Jim Dator wrote:
>
> Well, and depending on what is meant by "socialism", the Scandinavian
> countries, Holland and France (certainly) do pretty well, too.
I would not argue with you. "Socialism" surely is a
Wittgensteinean concept (i.e., it covers a lot of different
possibilities which need not all have any one specific attribute
in common, but which do all have some kind of family resemblance).
> I think
> most (North) Americans would consider the social policies of those
> countries to be pretty socialistic and would be so termed if proposed
> here.
I once had a manager to whom I excitedly described a book I had
just read about the structure of work in Scandanavia (Pelle Ehn,
_Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts_). Said manager
dismissed my naivete with a comment that: "that's just the
Scandanavian model". A few months later, he lost most of his
employees to corporate downsizing, and, a couple
years after that, he told me that
the company had changed into a place where one might not want to
work any more.
> If only the Soviet Union and its satellites and cronies are
> considered socialists, then that is a pretty restrictive definition of
> socialism.
I never have thought of them as socialist, but rather as what
would happen if the labor unions took over the corporations, and
the stereotype of Jimmy Hoffa replaced the stereotype of John Akers.
>
> Like considering Saudi Arabia to be a prime example of capitalism.
>
> Or is it?
Seriously, I would argue that capitalism is what Habermas
calls a "performative self-contradiction": Since its essence is
to transform itself into monopolism, it can only exist
through pervasive state intervention to preserve competition.
Also, it can only exist through pervasive state police intervention to
prevent worker revolution, etc. If one wishes to call
a system in which coordinated social policy creates and
preserves something which can reasonably be called a
"free market economy" capitalism, that's OK, so long as one does
not oppose such a system of state regulation to socialism,
not as one form of state regulation to another, but as absence
of state regulation to state regulation. The invisible hand
is IMO rather sleight of hand.
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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