I subscribe to a radical economic theory called “Lets do things that work and not do things that not work,” the central tenant of which is that economic theories ought to be tools, not religions, and as such are to be used where they work well and not shoehorned into situations where they barely work or don’t work at all. (Hence the name.)
The free market is ruthlessly efficient. Emphasis on both “ruthless” and “efficient”. As such, as a general rule, areas of the economy where the latter maters more than the former (e.g., luxury goods) should be capitalist while areas of the economy where the former matters more than the latter (e.g., healthcare) should be socialist. But of course, this too is just another theory--what you actually do depends entirely on what is best in that situation--if you don’t need to socialize the food industry, you don’t.
(Though whenever the answer to the question of “What happens when I can’t get [X]?” is “I die or become part of a permanent undercaste” the government has a moral responsibility to see to it that the people have access to it, so you know, factor it into the mincome at the very least.)
But hey, I’m just basing this theory on the fact that that’s exactly what all the healthiest, happiest, best educated countries on Earth do. Maybe it’s a coincidence?
