful co-ops out there. In communism, there is no government. All businesses are owned by the workers – they are not directed by those ‘on top.’ This has never yet existed.

What has existed is totalitarianism – that’s when the government takes complete control of people’s lives. The reason that China and the USSR used the word ‘communism’ was because that was the end goal. It never happened.

For the human species to survive, society has to come before the individual. America is now fucked, precisely because it is the only country in the world that puts the individual good before the greater good of the community.

I find your phrase “which goes against the selfish nature of people” interesting. The only people who think that all people are selfish, are selfish people. There are givers and takers in this world, and selfish people are takers, and they think everybody else is a taker. Sorry, that’s not true. I am a giver, and most people I associate with are givers. That doesn’t make us dumb.

You said, “But some of the greatest advances have been gained by individual creativity and enterprise. Your system can suppress that individual creative streak, which creates passion and advances progress.”

That’s rubbish. Our modern world is built on the Enlightenment – when the scientific methodology came into being. At the same time, Freedom of Speech arrived. This meant that people couldn’t be jailed and executed for speaking against the church or the king. As a consequence, science and scientists began to flourish. That is where our progress comes from – not from capitalists. If anything, capitalists have suppressed any invention which would destroy their profits. You can google that.

To boot, people like me, who are highly creative, have had our creativity suppressed or stolen by people making money out of us. There are many people who are forced to work for companies, and they have to sign over their inventions to corporations. They don’t share the profits.

You said “. If some government analysis think tank determines who or how much wealth one can attain, well that is the slippery slope to ruins.” I can see that you believe that the only motivation for achieving something is personal gain. Again, yes, for takers. For givers, we work together with others, and we will do without. It’s obvious that you have never met people like that. Most takers don’t. Like draws like.

There were dozens of factors in the downfall of Venezuela, the major one being the fall of the oil price. Alaska shares its profits of oil with all its inhabitants, and Alaska has not failed.

You said, “But to achieve this equilibrium has been tried and failed in the past.” No, it actually hasn’t failed. In the 50s and 60s, the UK was doing pretty well. People were becoming upwardly mobile as a result of a huge input in terms of welfare. The rich and powerful objected, and Thatcher introduced neoliberalism, sold off welfare assets, and today the country is in ruins – much the same as America.

Capitalism does NOT stimulate creativity. It stimulates theft, slavery, greed, and inequality. Regulated capitalism (which is what democratic socialism is) works, yes. In that case, business pays high taxes, and people start from a level playing field.

I have no idea why you think that a lack of profit subdues creativity. I write every single day, and when I’m not writing, I’m doing photography, or a thousand other things. I get paid next to nothing for those things, and I struggle for survival. My creativity is stunted by my lack of resources. And my lack of resources goes directly back to being underpaid for a lifetime as the company paid workers as little as possible so that large profits could go to the owners.

Now, if the business was run on a break-even basis, then workers would have been paid a lot more. I also think passion is bullarkey. I have worked hard for a lifetime. I do not have an ounce of passion. And my work has always been of a very high standard.