ABSTRACT

Arguments purporting to demonstrate the economic nonviability of socialism have been advanced with more or less vigor, depending on the vicissitudes of economic conditions. In a socialist society, all jobs are under direct control of the government, and so an advocate of capitalism risks being denied all forms of employment. During the Great Depression it was the economic viability of capitalism, more than that of socialism which was called into question. Unemployment and underemployment are more fundamental to capitalism than to Economic Democracy. A foreign policy that values anticommunism over democracy will be far more destructive of life, liberty, democracy, and national autonomy than will a foreign policy that gives priority to democracy. One final observation: Those who assert the connection between capitalism and liberty in order to deny that socialism is compatible with liberty invariably identify capitalism with the market. Modern liberals, virtually without exception, regard material equality as good – not absolutely, but certainly prima facie.