Extract
The answer to the question is: because
the two ideologies that have dominated the world, capitalism and communism,
have failed.
Index
- Introduction
- What might be the bases of the
new balanced economic model?
- Dogmatism is the main obstacle
- The policy of health a good
example
- Something similar occur in the
financial sector
- Theory and practice
- The government control on the
economies is a reality
- Also in Europe
- Consequences of the neoliberal
policy
- Conclusions
- Introduction
The financial crisis in the United
States of the year 2008 and the current economic crisis in the Euro zone have
demonstrated the weakness of capitalism; something similar happened regarding
communism which disappeared in the Soviet Union since 1989 after a long period
of economic fails.
The first movement of rebellion
appeared at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Spain, in the year 2010; the movement
did stay recurrently in other cities of Spain. In the rest of Europe, Iceland, Greece,
Portugal, Spain and Italy the social protests have been intense, also in the
most privileged economic nations like Germany, France and Belgium. In the year 2011 in the United States emerged
the social movement Occupy Wall Street
which has realized a hard critique on the economic system. They assure to be 99
per cent of population while the richest are only 1 per cent. The same than in
Europe the protests have occurred in several cities of the United States. But
the wave has reached Asia and the Middle East in one unsuspected country,
Israel, where people is requesting also a fair economic system.
The world economic reality
demonstrates a truth: that it is necessary to build a new balanced economic
model without ideological prejudices. So far, none ideology has solved the
principal economic problems of the world: poverty and destruction of nature and
environment.
- What might be the bases of the new balanced, eclectic, economic
model?
The first thing is to discard
dogmatism in economic issues. The new eclectic world economic model must be a result
of a political international consensus on the essential themes to ensure the
humanity survival and should include the following issues:
-
To
recognize that overpopulation is the more severe problem that humanity faces.
-
The
highest population growth rate in the developing countries and the migrations
toward the developed economies is creating the main problem of the present and
one unsustainable trend for the future.
-
Consequence
of the overpopulation is the damage to nature and environment.
-
The
free market cannot be a sacred concept.
-
The
control of state on the economic activities cannot be a sacred concept.
-
Free
market and control of state on the economic activities are, both, necessary in
all the economies.
-
The
combination between free market and control of the state on the economic
activities is the synthesis that might create a global wellbeing.
-
The
governments should make their most efforts to reach the Millennium Goals especially
in economics, health, environment and education.
- Dogmatism is the main obstacle
Recently I read a
comment attributed to a former Major of one of the most important cities of the
world, who assured that the free market policies are the only way to reach
progress. The problem is that this is the opinion of many leaders, especially
in the United States. However, the facts demonstrate that this concept is not
truth. Important economists have recognized that the neoliberal policies
followed in the last years by many countries has been not successful.
Hitherto, the free
market policies in the United States have not been able to guarantee the
wellbeing of the most citizens of that nation. In the United States exists
millions of poor people, a high rate of unemployment and sub employment and the
social situation is not the best; for example, the poor citizens that are not
covered by a private health insurance do not have possibilities to attend its health.
The economic and social
injustice is not a phenomenon that takes place only in the capitalist societies.
The phenomenon occurs also in the communist nations, like the Former Soviet
Union and in the other communist countries in a degree more intense. The reason is because in the democratic
capitalist nations the people have the possibility of expressing their
aspirations but in the communist nations no. In the democratic capitalist
nations the workers have the right to strike, but in the communist nations no.
That is a very significant difference between the two regimes.
- The policy of health a good example
In contrast with the
United States, other capitalist nations like England, Spain, Italy and the
Nordic societies have social systems of health that cover the entire
population. This is a policy proper of the socialist’s regimes but that,
however, is applied by democratic and capitalist nations like the mentioned.
This means that a good socialist policy may be applied by the democratic and
capitalist societies and vice versa, that capitalist policies may be applied by
socialist or communist societies. China is a good example of this assertion.
China is formally a communist regime but they apply policies of free market.
Some years ago that was unthinkable for the dogmatic communist leaders but the
evolution of the system led to this new economic posture. The moral is that
dogmatism concepts have been over-passed by the reality.
- Something similar occur in the financial sector
The defenders of the
free market policies assure that must have a complete freedom to set the
interest rates. For example, in the 90s years the International Monetary Fund,
IMF, and the World Bank forced to the Latin American countries to eliminate any
kind of controls on the interest rates, as a part of the programs of economic
adjusts of those years, but that policy is not applied in the United States,
the main capitalist nation, where the government set the interest rates. In
this case it is clear the contradiction between theory and practice. The control
of the interest’s rates by the government of the United States put in evidence
that the interest rates control is employed the same by capitalist governments
than by communist or socialist regimes.
- Theory and practice
There is a big
difference between theory and practice. The facts previously explained
demonstrate that the orthodox capitalist, communist and socialist theories are
not applied in rigid form. The communist orthodoxy was developed by the Soviets
leaders and the Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung. The orthodox communism practice
was the cause of the communism end in the Soviet Union in the year 1989. On the
contrary, in the Western countries the capitalist leaders have not applied the
capitalist orthodoxy radically and therefore capitalism has survived. The best
proof of this assertion is the New Deal developed by the President Franklyn D.
Roosevelt to solve the Great Depression of the 30s years. The communist government
remains currently in China because the Chinese leaders do not apply the
communist orthodoxy since the economic point of view.
- The government control on the economies is a reality
In all the political
regimes, capitalist, communist and socialist the governments exert a control on
the economy, in ones countries more in other less; that is the truth. The
governments assume the most important economic issues. For example, they decide
the regime of property: what is public or private property. The governments set
the monetary, fiscal and financial policy; the commercial policy: what can be
or not exported or imported; the minimum wage and the policy of employment; the
agricultural and industrial policy, the control of prices, the control of
quality of goods and services, in other words, in the real world the
governments of the most advanced capitalist nations control the most important
economic activities. The exception has occurred in the last years as a
consequence of the creation of the Euro Zone because the national governments
have resigned to its sovereign capacity to issue money to create a common
currency, the euro.
In general, the problem
is that some leaders of the most advanced capitalist nations have a double
discourse: in its economic internal
policy they do not allow the free market practices without restrictions but, on
the contrary, they apply all kind of controls like the mentioned in the
previous paragraphs; however, in its foreign discourse they defend the free
market policies without restrictions. It is, then, a contradictory and not
sincere attitude.
- Also in Europe
In the last years, the
neoliberal policy has been imposed also to the nations of Western Europe: Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Those
countries have been forced to privatize many of their public services and
public enterprises and to reduce the public spending in essential activities
like health and education.
- Consequences of the neoliberal policy
The consequences have
been recession and unemployment. It means more poverty, social and political
instability. So far the political regimes in those countries have survived but
the big question is until where the population would resist that policy. The
historic experience shows that the depression of the 20th and 30th
years was the main cause of the apparition of dictators like Benito Mussolini,
Adolf Hitler and the II World War.
- Conclusions
-
Capitalism
and communism has failed, therefore it is necessary to build a new eclectic,
balanced economic model without ideological prejudices.
-
Dogmatic
concepts of one and other ideologies, capitalism and communism, should be
reviewed according to the new reality of the world.
-
Communism,
definitively, is the ideology of the backwardness and the poverty.
-
Capitalism
has good and bad things; the worse is the egoism, the unlimited wish of wealth.
-
The
democratic socialism recognizes the paper of the state and the paper of the
market.
-
Only
a dialectic synthesis between the best of capitalism and the best of the
democratic socialism may be the road to one best and fair world.
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