Abstract
The following study on the economics, politics and morals of socialism and capitalism is a systematic treatise on political theory. Interdisciplinary in scope, it will discuss the central problems of political economy and political philosophy: how to organize society so as to promote the production of wealth and eradicate poverty, and how to arrange it so as to make it a just social order.
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To avoid any misunderstanding from the outset: the thesis presented here is that any given society’s overall wealth will be relatively increased, i.e., will grow more than it otherwise would, if the overall degree of socialism is decreased and vice versa. The United States, for instance, would improve their standards of living by adopting more capitalism (above the level that would be attained otherwise), and so would Germany, etc. It is a somewhat different task, though, to explain the relative position (as regards overall wealth) of different societies at any given time because then, of course, the “ceteris” are no longer necessarily “paribus,” while, of course, other things, in addition to an existing degree of socialism, undoubtedly affect a society’s overall wealth. A given society’s history, for instance, has a tremendous effect on its present wealth. Every society is rich or poor not only because of present but also past conditions; because of capital having been accumulated or destroyed in the past by our fathers and forefathers. So it can easily happen that a society which is presently more capitalist can still be significantly poorer than a more socialist one. And the same, only seemingly paradoxical result can emerge because societies can (and do) differ with respect to other formerly or presently operating factors affecting the production of wealth. There can and do exist, for instance, differences in the work ethic and/or in prevalent world-views and habits among societies and these can and do account for divergencies (or similarities) in the production of wealth of societies alike or different with respect to their present degree of socialism. Thus, the most straightforward and best way to illustrate the validity of the thesis that the degree of socialism is inversely related to a society’s wealth in any comparative social analysis, would be to compare societies which, except for differences in their degree of socialism, are paribus with respect to their history and the present socio-psychological characteristics of their people, or are at least very similar, like, for instance, West and East Germany: and here the predicted effect indeed shows in the most dramatic way, as will be dealt with in the following.
Incidentally, “socialism” in the United States is called “liberalism” and the socialist, or social democrat there, who calls himself “liberal” would generally detest being called “socialist.”
Recall the repeated pronouncements in the early days of Soviet-Russian communism, up to the days of Khrushchev, that the capitalist world would soon be economically surpassed!
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hoppe, HH. (1989). Introduction. In: A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7849-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7849-3_1
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