“America’s brain-rotting socialism debate: All modern economies are mixed”, UnHerd, 1 Sep 2026.
“The rising influence of democratic socialists like AOC and Zohran Mamdani, and the fervent defense of free markets by Republicans in response, have reopened an old question: what is the best way to organize a modern economy, capitalism or socialism? But that is the wrong question. The right question is: what hybrid of capitalism and socialism — and nonprofit philanthropy and family self-help — can best serve a modern economy?
Only socialist radicals and their sibling rivals, libertarians, mistakenly believe that we have to choose between pure socialism and pure capitalism. In technological societies, what has been called the “mixed economy” is clearly superior, combining technological dynamism and private initiative with social solidarity, industrial policy, and infrastructure and human development delivered by the state. In the 21st century, socialism — the dream of a new generation of Leftists in the DSA — is as impractical as the free-market fundamentalism of the Libertarian Party and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages.
No purely capitalist economy has ever existed or ever will. Even in the supposed era of laissez-faire in the United States between the Civil War and the New Deal, there was a mixed economy at all levels of government. The feds intervened in trade to protect US industries with tariffs, lavished subsidies on railroads and colleges, and restricted immigration for good reasons (high wages) and bad ones (racism)…………”
Read the full article at UnHerd.
