vautrain

I think most people here would agree that our system is best. Economic opportunity, education, freedom of speech. I understand that I'm lumping together our economic system and political system.

I think communism made the USSR powerful at the expense of its people. This is not sustainable in the long-term, as they discovered.

Our system is not without its problems, though. It depends upon some people being relatively poor and relatively powerless. Communism also depended upon that. I think recent economic trends indicate our poor and middle class are becoming poorer, and our rich, richer. The middle seems to be getting squeezed.

I am not an economist, so I don't know if this is simply cyclical, or if this is a long-term trend that will continue and get worse with time. If it is a long-term trend, it is certainly a flaw in our system, or, at least, it is a flaw in the way we practice our system. If it continues indefinitely, in time, we will discover our system won't really be sustainable, either.