Capitalism, Socialism, and the Social Market Economy

Exactly nineteen years ago, Joseph Schumpeter stood before his colleagues in New York City and delivered what turned out to be his farewell address. It was entitled: The March into Socialism, and it was a reaffirmation of the great man's belief expressed in his book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, that capitalism would not survive.1 Schum? peter was placed on the defensive because of his position, and attacks ranged all the way from the predictable questioning of his loyalty to the more serious challenges of his economic analysis. It is not our purpose here to reject or accept or even to reexamine Schumpeter's prognosis. That is by now the common property of all economists, especially that older generation of economists which reads English better than it reads mathematics. And we are most certainly not going to challenge his loyalty, even though we are intrigued by the parallel treatment accorded Marx and Schumpeter from both the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. It appears that both these men predicted the death of an event which we maintain here has indeed occurred. Now the treatment accorded prophets has long been ignominious. They are ignored, despised, dishonored and otherwise mistreated, espe? cially when they predict unpleasant events. But the most questionable treatment of all is to deny credit to a prophet even after the fulfillment of his prediction. Doctrinnaire Marxists, and we need scarcely state that not all Marxists today are doctrinnaire, continue to do battle with and threaten to bury capitalism as though it were in the pristine vigor of its youth. With equal zeal, the evangelists of the extreme right mount a vigorous defense of this historic concept which they insist transcends and defies any considerations of time and place on our planet. Caught in the middle are the hapless textbook writers who are uncertain whether to describe our economy to an even more hapless generation of students as mixed capitalism, a mixed capitalistic enterprise system, peoples' capitalism, or just plain American capitalism. Finally, there are the members of the Catholic Economic Association whom it is my privilege to address today. The principal reason for that organization's existence appears to rest, or at least it used to rest, on an inveterate belief that there is a third way or a middle way to run an economic system. It 23

Capitalism · Communism · Economic system · Economics · Market economy · Market socialism · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Socialism · State socialism · Economic Theory and Institutions

• W kręgu solidaryzmu – Heinrich Pesch SJ i „jezuicka szkoła ekonomii”

  Open Access•Przemysław Załuska•Perspektywy Kultury•2021

  Add to list

• The Development and Application of Social Policy in the United States

  Catherine Therese Knoop•Review of Social Economy•1972

  Add to list

• Power without Property

  H Thomas Austern, Adolph A Berle•Stanford Law Review•1960

  Add to list