[PEN-L:1673] Re: Social Democracy and Utopia

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>And his definition of economic development was clearly that of the
>development of capitalism.
>

We prefer to talk about the "mixed economy," or "social democracy," or
"social-market economy," or the "political-economic arrangements that
produced the fastest generation of economic growth that the world has ever
seen." The alternatives--whether laissez-faire during the Great Depression,
Cuba in the era of the ten million ton sugar harvest, Yugoslavia under
Tito, or the Soviet Union under Brezhnev--do look rather dismal, don't they?

Social democracy isn't utopia, but it is a lot closer to it than the
available alternatives have been...


Brad DeLong