In a land of freedom, there is no "social contract" other than the "opportunity" is guarded by the federal government (provided it limits itself to the "rule of law"). Unfortunately, in much of the European Union and the US, the pure "land of opportunity" has been tampered with by central planners in a hybrid of socialism we know today as "Democratic Socialism". The problem is that a centralized government has over-stepped its bounds and "poisoned" the system, and now we have the fruits of government tampering in the affairs of the individual - they cannot do as effective a job as the individual in pursuit of his or her dreams and aspirations (and I am not advocating no regulation or government oversight)! We have atttempted to somewhat "re-distribute" the wealth under the guise of "social justice" which as failed miserably in the US over the last 80 years, and in Europe (we are really not "guaranteed" anything except the fruits of our own labors - which started being "re-distributed in the the 191X") - shall I say the debacle of 2008 with the fruits of "socail justice" in the form of government tampering in the credit marketplace by insiting that banks expand their share of "questionable" loans so that "everyone can afford oa home whether they can afford it or not!). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac added to this debacle by being the first to package "mortgage backed securities" and sell them on the open market - then Wall Street "greed" did take advantage of the opportunity an further screw up sound judgement". China "exists" (in its form) because they adopted some form of capitalism, but still run a central planning culture (ask anybody who consults or visits there in a business venture). Eventually, it too will collapse under its own weight without free market reforms that surpass what they have allowed so far. Cheap labor is the only thing China, Vietnam, and the like have to offer, and without the capitalist societies, they would have failed economically, socially, and morally. They depend on the USA and other systems to sustain their production. Unlike the USA, they had NOTHING to offer before they initiated " market" reforms. The only thing they offered was the death (mostly by design) of 70 million of their own citizens by either exectution, cultural cleansing, or starvation. The system of the USA was also weakened, after 1963, by the movement toward secularization and the effort to "cleanse" our republic of the moral and ethical guidelines that led Alexis de Tocqueville, in his landmark observational book, "Democracy in America" to state that, "America is great because America is good"! Unfortunately, the Department of Education and the educational (what a misnomer!) elite have "cleansed" this book from most of our secondary and college educational systems (unfortunately by mostly the "hippie" generation - of which I was a part of- that read Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels and became tenured professors). Capitalism is not an extreme, but has proven, given no tampering by ideologues in search of "equality of outcomes" or "social justice", to be the most effective way of providing the most benefits to the most diversified spectrum of people - and history proves that fact - it is indisputable!