Solution
David answered on
Dec 22 2021
Weekly Thought Assignment #2: Due Fe
uary 6, 2006
Karl Marx called for the “overthrow of all existing conditions”, specifically capitalism, and its replacement with socialism/communism. John Maynard Keynes, writing in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s, argued for stabilization policies in order to maintain social order and progress with capitalism. Since that time, the world has experienced both strategies. Discuss these experiences and suggest the direction for the future of economic thought.
An economic system is described as the sum of ‘all the various processes of organizing and motivating labor, producing, distributing, and circulating of the fruits of human labor, including products and services, consumer goods, machines, tools, and other technology used as inputs to future production, and the infrastructure within and through which production, distribution, and circulation occurs’. Each economy functions on the basis on many different processes , each of them unique in its own way. None of the processes can be replicated in entirety, as the political, cultural, and environmental atmosphere of the economy shapes it. So, we can have a Chinese system, an American system or an Indian system- the distinguishing features of a system are bundled under the name of the country and determinate geographical boundaries. For the sake of tractable comparisons and understanding, economists differentiate economic systems on the basis of modes of production, and the extent of government intervention in the system.
Socialism was born with the promise of a superior economy, as compared to capitalism. This superiority was based on the establishment of equality among different sections/ classes of people. This equality was in terms of material wealth, freedom and well being. Such homogeneity was perceived as an outcome of the ‘planning’ by the State. This established the social control of production processes, so...