What's the best economic system to create max prosperity (w minimal societal damage)?
That seems a simple question but it is actually quite complicated. But I'll give it my best shot. I'm not an economist or an expert on various things related to this so take my ideas with a grain of salt and I can only talk about this in broad strokes. And because I don't want to be here all day I'm going to simplify a few things.
To understand what would make a good system we first must understand what makes Capitalism unprosperous.
The basis of Capitalism is theft, essentially. Even supposedly mutually beneficial trades are often biased heavily in favour of the wealthier party. The theft takes many forms, the extraction of surplus value from workers (essentially workers will always be paid less than the wealth that they create for their boss because otherwise their boss would not make any money), war, Imperialism...All this creates a funnel that accumulates wealth in an ever exclusive class of people (Capitalists). The proof is in the pudding, ever since Capitalism "won" in the 90s wealth inequality has skyrocketed and is continuing to do so. I would not define a society where the 1% of the 1% live in luxury while the rest struggle to survive as truly prosperous. Prosperity must be enjoyed by all.
There are many other ways that Capitalism destroys global prosperity (probably the most pressing exasperating and being completely unequipped to deal with crises such as climate change and pandemic) but I don't want to be here all day so I won't go into them.
The only people who are truly willing to engage with positive alternatives to Capitalism are on the Left. Centrists and Liberals think that Capitalism can be restrained with simple reforms. It can't. Capitalists will spend an amount equal to or less than the amount of money they lose to any proposed reform to repeal said reform. If a government tax a Capitalist $1,000,000 and then the Capitalist spends $900,000 on "lobbying" (read: bribes) to overturn that tax, then they've effectively made $100,000. So now the government has less money to pay for essential services, which disproportionately impacts the working class. The Far-Right's solution to the ills of Capitalism usually boils down to "lets discriminate heavily against/kill [insert group of people they don't like] and that will fix everything". There are many compelling reasons to not listen to them that I shouldn't have to spell out in detail.
The Left is a broad church that has many differing thoughts and opinions and honestly I'm not entirely sure yet where I slot into it. What I do believe is that we need to redistribute the wealth of the world along more equal lines so that everyone can enjoy the prosperity of humanity. And there needs to be (preferably global) state that is given broad discretion to prevent the reestablishment of Capitalism by molding society in a way that makes it impossible.
As for societal damage...I'm going to assume you mean cost in human lives as that's really the only societal damage I care about. Capitalism already millions yearly through lack of food, water and medicine. We have the capacity to provide everyone with adequate food, water and medicine - it just isn't profitable, so it doesn't happen. I believe that the dissolution of Capitalism and its replacement with a system that actually provides for the needs of its citizenry is the only way to prevent these needless deaths. Whatever struggle that happens with the dismantling of Capitalism I am certain that the result will be less death than what already happens.
Anyway we are getting seriously off-topic here so if you want me to answer any more questions about this topic, start a new thread and ask them there.
