Both Parties Are Wrong About Capitalism, and Your Wallet Is Paying the Price

The Socialism Debate Is a Distraction

Every election cycle the media cranks up the same tired alarm: is America going socialist? Democratic socialist candidates are winning primaries. Comparisons to the 2010 Tea Party are flying around. Everyone is picking a lane.

I am here to tell you it is the wrong debate. The real rot in the American economic system is not socialism creeping in from the left. It is crony capitalism that has been hollowing out the middle class for decades, and neither party has the guts to name it correctly.

When the Left and Right Sound Identical, Pay Attention

Here is the part that genuinely concerns me. The new populist right and the new populist left cannot agree on immigration, culture, or foreign policy. But strip all that away and they land in exactly the same place economically: the old system is broken and needs to be torn down.

When two opposing political forces converge on a single conclusion, that is not a coincidence. That is a signal. And right now the signal is that tens of millions of Americans believe the economic game is rigged against them.

Here is the painful truth: on that specific point, they are not entirely wrong.

JD Vance, Milton Friedman, and a Very Dangerous Idea

Let me point to Vice President JD Vance, because his economic worldview is a perfect case study in how good intentions become bad policy. His background is well known. His venture capital career did not pan out. That is fine. Failure is American.

But Vance has taken that personal experience and weaponized it into a full-scale skepticism of free market economics. He has gone after Milton Friedman. He has distanced himself from the Reagan framework. Bill McGern wrote a piece drawing a remarkable parallel between Vance and JD Rockefeller, two men from wildly different worlds who both concluded that capitalism does not serve regular people.

That thinking, coming from the Vice President of the United States, should alarm every investor and every small business owner in this country.

The Amazon Myth and What Competition Actually Does

One of the favorite arguments of the anti-market crowd is that Amazon killed local bookstores. I have heard this talking point so many times I want to scream.

Here is what I actually observe:

• Independent bookstores are thriving in cities across the country because they serve specific community needs
• Businesses that failed did not get murdered by Amazon, they refused to adapt
• A bookstore I visited recently in Italy, operating inside a converted movie theater with films still playing on the balcony, is packed every single day
• Tampa has small bookstores that are doing exactly what local retail is supposed to do

Competition does not destroy markets. It disciplines them. It forces businesses to get better or get out of the way. The customer wins every single time competition is allowed to function.

What kills markets is when politically connected players get to write the rules so competition cannot reach them. That is crony capitalism. That is the actual enemy.

What This Means for You

If you are an investor, a saver, or someone trying to build wealth, here is what the current political environment signals:

• Policy risk is no longer a fringe concern, it is a front-and-center threat to capital markets
• Leaders on both sides are now openly hostile to the free market framework that produced American prosperity
• Regulatory overreach and market intervention are more likely, not less, regardless of which party holds power
• Conflating the failures of crony capitalism with the principles of free markets leads to policies that strangle the very competition that protects consumers

The system needs fixing. I agree with that. But the fix is more competition, more transparency, and fewer sweetheart deals for the politically connected. Not more government control over markets that, when left to function honestly, still deliver the best outcomes for ordinary people.