I have been following (to some extent) the
"Great Austin-Moore-Sanderson-Et Al Debate"
on socialism versus capitalism.
Speaking as a non-Marxist Social Democrat
(with some lingering sympathy for the
romantic Maoism of my undergraduate days
in the late 1970s), my view is that we need to
discard the "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad"
syndrome of much of the U.S. Left
(and also much of the U.S. Right).
(To put it a bit simplistically)
U.S. Left --- "capitalism is bad and socialism is good"
U.S. Right --- "capitalism is good and socialism is bad"
I feel that there are "capitalist" regimes which are "less
bad" (Sweden, Singapore) and also "socialist" regimes
which "less bad" (Cuba). Conversely
there are "capitalist" regimes which are pure evil
(apartheid South Africa) and "socialist" regimes which
are run by semi-unbalanced individuals ( the
Democratic Kampuchea of the Khmer Rouge)
The British periodical
"The New Internationalist" used to publish a one-page
profile series on the countries of the world. Each profile
included ratings on political freedom, health and
education indicators, and so on.
Similarly, the progressive U.S. Left can use this
combination of indicators to rate the regimes of the world
to deem if they are worthy of support (rather than blindly
support any regime which simply
claims to be "socialist").
I don't know about Indonesia. But I would definitely
prefer to live in capitalist Singapore than in
socialist Vietnam. And, having lived for two years
in Singapore, I definitely prefer living in capitalist
Malaysia than in the more stifling and authoritarian
capitalist Singapore!
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:52:59 GMT
Reply-to: rkmoore@iol.ie
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: socialism vs capitalism (PHUA KAI LIT)
1/26/98, DR. PHUA KAI LIT wrote:
>It was compulsory for everyone to vote and,
>of course, all the candidates were also selected and
>approved by the Communist Party.
>Good example of the sham "democracy"
>of Leninist regimes.
One could with equal relevance (to whatever point) relate horror stories
from Guatamala or El Salvador and call them good examples of the sham
"democracy" of capitalist regimes.
At a miniumum we need to look at individual countries if the discussion is
going to be more than "yes it is", "no it isn't". "Leninist regimes"
covers a broad space, from Stalin to Tito to the Sandinistas.
The democratic rationale of a one-party system is that the party is to
embody popular will, and that the government is to administrate party
policy. That system is corrupted when the party becomes a top-down tyranny
instead of a bottom-up system of representation.
Similarly, the competitive electoral system is corrupted when a clique of
parties achieve hegemony, and those parties are each controlled by the same
elite interests. In both cases democracy is undermined by the formation of
de facto hierarchical power structures.
In fact one-party systems and electoral systems are political systems, not
economic systems. Capitalism can exist in a one-party state and socialism
can exist in a multi-party state (examples plentiful). It is wrong to
equate socialist economics with one-party politics (corrupt or otherwise),
or capitalism with competitive parties (representative or otherwise).
I suggest that Vietnam's democratic failings are less relevant to a
critique of socialism than, say, Indonesia's dictatorship is to a critique
of capitalism. The Jakarta regime is charaterisic of capitalist
perphery-management tactics. Ho Chi Minh arose from the ranks as a leader
of national liberation, and his regime is, if anything, characteristic of
that unique national experience. Socialism seems largely irrelevant to
Vietnam's political structure.
rkm