I do not assume that people mean "if we only removed capitalism, everything would be fine" when they say "capitalism is the problem." I assume they mean something more like "replacing capitalism with [y] would make things much better than marginal changes to capitalism" where [y] is probably democratic socialism, or that they mean something like "most problems can be traced back to capitalism and to fix these problems we need to fix capitalism" where "fixing capitalism" means enacting whatever policies the speaker happens to advocate for.
Someone saying "it would be better if the US adopted a government closer to the USSR's" is a pretty out there statement and I'm not going to assume that someone means that unless they're pretty clear about it.
There's a conversation of some depth to be had here. I think it might simply devolve into "rhetoric is part of a struggle for power", but I am not ready to be that cynical yet.
"Capitalism is the problem". Let's take this as untrue (ironic laughter from the peanut gallery).
Could "capitalism is the problem" be an opinion coming from one person and a blatant lie coming from another?
Is it fundamentally different from "ethnicity X is the problem"?
That's an interesting point, and it seems correct. You need to consider the context and background to get an idea whether someone doesn't know better or actively tells the truth.
That's often hard for me with a lot of the "out there" medical advice, where it's not immediately obvious to me that they're just scams where the person goes home to laugh at the fools giving them money, but rather themselves believe in whatever theory they're advocating. I don't think it becomes an opinion (it's still a statement claiming to be factual), but it's not a lie, and certainly not blatant, though some of it is absurd (but again not to everyone, obviously).
Is 2x2=7.21 an opinion or a simple absurd? I don't insist the lies I mentioned are as easy to identify. I understand they are easier for some people to believe. But the nature of the difference (as compared to complex, discussable philosophical ideas like "capitalism is a problem") seems to be the same. While abstract philosophical questions of the "life, universe and everything" category can be discussed infinitely and there is no simple right answer, there also are questions to which a simple answer exists, discoverable by any person who would care to exercise some logic (preferably alone, without being afraid to loose an argument).
