WHY AREN’T THESE PEOPLE SMILING?

JOHN Kenneth Galbraith has summed up the differences between capitalism and Communism with the line that capitalism features the exploitation of man by man, while under Communism the situation is just the reverse. This bit of cleverness has usually been employed on behalf of Galbraith’s theory that the Soviet and American economic models were exhibiting increasing signs of “convergence.” But it was also meant to ridicule the cold war. Why, Galbraith seemed to suggest, should intelligent men waste their talents in an absurd conflict over competing economic systems, each with its obvious imperfections and inequities?

Is it churlish to remind the world of the infamous—or, in Galbraith’s case, silly—opinions expressed by the democratic world’s progressive intellectuals on the subject of Communism? Not really, given the role they will play in shaping the post-Communist foreign-policy debate. Galbraith, for example, having been wrong, wrong, and wrong again about the Soviet economy, is even today cautioning the Russians and others against putting too much faith in the market.

AP

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Arch Puddington

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JOHN Kenneth Galbraith has summed up the differences between capitalism and Communism with the line that capitalism features the exploitation of man by man, while under Communism the situation is just the reverse. This bit of cleverness has usually been employed on behalf of Galbraith’s theory that the Soviet and American economic models were exhibiting increasing signs of “convergence.” But it was also meant to ridicule the cold war. Why, Galbraith seemed to suggest, should intelligent men waste their talents in an absurd conflict over competing economic systems, each with its obvious imperfections and inequities?

Is it churlish to remind the world of the infamous—or, in Galbraith’s case, silly—opinions expressed by the democratic world’s progressive intellectuals on the subject of Communism? Not really, given the role they will play in shaping the post-Communist foreign-policy debate. Galbraith, for example, having been wrong, wrong, and wrong again about the Soviet economy, is even today cautioning the Russians and others against putting too much faith in the market.