A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism : Economics, Politics, and Ethics

Before advancing to the more exciting field of analyzing diverse policy schemes from the stand point of economic theory and political philosophy, it is essential to introduce and explain the basic concepts used throughout thefollowing study. Indeed, the concepts explained in this chapter--the concepts of property, contract, aggression, capitalism and socialism--are so basic, so fundamental, that one cannot even avoid making use of them, if at times only implicitly. Unfortunately, though, the very fact that in analyzing any kind of human action and/or any kind of interpersonal relationship one must make use of these concepts does not imply that everyone has a precise understanding of them. It seems instead to be the other way around.Because the concept of property, for instance, is so basic that everyone seems to have some immediate understanding of it, most people neverthink about it carefully and can, as a consequence, produce at best a very vague definition. But starting from imprecisely stated or assumed definitions and building a complex network of thought upon them can lead only to intellectual disaster. For the original imprecisions and loopholes will then pervade and distort everything derived from them. To avoid this the concept of property must first be clarified.Next to the concept of action, property is the most basic category in the social sciences. As a matter of fact, all other concepts to be introduced in this chapter--aggression, contract, capitalism and socialism--are definable in terms of property: aggression being aggression against property, contract being a nonaggressive relationship between property owners, socialism being an institutionalized policy of aggression against property, and capitalism being an institutionalized policy ofthe recognition of property and contractualism. "The following study on the economics, politics and morals of socialism and capitalism is a systematic treatise on political theory. Interdisciplinary in scope, it will discuss the central problems of political economy and political philosophy: how to organize society so as to promote the production of wealth and eradicate poverty, and how to arrange it so as to make it a just social order. [...] the major goals of this treatise to develop and explain the conceptual and argumentative tools, economic and moral, needed to analyze and evaluate any kind of empirical social or political system, to understand or appraise any process of social change, and to explain or interpret similarities as well as differences in the social structure of any two or more different societies." --[page 1] Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-6 Property, Contract, Aggression, Capitalism, Socialism....Pages 7-18 Socialism Russian Style....Pages 19-37 Socialism Social-Democratic Style....Pages 39-64 The Socialism of Conservatism....Pages 65-94 THE SOCIALISM OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING and THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS....Pages 95-125 THE ETHICAL JUSTIFICATION OF CAPITALISM and WHY SOCIALISM IS MORALLY INDEFENSIBLE....Pages 127-144 THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIALISM or THE THEORY OF THE STATE....Pages 145-166 Capitalist Production and the Problem of Monopoly....Pages 167-186 Capitalist Production and the Problem of Public Goods....Pages 187-210 Back Matter....Pages 211-275