Socialism is a failed economic system in which the government owns the means of production.
This appears to be the extent of your knowledge of Socialism, and that's sad.
I suppose you could argue that it is anti freedom, as it does limit the freedom to own a part of that means of production.
Your understanding of Socialism is as shallow as your definition of it. At its core, Socialism is a Collectivist ideology... What do you know of Collectivism?
Even in a socialist economy, the individual still makes and lives with most decisions
WRONG! The individual is a slave to the collective. The "greater good" and the nameless, faceless, unaccountable, indestructable entity known as "society" plays the role of God and its the responsibility of the individual to worship, praise, and serve with altruistic fervor any whim of the collective.
Pragmatism is favoring what works over what does not work.
From where do you derive your knowledge of Pragmatism? Mine is from careful study of the Pragmatist movement through the ages, reading works from Pierce, James, Dewey, and the rest.
Pragmatism is Anti-Realist (there are no constants and there is no truth), its based on an extremist view of Fallibilism (since there is no truth, all facts are treated as opinion and given equal validity to one another), Pragmatism draws ZERO distinction between theory and practice (it says they are the same thing), therefore....
Pragmatism cannot favor that which works over that which doesn't work because by the ideological principles of Pragmatism, its all subjective and the anti-realist basis of Pragmatism state that there is no difference between something that "works"
on paper and something that "works" in the real world.
Socialism does not work, therefore, it is not pragmatic.
Socialism is evil. It subjugates the Individual, through force of government, to the whim of the collective. This destroys individual rights in favor of collective rights.
Unregulated capitalism doesn't work
Once again, your understanding of Lassiez Faire Capitalism is shallow and flawed. Rather than spew falsehoods and half truths about something you don't understand, you should take the time to learn about what it is your saying doesn't work. It's clear you've acquired your "knowledge" of Lassiez Faire Capitalism by everyone but actual Lassiez Faire Capitalists.
the pragmatist will favor a capitalist economy, but with government regulation.
That is a Fascist Economy. At least man up and proudly state that you prefer the Fascist economic model rather than pretend its simply a "Mixed" economic model.
Ideology might favor a limited government, but some regulation is necessary to prevent disasters like Enron and the failure of the banks.
We've been through this before and you appear just as ignorant today as ever... REGULATION does NOT protect individual rights, Laws accomplish that. Regulation tells a company such things as how many miles the cars they produce must achieve, or bars Insurance Companies from offering such things as Catastrophic insurance - which is far more affordable than the cover-it-all insurance they are forced to sell through draconian regulations.
Ideology that favors just letting free market capitalism work unfettered sounds good, but doesn't work in the real world.
WTF!!! Are you serious? UNFETTERED?
Being limited by law to respect individual rights, and being punished for violations, is not UNFETTERED!!
You're parroting the talking points of the Anti-Capitalists... You're ashamed to say what it is you're arguing for (in your case Fascist Economics) but you're eager to mischaracterize Capitalism as an "unworkable" model that doesn't respect individual rights in order to avoid accurately naming what it is you're advocating.
Ideology in favor of a limited government, and therefore in favor of the government keeping hands off of the health insurance industry, will lead to an unworkable system.
Right... Just like it has with our food supply. Get a grip. Governments job is to protect us from force and fraud, laws that are written that provide that protection is not only acceptable under Lassiez Faire Capitalism, its precisely what Lassiez Faire Capitalists seek to limit the government to doing.
The system we have now is largely unworkable, due to cost.
Due to Government Interference with unnecessary regulations.
Justify why government should prevent, through existing regulations, insurance companies from offering such cost saving measures as catastrophic care insurance... Cat Policies used to exist, they were affordable and widely avaliable, but they were regulated out of existence by government interference.
Justify the existence of regulations that prevent Insurance companies from competing with each other across state lines (as the "Public Option" would unfairly be allowed to do).
Those are just two of many examples of government regulations that unnecessarily increase costs for both providers and consumers.
The pragmatic thing to do is to limit costs, even if it means compromising the ideology of limited government.
Your solution is an expansion of the Collectivist ideological system of forcably shackling individuals to the collective. It DOES NOT limit costs, it simply pushes costs into the federal debt and onto future generations, mortgaging the futures of individuals not yet born. Its the typical "quick fix" solution of our patchwork system that creates more problems than it solves... it lowers costs to the consumer, but does nothing to lower costs on the providers end and therefore is not practical... Its suicide.
