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From: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: part of what's wrong with socialism
Message-ID: <149@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Dec-83 13:27:10 EST
Article-I.D.: hou3c.149
Posted: Thu Dec 22 13:27:10 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Dec-83 04:45:05 EST
References: <180@sjuvax.UUCP> <234@denelcor.UUCP>, <546@ut-sally.UUCP> <693@bmcg.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
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From Bill Price:
	If I may quote from a note on my wall, copied from a netnews
	article posted by Prentiss Riddle:  "A page of history is
	worth a volume of  logic."  The volumes of logic produced by
	Marx--and the other socialists--are nothing compared to the
	pages of history.  Those pages show beyond any rational
	doubt that there is really only one thing wrong with
	socialism:

				It doesn't work.
---

History provides evidence, but drawing conclusions from that evidence
still requires logic.  Bill Price doesn't say which particular page of
history he is referring to, but it is hard to find any that support
his position beyond a reasonable doubt.  In the case of the Soviet Union,
we find that the Soviet revolution replaced one repressive government
with another one, so there is no change there.  The Soviet government
*can* point to economic, political, and military achievements, but these
are irrelevant without evidence as to whether they would have occurred
under a different system of government.  So it's hard to see what the
Soviet example "shows beyond a shadow of a doubt"; to the quick glance
it doesn't show anything.  Another example provided by history is Communist
China.  As with the USSR, a non-trivial examination is required to reach
any conclusions as to whether it is a communist success.  This leaves us
with the results of socialism in western countries.  Socialism as we
find it in the United States amounts to taking a basicly capitalist
system and papering over its worst deficiencies.  I think this approach
is clearly an improvement over "pure" capitalism, but I'm not sure
Bill Price would agree.  Other western governments have moved farther
in the direction of socialism, but I'm not prepared to commit myself on
whether socialism is "working" in these countries.  The answer probably
depends on what sort of societies Bill Price (or whoever answers the
question) happens to like.
					Kenneth Almquist