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"chris.holt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Wouldn't it also be a quick end to the argument to show that infant mortality dropped during the rise of socialism? If it drops in both cases, that suggests that it was caused by factors other than economic/political systems, e.g. scientific and technological advances; and we know that these aren't directly related to economics or politics.
G*rd*n:
Socialism and capitalism, as they have usually been actually proposed and realized, are hardly opposites.
"chris.holt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
No, but the synthesis we see around us does vary in proportions. Two teaspoons of one, one teaspoon of the other. The point is that infant mortality used to go down in either case, suggesting that the cause lies elsewhere.
Now, life expectancy is supposedly decreasing because of obesity (and presumably, tobacco companies having taken a more subtle strategy in getting people addicted). That might be seen as an argument against capitalism, though given the numbers of people smoking in China, I doubt it.
What I meant by capitalism and socialism not being opposites
was that they were not like two distinct ingredients mixed in
some kind of soup, but that they are (in practice) rather
similar forms of social organization.
I dunno; of course there are similarities and differences (compare and contrast in an essay of 5-10 pages :-), but the difference I see is that socialism works better in situations where prediction is (relatively) easy, and the costs of competition are high; while capitalism works better when prediction is hard and the costs of competition are low. You seem to be focussing more on power relationships.
In both cases, the
dominant political class consists of people who manage and
direct the industrial system. This class is an elite and is
largely self-selected.
So far, there's nothing to distinguish any political system from another; that applies to monarchy, feudalism etc. etc. as well.
Nevertheless, its power rests in
large part on the consent of the non-elite, the mass the elite
dominates. Part of what justifies the elite to the mass is
the ability of the former to produce a better life, or at
least the illusion of a better life, for the latter.
This I think is relatively new, maybe late 1800s. It probably has to do with the spreading of literacy throughout society as a whole, and general improvements in communication.
Since
"a better life" is an evaluation and since values are relative,
the elites must labor continually to produce either a life
which constantly appears better than the one people experienced
in the past, or is better than that observed in or believed
about other communities.
You're thinking of advertising here I take it: "Our new improved washing powder gets clothes whiter than ever before".
(Elites who fail to do this get in a
lot of political trouble, as witness the political turmoil
which accompanied the Great Depression, or more recently, the
collapse of the Soviet Union.)
"Democracy is better than anarchy; look at Somalia." But people turn away.
Hence, elites, capitalist or socialist, are strongly motivated to accumulate capital and use whatever surpluses they can spare to produce technological advances. It is not surprising, then, that in both cases significant technological advances are indeed produced.
It didn't happen in ancient Egypt; and with the current separation of classes increasing, I think that what you're talking about is weakening. The baby-boomers, for all their faults, are carrying on making technological advances; the generations after them are fading in this regard. I don't know whether it's because of economic forces (the best and the brightest become lawyers and accountants), social forces (I'd rather look after my children than work past midnight on my new idea), or just that we're reaching human limits (if a mathematician needs 20 years to get up to speed, how much can s/he invent after that).
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