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Capitalism is also a scam — or dead, more correctly. Adam Smith’s world is long gone. Socialism too, in its glossy textbook version, was just another pitch that never delivered.

Capitalism’s trick: it promised free markets, opportunity, and competition, but the road always bends toward monopoly, enclosure, rent-seeking, and oligarchy. The “invisible hand” was really just a cartel’s hand in your pocket.

Socialism’s trick: it promised collective ownership and liberation, but what it usually delivered was bureaucracy, party elites, and suppression. Instead of “the people,” it gave us a new class of managers playing aristocrat.

Feudalism 2.0: both systems slide back into hierarchy. Capitalism piles ownership into corporate castles; socialism piles power into state palaces. Either way, most folks end up as tenants on somebody else’s land.

Cyberpunk reality: what we’ve got now isn’t Smith or Marx but a mash-up: data-lords, finance-kings, algorithmic serfs. Corporations and states blur together, but the pyramid remains the same.

Smith’s dream is dust, Marx’s promise never showed up, and what’s left is something medieval in neon.

The Key question - how to build a society that protects material security for the broad middle, while preventing extremes of power (whether corporate or state) from reproducing feudal patterns.

Some solutions thinkers across history have pointed toward:

1. Widespread Property/Owning Class

   • Jefferson’s idea of “small landholders” updated: broad ownership of housing, pensions, and productive assets (not just consumer goods).

   • Employee ownership co-ops, sovereign wealth funds (like Norway), or universal stock dividends could spread capital returns.

2. Strong Guardrails on Power

   • Anti-monopoly enforcement so no single firm/platform dominates.

   • Political term limits, campaign finance rules, and transparency to block state capture by oligarchs.

3. A Universal Material Floor

   • Healthcare, education, and basic housing security guaranteed. That shrinks the leverage elites have over ordinary people.

   • Universal basic income or negative income tax could simplify support without bureaucratic traps.

4. Middle-Class–Centric Taxation

   • Progressive taxes that prevent dynastic wealth and break up concentrations of capital without punishing moderate success.

   • Land value tax (Henry George’s idea) to stop feudal rentierism.

5. Localism + Digital Checks

   • Local community decision-making where possible, instead of everything flowing through megacorps or distant bureaucracies.

   • Open-source digital infrastructure and data rights to prevent “cyber-lordship.”

6. Cultural Ethos

   • A culture that valorizes enough rather than endless accumulation. Historically, middle classes thrive in societies that honor balance, not extremes.

In essence: a broad property-owning democracy with a universal safety net, strong anti-feudal guardrails, and cultural norms against concentrated power.