America is not strictly capitalist. Social programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare, government-sponsored projects like federal highways and pollution control and food control are in place in America, and those make this country a Democratic Socialist state with a capitalist economy.
Capitalism comes about as the natural occurrence of people having the freedom to purchase capital in an environment where their investments are protected by law against force and fraud. To eliminate capitalism you would instead need to actively prevent people from having this freedom.
The U.S. does not have capitalism, it has corporatism. A purely capitalistic system would not have such a strong merger between government and economy.
A government (the US or any other) cannot "run" on capitalism as capitalism is a socio-economic system of voluntary exchange with respect for property rights, and government violates property rights, in the form of taxation, in order to exist.
Not all aspects of government should be capitalistic. Our nation's healthcare would benefit from socialism. Insurance & Pharmaceutical companies shouldnt be capitalistic marketplaces but instead be government funded with reduced cost.
Our prison system is another example of capitalistic abuse.
For the past 45 years the bottom 90%'s wages have only grown 15% while productivity has increased by 74.4%. Contrastingly, the top 1%'s wages have grown 138%. Nearly all of the new income in the USA for the past 45 years because of capitalism has gone to the top 1%
Capitalism is the product of attempting to satisfy our unlimited wants, and although this does lead to geowth and prosperity, our resources are limited. Meaning that eventually they will be exhausted, or acquired at the expense of others, making it unsustainable.
only because of our race to innovate have other countries raced out of poverty once afforded even the smallest amount of freedom. China would not have exploded out of poverty the way it has if not for the ability to take american mfg jobs
Socialism is the idea of equal pay for inequal work. If I were payed as much for sitting on my ass and doing only as much as I needed to keep my job as I were payed for working my ass off, I would do the first.