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Socialism and Equality in Cross-National Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Thomas R. Dye  and
Harmon Zeigler
Thomas R. Dye
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Harmon Zeigler
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound and University of Washington
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Extract

It is widely asserted that socialist economies are equalitarian. The distinguished Yale political scientist Charles E. Lindblom labels this proposition undeniable:

It is in communist provision of … some degree of equality in the distribution of income and wealth that the communist claim to approximate the humanitarian vision … seems undeniable. On these fronts communist systems have to be credited with great accomplishments, on the whole probably greater than those of the polyarchies [capitalist democracies] (Lindblom, 1977, p. 226).

Lindblom's influential work, Politics and Markets: The World's Political Economic Systems, expresses the conventional wisdom in academic circles that communist regimes trade freedom and economic prosperity for a leveling of economic benefits, and that capitalist nations opt for freedom and economic prosperity at the sacrifice of equality. Capitalism achieves higher economic growth rates by providing individual incentives for work, productivity, initiative, and enterprise; these incentives necessarily entail inequalities. Socialism, by eliminating private ownership of the means of production, achieves a leveling of wealth and income.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , Winter 1988 , pp. 45 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1988

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