Can you have capitalism without Socialism? Absolutely. America did it for nearly 150 years.
Can you have Socialism without capitalism? Not really. Somebody has to create the wealth that Socialism divides.
Capitalism multiplies, Socialism divides.
In a pure free-market capitalist system, you can choose. You can choose to produce, and get a reward. Or you can choose not to, and starve. In that way, capitalism motivates. If you don’t want to starve, you create something that your neighbors want bad enough to pull out their wallets and buy it from you—or you work for someone that does create such things. CAPITALISM, BY IT’S VERY NATURE, KEEPS PEOPLE DOING NICE THINGS FOR EACH OTHER. Not altruistically, as Ayn Rand would happily point out, but greedily. With full self interest. But doing nice things for each other, nonetheless. That is Thomas Paine‘s ‘invisible hand’. The silent force that guides a capitalist economy to prosperity. Unbridled greed, inspired by hunger, forces people to look beyond themselves and create beyond themselves, making and doing good things for others so that they get the prize. Profit. And profit is what you eat.
Socialism contains none of that. It’s top down power, forcing people to do things they probably don’t want to do to receive a meager share of the spoils. In that way Socialism demotivates. It inspires nothing. There is no invisible hand guiding things, the hand is very visible and very oppressive. It has to be because without motivation, people need to be forced.
So… Can you have capitalism without Socialism? Yes you absolutely can. Can you have Socialism without capitalism? Only with an oppressive tyranny driving a population to produce, and then it’s only half as effective. People driven to produce are not motivated and therefore not as productive.
Capitalism multiplies Socialism divides. And you can’t divide nothing. Socialists despise capitalism, but they depend on it to create wealth. They then swoop in, seize that wealth and divide it out to those who will, with an open hand out, keep the socialists in power.
For people who pride themselves on their sense of fairness, what’s fair about that?
