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Rockaway Beach, California

capitalism vs. socialism

The crucial difference, however, is that the capitalist, by giving before he takes, pursues a mode of thinking and acting suitable to uncertainty. The socialist makes a national plan in which existing patterns of need and demand are ascertained, and then businesses are contracted to fulfill them; demand comes first. One system is continually, endlessly performing experiments, testing hypotheses, discovering partial knowledge; the other is assembling data of inputs and outputs and administering the resulting plans.

Socialism presumes that we already know most of what we need to know to accomplish our national goals. Capitalism is based on the idea that we live in a world of unfathomable complexity, ignorance, and peril; and that we cannot possibly prevail over our difficulties without constant efforts of initiative, sympathy, discovery and love. One system maintains that we can reliably predict and elicit the results we demand. The other asserts that we must give long before we can know what the universe will return. One is based on empirically calculable human power; the other on optimism and faith. These are the essential visions that compete in the world and determine our fate.

George Gilder: Wealth and poverty, Bantam Books, New York, 1981.

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