The Economic System as an End or as a Means and the Future of Socialism and Capitalism: An Evolutionary Viewpoint

Alberto Chilosi
2003 Social Science Research Network  
After the demise of "real" socialism and the decline of "western" socialism, socialism can be salvaged as a social preference system oriented towards equality and social justice, to be implemented without systemic constraints in the organizational and institutional sense. At the same time there is a case for maintaining an institutional framework allowing different forms of economic organization, capitalist and noncapitalist, to compete on equal footing, in an evolutionary perspective, thus
more » ... wing the second to develop if proven efficient. Another way for a spontaneous extension of the domain of socialism could derive from the socialization of consumption, if the consumption of public goods continues to make up a growing component of real consumption. JEL Classification number: P50
doi:10.2139/ssrn.372182 fatcat:ilnagrp6rbh4vi3nkucvsd4mnu