Would you say I'm a hypocrite? I am a Socialist at heart, making money as a Capitalist?

I am in sales; it don't get any more capitalist than that...

Yet I think the whole system is screwed - the closer you are to the money, the more of it you get. Has nothing to do with performance or merit...

It's called survival. It's hard to live the socialist ideal in this society.

Granted, it only counts for 20%

in my interpretation of a socialist system, you'd still be paid for your labor.

edit - i, too, am a socialist trapped in a capitalist hell, comrade.

Am both.

I have started companies with millions of invested capital, and invested capital myself in starting companies, every penny I have basically, one of which merged with another company and went public.

Capitalist pig I am... Turning rich people's money into jobs... At quite high risk to the rich folk.

The capitalist system is not bad, but it does need to be regulated at every turn and guided toward needed goals.

For example, a capital gains tax hike for gains over a reasonable amount in a given year, say over $250k or so, with a 100% tax exemption if all sale proceeds are rolled over into an alternative energy startup or project would hand us our next bubble, an alternative energy bubble like the internet bubble.

A tax law exactly like that helped fuel capital flowing into internet companies, and while that bubble popped, look what it left us with! A fantastic new fully fielded global infrastructure.

Or could it turn into a pluton instead? :D

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork4.html

Socialist, capitalist, none of that makes a difference. You're a cog in the machine, just like everyone else. Some people are hammers, others are nails. Some are the hands that swing the hammers that hit the nails. Some are the surface that the nail is hit into by the hammer swung by the hand.

and your company is trading services or goods for money

big C "Capitalism" is what is done on Wall Street with rampant speculation and manipulation of markets

Now if you said you were an investment banker for JP Morgan/Chase and dealing in derivatives on foreclosed morgages, then I would call you a hypocrite :P