In the UK we have the church embeded in our state. Often it is bishops who rail against austerity policies.
From what I see it is the nature of your democracy that is at the route of you problem. You allow unlimited campaign funding. So surprise surprise big money buys votes. Plus your mid term elections mean that no matter who is in the west wing they have to think about campaigning most of their 4 year term

Trickle down obviously doesn't work. The wealthy are the winners with the tax break. Income disparity is at an all time high since the gilded age.. Capitalism does need some regulation. I prefer a more socialistic approach. Separate Church and State, Evangelicals think their Christian religion is loosing ground. Well it is, there are many other religion's that are important too.

Neither. Anarchy Rules!

Business tends to work on a single model: Generate as much income as possible in the shortest time possible with the least expenditure of resources. Then it's vertically integrated where more and more resources such as labor, raw materials, influence, credit, and all other forms of 'capital' are controlled by fewer and fewer people. That's America, baby!!! And it shows... "Your Capitalism is hanging out!"

Let’s be overly simplistic for a moment. Let’s say there are altruistic people and selfish people. The altruistic people will do good naturally. How can we then organize society such that the selfish people have a positive influence as well? Capitalism is a good system because it leverages human greed and turns selfish impulses into positive results for society. Within socialism altruistic people will do good, but selfish people have no motivation to behave well. And those altruistic people will behave well regardless of the system. So which should we choose? I think giving capitalism its due credit, and then advocating for regulation or progressive taxes is a much more pursuasive then just saying “capitalism is evil.” Trickle-down economics is garbage rhetoric and capitalism is far from perfect, but it’s better than anything else.

Cronyism is what promotes the flawed theory behind trickle down economics and is as dangerous to the middle and working classes as Lazes Faire is. The lack of separation between church and state is a threat to the whole of society.

Good question?

Capitalism is a term invented by socialists to misrepresent economic liberty.

Intrinsically interlinked!!!!

Capitalism in and of itself is not evil but it needs to be regulatated to a certain degree to prevent exploitation, corruption and income inequality that we have today.

They both suck. Capitalism has no ethical component. It is also misleading to say it stimulates competition. It does stimulate competition... competition for money, that’s it. It does not at all serve to push technology and innovation forward, if anything, it stifles it by making it difficult for superior products and services to gain traction in entrenched, monopolized markets. Without specific structures to prevent it, capitalism will consolidate all available wealth from a community and leave it unavailable to serve that very same community. We could be talking about a neighborhood or a nation... the problem scales.... and I don’t mean “maybe”. We have employed strictures to try to balance out some of these failures. The problem is... politicians can be influenced with money... and what does money want? It wants those strictures gone! As money collects more and more power unto itself the bulwarks set to keep the economy in check erode one by one.... leaving the wealth of the nation to flow into the hands of a few who have no obligation whatsoever to attend to the land and communities they have stripped the wealth from.

The way we do both sucks.

They’re intertwined.

Capitalism would likely collapse without the church pacifying the masses who’re getting fucked.

Which is more dangerous in our language nouns or verbs? Some things just can't be oversimplified.

Considering you're speaking of specifically the middle class, I would definitely say capitalism/trickle down economics. The breakdown of church/state separation threatens everyone

Capitalism. I believe in capitalism, but unbridled capitalism always leads to bad things for the lower and middle classes. It appears the antitrust laws don't carry much weight anymore, and Reagan's deregulation of television and radio station ownership has really fucked up the broadcast industry, something most people never even noticed.

Going to have to go with Capitalism because it has a stranglehold on our economics.