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Chris
06-11-2016, 05:06 PM
This looks like an interesting book, James R. Otteson's The End of Socialism. I just ordered it.

The blurb on the Imaginative Conservative store on Amazon (http://astore.amazon.com/theimaginativeconservative-20/detail/1107605962) says...


Is socialism morally superior to other systems of political economy, even if it faces practical difficulties? In The End of Socialism, James R. Otteson explores socialism as a system of political economy - that is, from the perspectives of both moral philosophy and economic theory. He examines the exact nature of the practical difficulties socialism faces, which turn out to be greater than one might initially suppose, and then asks whether the moral ideals it champions - equality, fairness, and community - are important enough to warrant attempts to overcome these difficulties nonetheless, especially in light of the alleged moral failings of capitalism. The result is an examination of the "end of socialism," both in the sense of the moral goals it proposes and in the results of its unfolding logic.

What caught my eye there was "a system of political economy - that is, from the perspectives of both moral philosophy and economic theory" as a definition of political economy. Reminds me of Adam Smith, even Friedrich Hayek.

I first heard about it from this review: The End of Socialism (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/06/the-end-of-socialism.html)


James R. Otteson, the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics at Wake Forest University, possesses one of the greatest minds in defense of classical liberalism in the modern era. He has authored two definitive works on Adam Smith, a clear rebuttal of the ethics of Peter Singer, and now a crucial attack on the “near-socialist” theories so pervasive throughout the world today.Socialism not only fails to work in reality, notes Prof. Otteson, it is also malicious in its ethics and morality—even if most of its current adherents believe themselves humane and well-intentioned. At its core, “socialism is a difficult and costly system of political economy that the specific conceptions of its moral values do not justify.” This, he continues, “constitutes the end of socialism, then, in both senses of the word end: an attempt to implement it will inevitably end in heavy costs to its community, and the philosophical case for socialism ends in failure.”

Prof. Otteson cites the historical examples of the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and China. Following the horrors of twentieth-century socialism in its various communist and fascistic forms, very few respectable politicians in the West today fully embrace the title “socialist.” Yet, whatever the problems of socialism, many of its ideals linger, often taking weird, bizarre, and unpredictable forms. As the ex-socialist James Burnham predicted in the 1940s, we can no longer separate the capitalist from the socialist, the labor union from the corporation, the business sector from the political one. Rather, we have become, to varying degrees, subjects of the managerial state. Though Otteson does not cite Burnham directly, the man’s ghost haunts this book.

Recognizing the nuances of a post-Berlin Wall world, Prof. Otteson labels the two predominant positions in the Western world “socialist-inclined” and “capitalist-inclined.” Socialist-inclined persons not only see centralization as economically effective and morally just, they also tend to “distrust granting local people or communities a wide scope to organize themselves according to their own lights.” While they might not despise individual liberty, they prefer centralized decision-making and, critically, they prize equality as the highest good....

Green Arrow
06-11-2016, 05:23 PM
Is community worth it?

If it isn't, then every argument defending free market capitalism is wrong.

Chris
06-11-2016, 05:33 PM
Is community worth it?

If it isn't, then every argument defending free market capitalism is wrong.

It is. I don't think that's his point. It's community organized at the centralized vs local levels.

If one conceives free market capitalism as a system or social order that emerges from the exchange of goods and services among individual and groups and even communities, the it is community organized at the local level. If one instead conceives of capitalism ruled by the rich and powerful oligarchy, then it is community centralized.

These he says these are not absolutes in people but inclinations.