Back on topic, given your posts in this topic I consider you to be a ‘hard-core lefty’.
I’m fine with destroying the state if it gets us closer to equitable distribution of resources.
I have no problem with the violent overthrowal of the state
the one lesson I’ve learned is that if you try to do it too gradually, too “reasonably”, it never gets done, so I’m more focused on what giant steps can we take now to improve wealth distribution for the people living today. Fuck the long-range future. That’s bullshit.
The odd part is that the thing that you are seeing as my most radical lefty quality, my desire to get things fixed NOW!!!, is actually in conflict with the real hard-core lefties I know, who seem content to wait a few more generations (like 10 or 20 generations) and a few fascist dictatorships, so we might get a real revolution of the oppressed and the outraged, whereas I want to most radical change that is feasible now, which they consider weak and lame and a big nothingburger.
But I see their point. Don’t you? In the big picture, does it matter if we get slightly less sucky health-care, or a 1% shift in the tax burden from the under-$50,000s to the over-$1,000,000,000s? That’s what seems feasible right now, and that’s what I’m pushing for, but what difference does it make? I want a total restructuring of society, doesn’t scare me an iota, but so what? I’m still a wishy-washy ameliorist liberal, aren’t I?
Capitalism generally refers to the use of means of production to produce and sell, usually for a profit which goes to the owners of those means, and they may consist of private individuals who aren’t workers (the bourgeois), workers (e.g., cooperatives), or the state (i.e., public corporations).
In which case, the U.S. is probably mostly capitalist, i.e., except for small businesses that don’t involve industrialization, and the same goes for many other countries. It’s also a mixed economy like many others, combining private and public corporations. The existence of government and regulations are necessary for industrialization and is in fact part of bourgeois capitalism itself, e.g., corporate by-laws, limited liability for corporations, legalized private property, and the use of fiat currencies.
Neoliberalism also supports a liberal democracy, which in turn creates the contradiction. That is, there’s free market competition but also an elected government that might regulate if that competition turns into oligopolies or monopolies.
Another problem is the manner by which neoliberalism as an ideology can become part of foreign policy and used to gain advantages over the weak. For example, from what I remember, one neoliberal policy involved structural adjustment, where the IMF-WB, led by the U.S., would lend money or extend financial aid to poorer countries but also come up with requirements: they need to increase taxes so that they would have a bigger national budget, then do that plus decrease spending (e.g., for public health care and health) in order to set aside more money to pay back their debts, focus only on agricultural subsistence and light industry in order to generate income fast and pay back loans right away, deregulate as much as possible by privatization (to make up for lack of public spending), import liberalization (inevitable if the country can’t industrialize by focusing only on agri subsistence and light industry), and emphasize liberal democracy (where elected officials work for are are part of the rich which earn from privatization and which can work readily with the U.S. and foreigners who can take advantage of import liberalization).
The result, then, is that neoliberalism is used to develop neocolonialism.