Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old man. Why Feminism Didn't Lead To Socialsim. Part Seven by Dave Jaffe.

  Why feminism Didn't Lead To Socialism. Part Seven by Dave Jaffe.




    Jackie ignored several other facts when she predicted the end of  free enterprise. Capitalism as an economic system has been incredibly flexible. It has survived and prospered in many countries with very different politics. Free enterprisers  set up shop and prospered in the totally racist regime of apartheid-ruled South Africa, and the white racist states of the U.S South. Business people have raked in profits in the right wing dictatorships of Portugal and Spain.
    Business people have also thrived in democratic countries like Canada, France, Italy and above all the segregated era of the United States. After segregation was scrapped in the 1960's businesses kept on making money. Communism on the other hand only survived in countries ruled by  communist parties. Once the communist party vanishes so does communist rule.  This gives the free enterprise people a massive advantage over communism.
     Then there's another big advantage that capitalism has. It generates profit and sometimes on a massive scale. This wealth can be spread around equally or totally unequally. In recent years inequality has thrived. Yet private profit may still be the most efficient way to run an economy.
     Robert Heilbroner was a left leaning economist who at times was willing to listen to communists. "Socialism," said Heilbroner, "is a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all the means of production."  Mao's China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Castro's Cuba and Vietnam after 1975 fit the bill here. Yet as Heilbroner points out, "Socialism was the tragic failure of the 20th century." Tens of millions of people died in one communist country after another trying to build socialism. Yet all of these deaths may have been in vain.
     When Mikhail Gorbachev, the ruler of the Soviet Union tried to peacefully reform communism
the Union splintered into 15 separate parts and communism collapsed. Communism vanished in eastern Europe too where top-down harsh communist governments had held sway. China survived and prospered by deserting socialism. Most other socialisms vanished.
      In democratic countries though, many reforms that socialists had pushed for have survived. Many democratic countries have pensions, medicare, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, trade unions and so on. Yet in former communist-ruled countries, communism is history.
       In the 1970's, the U.S. economy surged ahead of that of the Soviet Union's, when it perfected the tiny computer chip. Under U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan the U.S. launched a massive military buildup that the Soviet Union couldn't match. Gorbachev threw in the towel and Said, "The Cold War is over." Americans added, "And we won it." Which was true.