Socialism as the teflon dream.

SOCIALISM AS THE TEFLON DREAM

NOBODY SO FAR has challenged thefacts in Peter Berger's The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions about Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty (Basic). Using detailed evidence from around the world, Berger argues convincingly that capitalism is marvelous for prosperity, as good as or better than anything else for equality, and probably essential for liberty. Socialism, he demonstrates, is just the opposite. Yet socialists who have reviewed the book claim Berger has not laid a glove on them.

The reason is simple, they say: "Heis not talking about my kind of socialism.' Berger may have the facts right about all the failed socialisms and "pseudo-socialisms' of past and present, but their version of socialism has yet to be tried. A defender of democratic capitalism, recognizing the many failures of democratic-capitalist societies, might respond by saying that his version of democratic capitalism has yet to be tried. It is hard to get very far with that kind of claim. Such an elusive socialism or capitalism is not empirically testable; claims for it are not falsifiable and therefore are not amenable to rational examination. A noted American socialist recently wrote about the accumulating evidence that every socialist experiment so far has turned out to be more or less disastrous--economically, politically, and morally. But this does not mean that one should stop being a socialist. On the contrary, he writes, for "Socialism is the name of our dream.'

Given this incommensurability betweenempirical testing, on the one hand, and dreaming, on the other, one may wonder what is going to happen to the socialism-versus-capitalism debate, or whether it has a future. People such as Berger and Michael Novak (and Schumpeter, Hayek, et al. before them) historically specify what they mean by capitalism and then take their chances with pertinent empirical probings. Those who call themselves socialists should have the nerve to play by the same rules. Anti-capitalists who do not want to be called socialists should put a name of their choice to what they are arguing for and indicate the historical-empirical facts pertinent to its testing. At present, anti-capitalist arguments typically follow a via negativa: It is not this, it is not that, I may not even be able to articulate my dream, but it is better than what is. We should all be in favor of what is better than what is, and I would be the last person to deprecate the importance of dreaming in human affairs, but poor people cannot eat the dreams of their ideological mentors.

Capitalism is not a dream, and thatmay be among its weaknesses. I, for one, am not in love with capitalism. I don't see how any sensible person could be. Socialism is a vision of great mythopoetic force that holds many in its thrall. But my attachment to capitalism is a second- or third-order attachment. Capitalism is good for democracy, and I do love democracy. That is because democracy protects the ordering of our loves and loyalties in freedom, including the most important of freedoms, which is freedom of religion. Of course people have lived in freedom in the past without democracy. But in our historical moment there is no country in the world where religious freedom and the freedoms that derive from religious freedom are relatively secure that is not democratic or aspiring to become democratic.

By democracy I mean of courseliberal democracy, not people's democracy, or mass democracy, or raw majoritarianism. I mean limited government, checks and balances, legally institutionalized protections, republican polity. I mean something like, say, the United States of America.

SO THE ORDERING goes like this:Freedom is the highest good in the ordering of society; the political correlate of freedom is democracy; the economic correlate of democracy is capitalism. The evidence, and the logic, suggest that there is a necessary relationship among the three. Of course we can speculate about "delinking' them, as our socialist-democrat and democratic-socialist friends keep urging upon us. But considering all the activities both intimate and public subsumed under the rubric of "economics,' it is hard to see how denial of freedom in this sphere can be consonant with maintaining freedom in our political, personal, and ultimate relationships. However, we do not need to speculate. As Berger shows, there is no historical specimen of a socialist society that is also democratic. (And, yes, he takes full account of such marginal cases as Sweden and Yugoslavia.)

If you think the case is settled, youare wrong. The argumentation will go on, for on the other side is poetry, and poetry is exempt from trial by evidence. The truth of eschatological visions can be settled only by the arrival of the eschaton. Meanwhile, millions will continue to be denied prosperity, equality, and liberty because of a Teflon dream.