You, Michael Coghlan, wrote:

>I would have thought that it was abundantly clear - and again this is not
>from a theoretical standpoint - that socialism has failed in practice and
>that capitalist societies have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient
>in providing comparatively better lives for their citizens. People can
>debate the advantages of one against the other on a theoretical level, but
>in practice the answer is clear. Socialism has failed.
>
>This is not meant to denigrate the ideas put forward by Bill Bartlett, Brian
>Callahan et al, or to directly contribute to the discussion on socialist
>unions, but I'd be interested to hear people's responses on this.
Socialism failed, as I see it, for two reasons. First, as it developed in
this century it was invariably undemocratic; however there are plenty of
examples of undemocratic countries with thriving (by macroeconomic
standards) economies. So democracy per se is not determinative.

Second, and I think most important, socialist state planning was
extremely unwieldy. Post-industrial economies clearly need to be fluid if
they are to stay on top of the mind-boggling change that we are living
through. State socialism of the Soviet variety simply couldn't keep up.
Add in its hostility to the free flow of information and it was bound to
collapse. FWIW, I was predicting as much in the early 80s, before
Gorbachev even arrived on the scene.

Do bear in mind however that during the Depression, when capitalism lay
in ruins, it was the Soviet economy that seemed destined to one day be
the model that the rest of the world would follow. We are currently
witnessing capitalism's "triumph", but I wonder how long it will last.
Certainly there are glaringly unsustainable aspects to the system that
cannot be forever maintained. When the day of reckoning comes, the
picture ain't going to be pretty.