Socialism is also a state that is set up to fail though ...

Essentially, people will consistently vote for benefits for themselves and for someone else to pay for it which will ultimately lead to "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" (tax the rich), a default on the massive levels of debt that were built up, or a collapse in the currency due to monetization of this out of control spending.

There's no such thing as 100% "hardcore free market capitalism". 

You have a public police force. Fire fighters. Military. Roads/highway. Education. The water you drink has to be regulated so that its safe to drink. FDA. etc. etc. etc. These are all public utilities basically, they're not magically free. 

The people who whine about the tax rate in the US IMO have it wrong. The tax rate today in the US is lower than at any point in the 20th century. Whether it was Nixon, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, whoever. 

What's actually happening to the US is an erosion of the middle class, it's becoming closer and closer to Mexico, which is one small very wealthy elite and then a bunch of masses living paycheque to paycheque. 

My POV is a little different, I was born into a relatively wealthy family, and I'll admit it straight up. The whole point of being wealthy is to prevent "trickle down" economics as much as possible. 

When you have money you hire accountants and lawyers to exploit every loophole. You make investments in the best markets, not based on patriotism, but where you will get the best return. The whole point is to keep as much of that wealth from trickling down as possible and to amass it into your investments (portfolio, real estate, ahem ... offshore accounts). 

You look at countries like Canada, Denmark, etc. and it looks like people are generally much happier and it seems like people in the US are miserable, and they have a mix of free market + socialism in effect (the US does too, just to a lesser degree, and yes they always have). 

The thing is, America could never become Communist. You cannot tell a people for two centuries that they are entitled to what they earn, that working hard will make them rich, that the better they are the further they will rise, and then say "nope, sorry, we're going to drag you all back down to the same level now".

Because you can't really force the average person to become superhuman, you force the best among us to conform to mediocrity. In theory, you can still have inequality of ability, but why would anyone of any ability even bother? They will receive no compensation for their efforts, no money, no promotions, no fame, quite likely no recognition. It was all simply achieved "by humanity".

Well, things aren't achieved by humanity. Things are achieved by individuals and groups of people. And we have so far found no incentive for people to excel that works better than money and material gains. Perhaps that's a shame, but that's the way of humanity. Very few people will be willing to work their hardest knowing that they will never receive anything in return.

And that's just ideal communism. Let's not forget the fact that, where capitalism has succeeded and created prosperous nations in the USA and Canada, across Western Europe and now through Eastern Asia, Communism does not have a single success story to its name. Even in its realistic and somewhat bastardised form, capitalism still works. Communism, on the other hand, turns to dictatorship, and oppression, and the seizing of property and the formation of a new ruling class. Can you seriously tell me that Stalin was on equal footing with a Russian peasant? That Fidel Castro has never lived any better than his country's poorest workers? That Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un have lived lives of humility and never considered themselves superior to the people they lead?

Perhaps another species, on another world, with different values, and an evolution that favoured sacrificing yourself for the greater good, but we have never been like that, and no number of guns pointed at our heads will ever make us like that.

Capitalism has worked in Europe, East asia and America. But it's not working to well right now, and the leaders of these countries seem to have no idea how to fix it. Also, I know Stalin and Kim Jung Un are not on the same level of ordinary people, that is ashame but we in the west can't do anything about it. If communism was practiced by it's theory it would of been more anarchic rather than a dictator (which can form under both systems anyway)