Table 1. cally” to demands of citizens who command large resources, while ignoring those who have little or none. In a market society, individuals without resources cannot be truly free: for practical purposes they are disenfranchised and unable to help define “the general interest.” How to deal with the poor— i.e., the “noncitizens” of the market — is an unsolved problem. Collective societies have their problems also. If we accept the proposition that democratic decision-making may define a legitimate public interest independent of the desires of particular individuals, then the legitimacy of collectivism depends upon intelligent, democratic participation of the whole society in decision-making. Mechanisms for democratic participation are simply not that well developed; indeed, in complex socioeconomic systems with tens of millions of citizens, such high levels of intelligent, genuinely democratic participation may not be possible. If definition of the general interest becomes in fact “benevolent paternalism” controlled by an elite, collectivism is merely a tyranny in disguise. More, it is not clear that available tools for planning, communication and management are adequate to the task of efficient guidance of modern complex economies by centralized or even partially decentralized agencies. From this brief examination of the two theories we can reach only a “Scotch verdict”: not proven. We cannot prove, certainly not to the satisfaction of all, that either market or collective approaches are necessarily superior. There are certain traps in either approach, which can be foreseen if not always avoided. We know that on the record the greatest material productivity has come from market economies, but we cannot be sure this is because they are market economies — other variables obscure the view. We know that collective economies can concentrate their efforts and produce mightily in chosen areas. We also know that collective societies, or
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