The Economic System as an End or as a Means and the Future of Socialism: An Evolutionary Viewpoint
24 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2003 Last revised: 3 Apr 2012
Date Written: April 2, 2012
Abstract
After the demise of “real” socialism and the decline of “western” socialism, socialism can be salvaged as a social preference system oriented towards equality and social justice, to be implemented without systemic constraints in the organizational and institutional sense. At the same time there is a case for maintaining an institutional framework allowing different forms of economic organization, capitalist and non-capitalist, to compete on equal footing, in an evolutionary perspective, thus allowing the second to develop if proven efficient. Another way for a spontaneous extension of the domain of socialism could derive from the socialization of consumption, if the consumption of public goods continues to make up a growing component of real consumption.
Keywords: socialism, capitalism, evolutionary approach
JEL Classification: P50
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation