Capitalism Has Not Won, Socialism Is Not Dead

The fall of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union raise the question of whether conclusions may now be drawn in the historic argument over the nature of the capitalist system. Has the communist collapse proved that the socialist idea is fundamentally flawed, that in the final analysis capitalism has demonstrated its efficiency and superiority?

This is undoubtedly what is accepted now in the West, and its clearest ideological expression was offered two years ago in Francis Fukuyama’s article “The End of History,” which was (briefly) canonized as the new testament of American conservatism. Even though an evaluation of the failure of the Soviet system does not relate directly to the concept of democratic socialism in the West, this article clearly suggests not only that Soviet communism is a failure but that any challenge to the principles of the free market and capitalist economics has now been proven to be fundamentally spurious.

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