Socialists and Capitalists... is there really a difference between them?

Poster #1 made an interesting point. That would be that most economies today are a mixture of socialism and capitalism. I'm beginning to think this is essential for the maximum effective government. Socialism has its shortcomings. Capitalism has its shortcoming. When the these two compete directly in the same system each has to try harder to overcom its limitations just in order to stay in the competition. A purely socialist system stagnates always as the workers expect more and more while doing less and less. A purely capitalist system always eventually tries to exploit the workers. Balance the two in the same hybrid system and each must avoid its less desirable tendencies to remain in existence. So, is there really difference between socialism and capitalism? Yes, but they are becoming the left and right hands of the same body, government.

A Capitalist also believes in personal responsibility and freedom to do business and make money, while a Socialist believes that people need to be taken care of and are incapable of independent thought, and therefore need to be controlled...they also believe that everyone is the same and therefore everyone should have the same income and opportunities regardless of qualifications. Socialists also believe in taxing everything in order to provide for the "have-nots. Welcome to the USSA.

There is one other difference. Socialist are gutless thieves. They don't have the guts to come to your house and steal everything you have so they make the government do it for them. Is that not what re-distribution of wealth is? Taking money from someone who actually earned it and giving it to someone who didn't.

I'm a capitalist and so are all my friends. We make a good living on the stock market. We never give money to the needy. Why should we? They are the failures of the capitalist system. Capitalism should only reward the strongest and the fittest.

Since I am not that familiar with those terms I made a research over the net.Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and movements which aim to improve society through collective and egalitarian action; and to a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as workers' councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system, socialism is often characterized by state or worker ownership of the means of production. Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately owned and operated for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a market economy. It is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" or corporations to trade capital goods, labor, land and money (see finance and credit). Because most economies today are mixed economies, "capitalism" does not precisely describe most contemporary economies,due to these economies containing both private-owned and state-owned enterprises, or that combines elements of capitalism and socialism, or a mix of market economy and planned economy characteristics.