MIXED MARKET LOVE
As a Social Democrat, I find Mr. McCauley's praise of free-market capitalism to be slightly obtuse.
He speaks of the incredible amount of wealth and infrastructure created by the free-market; a point that even Karl Marx was willing to concede.
What Mr. McCauley fails to address is the abundance of successful mixed-market economies in Europe and throughout the world.
These social democracies include the U.K., Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Japan and Denmark. They all have happier and healthier citizens with greater income equality.
They have lower rates of crime, incarceration, drug abuse and recidivism, homelessness, disease, infant mortality and maternal mortality.
These social democracies also have longer life spans and a greater proportion of the population obtaining college degrees.
Compared to the socialized health care programs abroad, the U.S. spends approximately 30 percent more per capita on a health care system that provides a lower standard of treatment (U.N. World Health Statistics 2011).
The U.S. ranks 77th in the world for income equality; just ahead of countries like Cameroon, Nicaragua and Uganda and just behind Ghana, Georgia and Kenya (UNDP Report 2008).
With all that being said, I'm left wondering how Mr. McCauley can condemn “socialism” to failure in a world where mixed-market, social democracies consistently outperform the U.S. in almost every aspect of economic and social prosperity.
Michael Karger
Undergraduate
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