The events of 1989 are most often depicted as the failure of
socialism. It's a powerful interpretation that has served to
discredit alternatives to the capitalist system, which is said to
have triumphed, and to bestow upon capitalism an aura of legitimacy
based not only on a reading of recent history but also on assumptions
about the natural order, not least human nature. Capitalism, it is
proposed, is the normal state of human traffic in what people make
and value and need; socialism is the deviation. Capitalism responds
to the nature of "man"--acquisitiveness, competition, egoism and the
insatiable need for more. Socialism stands in the way of initiative,
creativity and competition. Going by its nom de guerre, communism, it
proposes radical equality in a world of unequals. Therefore, it can
be maintained only by the coercive power of an entrenched elite and a
repressive state. In the Eastern bloc, once that force was removed
and party leaders lost confidence in their right to rule, communism
naturally fell, and people's instinctual drives for material
accumulation were liberated. Markets won out everywhere, even when
democracy did not.
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/suny/single>Link
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/10/1989-why-because-capitalism-is-superior.htm>monochrom
at 10/31/2009 12:26:00 PM
