Socialism or communism have no place in a capitalist society no matter how you word it. Both are designed to take down capitalism. Saying there is a need for MORE social safety nets especially finding that it only causes more corruption by lining the pockets of certain politicians but also since fraud is unbelievably out of control in all of the current social programs (SNAP come to mind). There's too much to unwrap in OP's post. But a couple of things here.
You have to ask yourself where this began. You mentioned pre-2000 Capititalism would have been ideal. Not sure why you picked pre-2000 instead of pre-2008 but we'll go with it. IMO, it began with the social mindset that people were entitled, yes, it began with that mindset, psyop if you will, not a change in the economic system..yet. Social safety nets used to be just that, a safety net to help until that person got back on their economic feet, not to use as a permanent solution to depend on for the rest of ones life. As far as healthcare, the second you remove competition not just from healthcare but from any business big or small, you find the quality of everything goes down substantially. When the government takes over and becomes a one payer system (socialism) every other sector follows and soon the government can SIEZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION (Communism).
I asked if you were a current student for a reason. This is what being taught in today's education systems.
Coach Joe, please don't take this as insult. I would expect no different answer from you. You're conservative or least a modern Republican and a businessman.
Let me start by asking, why is fraud so rampant within some of these social safety nets? It's because people are poor and broke!:,Why are they poor and broke? Some blame the people and say, lazy, low intelligence etc...while that may be true in some cases, I'll go further and say it's this fucked up capitalist system we live in that claims to be fair for EVERYONE but it's not and there's many variables for people but ultimately, when people work full time, they should be paid a LIVABLE wage. There was a point in time this was the norm. This is not the norm anymore. Many middle class citizens have multiple jobs just to get by. Why? The dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. INFLATION. And business owners raise prices to keep in line with inflation but they don't raise salaries to keep in line with inflation. With live in a Corporatocracy. Corporations and the Government are married. That started when Corporations became people (Thanks Mitt Romney). All this goes back to our Capitalism and all the corruption that it comes with. At least with more socialism, people are taken care of vs capitalism they're not. You're not eliminating corruption under any system as it's a characteristic of man, but you can take care of more people with different systems.
I chose pre 2000s because the budget was balanced under Bill Clinton and it was prior to 9/11 when this country changed for the worse. I already see where you tried to go with 2008 = Obama, which we know you just oh so love.
Yes, around that time social engineering and programming did indeed create the victim hood movement. That's not to say in addition to that and more importantly that people have been dumbed down. Look around. Look at our standing in the world on test scores. Look at what people watch and listen to. They barely read. That's not conducive to a high functioning capitalist society. Which is why we don't have one. We have a corporatocracy with oligarchs. Then there's the corrupt government. BOTH SIDES. And both are beholden Israel. And like I said before, the dumbing down is on purpose. With that, we can reverse it, which is not happening, or we can adjust how we do business to care of people. Money in places money shouldn't be will result in corruption. This is us and has been us.
I understand where you're going with the slippery slope. Though I'll still say pure capitalism is bad There's no denying this. It's not the answer and especially now. We've proven as the holder of the world's reserve currency we're not fiscally responsible. We can replay the last 100 years 100 times and most would happen the same way.
My opinions aren't something I was taught. These are conclusions I came to after deep thought and reflection.
Until the dollar is worth something or we go to another system, it will continue getting worse. More capitalism = more corruption and ultimately poverty which equals more crime.