What is the difference between an economic and a political system?

[zwass11]

What is the difference between an economic and a political system? Somehow use that democracy is usually associated with capitalism and authoritarian is usually associated with command.

[Good Guy]

sounds like a homework question. Both are inextricably intertwined and it's a complex topic.

[Chase E]

Economic systems relate to how goods and services are provided and who owns them

Political systems relate to what forms governments take.

[brucec83]

Economic systems involve the production and distribution of goods and services and money. Political systems involve electoral processes and hierarchies of power and means of making laws.

Capitalism is associated with democracy and command economics with authoritarianism, mostly because the US education system has been mandated to teach this theory since the McCarthy era in the 1950s. This was designed to help children distinguish good Democratic Americans from the bad Communist USSR and China, against whom they might be called to fight a war.

Few, if any, purely capitalistic, socialistic or democratic regimes have ever actually existed. There is some correlation between command politics and command economics (if you are going to control one thing, why not everything), but all modern democracies exert a lot of control over their economic systems and some third world dictatorships exercises considerably less than most of the developed nations. China retains a somewhat authoritarian political model but has adopted a free market economic system. The Russian economy has become markedly less regulated and more capitalistic than ours. Many European social democracies are rated as more democratic than ours but also practice more control over their economies.

Real leaders do what is practical, readily stealing their opponents good ideas, then making up ideology to suit their purpose. There was little difference between the wartime command economies of Germany, Britain or the USA. The Federal reserve has managed the economy under every administration since we abandoned the gold standard. Nixon nationalized passenger rail service, instituted wage & price controls and oil rationing. Reagan increased government spending and the size of government. Clinton kept taxes low and balanced the budget. Bush and Obama agreed on bank bailouts and government ownership of GM. People who say they oppose government do not refuse social security and medicare.