Вариант 21.
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Defining capitalism
Economic systems are often classified according to whatever the factors of production are privately owned, publicly owned or some mixture of the two. If private ownership prevails, the system is considered capitalistic. If public ownership prevails, socialistic or communistic is deemed an appropriate description. The term «mixed economy» is retained for those systems that reveal ownership features of capitalism and socialism, although where capitalism becomes a mixed system and the latter turns into socialism is never clear-cut.
Classifying economic systems solely on the basis of one criterion fails to capture some very important economic (and political) differences between capitalist economies, especially as they have evolved in the post—World War II period. However important as these differences might be, it seems more important to define capitalism in such a way that it can be used to denote a wide variety of real world economies that are distinguishable from a group of other economies that do not share the basic political and cultural as well as the economic institutions that are the essence of capitalism.
To sharpen the analysis, it is useful to begin with a favorite tool of those economists concerned with the manner in which economic activities are organized under capitalism—the model of the perfectly competitive market system.
In this model, the economy is viewed as a system of markets in each of which a homogeneous good is traded. Moreover, in each market buyers and sellers of the good are so numerous that no singly buyer or seller can influence the price at which the good is exchanged. Furthermore, this price, or the price mechanism, acts as a sign that provides all the information necessary to distribute output and factors throughout the economy in such a way that an optimal situation results. In other words, given the initial distribution of resource endowments among the population - human skills, ownership of physical and financial capital and land - the resulting production and distribution of that production will be such that no member of the society can be made better off in some material sense with making someone else worse off.
One of the outstanding developments under capitalism has been the increased role played by government in determining the composition of output. Government expenditures and tax revenues as a percentage of total output have been rising fairly steadily throughout most of the twentieth century, and consumption of nondurable goods and services as a percentage of output has declined. The rise of the role of government within the context of a system of predominant private ownership of the factors of production is largely the reflection of the rise of the so-called welfare state. The spread of public education, public medical and dental systems, pension and welfare schemes, and retraining programs along with retirement and unemployment benefit programs has been one of the outstanding features of post—World War II capitalist development. The rise of the welfare state and increase in public ownership indicate a shift in economic decision making in capitalist economies away from the private sector. This trend leads to a final consideration in the definition of capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system in which the owners of the factors of production and those making economic decisions concerning such things as production, savings, and investment are predominantly private individuals. Although somewhat vague, such a definition allows the analysis to incorporate some important historical developments as part of the definitive features of capitalism, features which are useful in distinguishing it from other forms of economic organization.
The increased significance of the government sector, especially during the post-World War II period, in determining the composition of output was accomplished without a decline in private consumption levels. Thus, although consumption of nondurable goods and services as a percentage of total output fell in capitalist economies during this period, the absolute level of per capita consumption rose. Moreover, this took place at a time when investment by businesses in plant and equipment in each country as a share of total output was at an all-time historical high, at least outside North America. The key to this seemingly paradoxical series of developments lay in the fact that never in the past had so many capitalist economies grown so rapidly for such sustained periods. The one exception was the United States. Thus, during the postwar period from, say, the early 1950s up through the early 1970s, in almost every capitalist economy rates of growth of total output and output per worker were outstanding compared with each country's previous performance. From the mid-1970s on, a definite slowdown in the growth of total output and output per worker occurred throughout the developed capitalist world. Consumption levels continued to rise but at a much reduced rate.
Classical Liberalism
In the seventeenth century, liberalism emerged as the radical philosophy that attacked authoritarianism and paternalism in the political sphere by defending the rights of the individual against the commands of monarchs and other rulers. The seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke questioned claims to political authority based on birth, social status, privilege, and divine right. Political authority either derived from the consent of the governed or else was illegitimate.
Later in the eighteenth century, liberals added the notion of the «rule of law,» the idea that government in its legislative capacity had to enact general rules that apply to all citizens equally. The substitution of the rule of people for the rule of law created a capricious, uncertain, and sometimes cruel community life. This early variety of liberalism— often termed «classical liberalism»—stimulated the development of the social sciences by insisting that what holds society together and promotes an orderly commercial economy is the mutual interplay of the passions and interests of ordinary citizens in the market.
A basic principle of liberal thought is that individuals are the best and most accurate judges of their own interests and can be relied upon to pursue those interests with great dedication and creativity. The mighty arm of the state with its web of regulations and bureaucratic agents often does more harm than good when trying to substitute administrative methods of organization for impersonal market processes that spring out of self-interested individual action.
The philosopher and American revolutionary, Thomas Paine, wrote that «society is created by our wants, government by our wickedness».
Classical liberals are not anarchists and at the very least recommend a minimal state: a state that protects lives, defines property rights, and enforces private contracts. A great many classical liberals (such as Adam Smith and the later classical school of economists) went somewhat further and requested that the state build and maintain certain public works (bridges, canals, highways, harbors, recreational parks, and so on), maintain standing armies, provide basic education, promote invention and innovation, and intervene in the market on a limited scale for specific humane purposes such as the enactment and enforcement of child labor laws.
Generally, the classical liberal believes in the general rule of laissez-faire and wants to preserve self-regulating market processes as much as possible. The classical liberal is confident that with the enactment of strict constitutional safeguards and the elimination of monopoly and the never-ending varieties of special-interest legislation, peace and material progress are within the reach of ail societies and all social classes.
The leading works of classical liberalism include Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), Herbert Spencer's The Man versus the State (1892), Friedrich A. Hayek's Constitution of Liberty (1960), Ludwig von Mises's Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition (1962), and Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom (1962).