There's so much debate about which economic system is best and who's policies are best. Well, I propose we answer the question once and for all and carry out large scale experiments. The U.S. has plenty of low populated areas. I propose the federal government cut up half of a state, maybe somewhere like Wyoming, and cordon it off into two or more sections, doing our best to keep both sides equal. Then have politicians from both the Right and Left, respectively, appoint governing committees to run the local governments. We'd have economists and social researchers keeping a close eye on all the social indicators and collecting data. The people already living there would be paid some type of compensation for taking part in the experiment, maybe $2000 per year. The experiment would be carried on for maybe 10 to 20 years. Less than that if there was some sort of disaster and the experiment had to be cut short. One zone would be run by Republicans and the other zone would be run by Democrats. I'm thinking we could have additional smaller zones run by Communists, racial separatists, and Libertarians, just to see how those all turn out. For the Libertarians, maybe locate them along the Southern border and break them into two groups, the Liberal Libertarians and Conservative Libertarians (we'd get to see how well Liberal Libertarianism would work out with open borders). All these little enclaves would be granted exceptions from most federal/state taxes and laws, so we could really be able to observe what would happen. Great care would be taken to try to make sure both zones started off with all else equal, so no one could later claim one side started off with an unfair advantage. Considering how large a country like the U.S. is, this would not be too expensive of an experiment and could help lay a lot of political questions to rest.
Nobody has replied, maybe because the idea is ridiculous, and maybe because it is not practical. I will say it is contrary to history. Slaves rebelled against the ancient slave system and used their skills to form a new feudal system. Serfs rebelled against the feudal system and used their advanced skills to form a new capitalist system. Workers will rebel against the capitalist system and use their skills to form a new socialist system. The oppressed always eventually rebel and overcome.
Or we can study existing nations with different economic policies and see what happens when those policies change. Splitting the US in half will also need to impose immigration restrictions as well like countries do. Countries impose immigration restrictions to prevent too many poor from entering and discourage the wealthy from leaving to lower-tax nations.
Yeah but this is a silly conversation because there is no way it is ever going to happen. It's not even about finding the "best system" and imposing it on a nation. Not only will that never happen either, but that isn't the way nations, economies, and politics develop anyway.
Economists study the economies and policies of countries all the time and a lot of information can be gleaned from comparing them. We can probably implement some good reforms by looking at the policies of the other 200 nations on the planet and seeing if they have any good ideas.
Fact is that there is not much difference between Republicans and Democrats, as they are both basically liberals. The biggest difference between them is what they want to spend their forceably stolen tax money on. Neither side support the Constitution, nor believe in the sovereignty of the citizen.
