COMMUNISM AND CAPITALISM, FRATERNAL TWINS?

If you took the Economy 101 during your formative years, you would know that communism and capitalism are two very different economic systems. In the communistic system, the government owns everything. In the capitalistic system, the people own everything. However, in their extreme forms, the difference between the two seems to disappear. Here is how.

Let us for a moment consider a milder form of communism, in which, the government owns most of the things, such as properties, cars and businesses and the people are allowed to choose and own their clothes, tooth brushes and toys for their children. However, in the most extreme case of communism, the people are not allowed to own anything, not even their tooth brushes. You live in a government owned apartment, sleep in a government owned bed and wear government owned clothes. You go to work at a government owned business using government owned transportation.

Now, let us look at the capitalism. The people own everything, their homes, cars, clothes, etc. etc…However, we also know that the amount of things owned by people differ between individuals in a capitalistic society, some own more and some own less. At the present time in the United States, I have been told, the top 1% of our population owns about 90% of our GNP. But let us take this a little further down the road. Let us for a moment assume that the top one tenth of 1% of our population owns 99% of our GNP. In a much more severe case, only a handful of individuals will own 99.9% of our GNP. And finally, in the most extreme case, one individual will own everything. The rest of the population will own nothing, not even their tooth brushes, very much like the communist society I described above. 

Are we, as Americans, headed in that direction? You be the judge.