Are there positive aspects of socialism and capitalism? Of course. Let's start
with those of capitalism so they're on the table.
Capitalism has shown itself to be very dynamic technologically. It is a system
in which there's constant pressure to come up with a new thing, a better thing,
or if not a better thing a new thing that you can sell as a better thing, and
so we have modern technologies of all kinds which capitalists and those who
like capitalism celebrate. Technical dynamic quality, capitalism has that. And
if you think it's positive, as often it is then that's a positive
aspect of capitalism. Here's another one: the rise of capitalism is the rise of
the city, of the urban coming together of many different people into a cultural
diversity that for many, myself included, is very attractive as a way to organize
life. Capitalism has delivered urbanism and that's a positive in many ways. And
here's another one: capitalism has brought the world
together. We really can speak of a global economy in a way this race of human
beings never could before. We're linked by shipping, by telecommuting, by the
internet, you know we have a global system. Those are positive things one can
ascribe to capitalism. What about socialism? Here are some
positive things: It has gone way further in the direction of egalitarianism
making us all equal in some fundamental
set of ways than capitalism could. That's a nice thing. People are not as divided.
People are not as different from one another in their standards of living, in
their access to material goods in most socialist societies compared to
capitalist [ones]. And if you're in the bottom half of the society, in terms of poverty
and access, well then socialism has really lifted you up in
way that capitalism has not been able to do. It has really done something for the
mass of people at the bottom in most of the cases where it has been instituted.
And I could go on. Socialists are famous for providing kind of a universal access
to basic things human beings need: education, transportation, hospitalization,
medical coverage, and so on. And these are positive aspects. But let's now graduate.
Assume that we are having a conversation in which we can mention the goods and the
bads. What are some of the bads? Well, capitalism has had an awful lot to
do with war. It's not unique. Other systems went to war but the wars capitalism has
produced particularly the two big ones in the 20th century were called world
wars and were devastating on a scale we have not yet seen in any socialist
environment. We have not seen wars between socialist countries that look
anything like what capitalism produced. We haven't seen, similarly with
capitalism and socialism, we haven't seen quite the negative situation when it
comes to how you treat people who are poor. There is poverty and then there is
how you treat and define poverty. Capitalism has been kind of ruthless in
that area. Socialism kind of not so good and not so bad but better than the
capitalism. On the other hand socialists have often been kind to poor when it
comes to civil liberties and civil rights, tending to give government more
power than capitalists are willing to give it and so you get a kind of
negative association within socialism for the concentration of power in the
state. So yeah, they have strengths and
weaknesses. The systems are complicated and any reasonable conversation ought to
deal with that.