What’s the real difference between free market capitalism and communism? Is it freedom versus equality? Property versus community? Excellence versus peace?
How about 72 years?
72 years between Adam Smith’s publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and Marx’s of The Communist Manifesto in the revolution year of 1848. Apparently 72 years is enough of a time to think that the Republicans are upholding “conservative” values of moral society, while the pinko liberals are so current they’re out to destroy the fabric of society, a fabric, we’re led to believe, that’s hundreds upon hundreds of years old.
Free market capitalism, if we’re to seriously look at history and judge it against what free market types suggest, hasn’t really given us an instance of a successful free market society. Similarly, we’ve never had a good example of a healthy communist society. What each group says of the other—that it looks good on paper, but for X, Y, or Z—has to be said of both of them.
Interestingly enough, as I drove to work thinking these thoughts, my friend Ben was making some harmonious comments at Expensive Coffee.
