From: Andrew Clough (aclough@mit.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 09:09:09 MST
At 03:34 PM 3/21/2003 +1030, you wrote:
> >
> > I came to many of the same conclusions as Mike and
> > Alex independently, after pondering the question for
> > some time. Communism doesn't work well unless the
> > whole planet is communist. If one capitalist society
> > exists next to a communist, it prospers like crazy;
> > the go-getters in the commie society want to escape
> > to live with the rich capitalists. Examples North
> > and South Korea, East and West Berlin.
> >
> > Similarly, it seems to me that a libertarian society
> > next to a totalitarian society is at a military
> > disadvantage, altho at a great advantage in every
> > other sense.
> >
> > I would suggest a mostly libertarian society that
> > allows great personal and financial freedom but still
> > reserves the right to raise taxes for common defense,
> > and even the right to draft citizens in a dire
> > emergency.
> >
> > spike
>
>
>Well, hang on a second there. Socialist countries do badly compared to
>capitalist countries in a capitalist global system (as the 20th century
>socialists discovered to their chagrin). Socialists might fare better in a
>socialist world system (say a socialist world government, perhaps? Something
>like the EU on steroids maybe :-). However, isolated capitalist countries
>within a socialist world system might not fare so well.
Which of Gorbachov's ministers was it who said that in the event of
communist world conquest they'd leave New Zealand alone because they needed
"somewhere to get the prices from." It seems to have been the
understanding of the latter-day USSR that communism *couldn't* work without
capitalist economies to draw basic economic information from.\
Of course, socialism isn't as bad in this regard as communism, so they same
considerations might not apply; or at least may apply in a less significant
way, since though the prices in a socialist economy are distorted they do
bear relation to reality.
Any capitalist economy isolated in a socialist world would definitely
suffer from less of world trade, so I think you could be right about that.
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Don't assign
to stupidity what might be due to ignorance. And try not to assume you
opponent is the ignorant one-until you can show it isn't you.
-M.N. Plano
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