ABSTRACT
Why should anyone even consider a qualitatively different economic system? By now don’t we know enough about the strengths and weaknesses of different options to limit debate to when we need more or less private, social, or state ownership, when and how markets should be regulated in some way, and when some sort of planning in a market system is helpful? When political parties flying the banner of socialism won the chance to replace capitalism with an altogether different economic system based on public ownership and comprehensive planning during the 20th century, didn’t we discover how badly that worked out? To motivate interest in what we discuss in the book, we first make the case in Chapter 2 for why private enterprise and markets have no role to play in a truly desirable economy and, therefore, why a mixed, regulated, market, “social democratic” economy will inevitably prove inadequate to meeting the goals laid out in Chapter 1 even if social democratic reforms may play an important role in the transition to a desirable economic system.
