Socialist Reforms and the Capitalist World

Abstract

As is well known, the economic reforms in the European Socialist countries have aroused a good deal of sensation, particularly in North America and Western Europe. Many cynics have taken delight in interpreting the reforms as an admission on the part of Socialism of its defects and an acknowledgement of the superiority of Capitalism by the adoption of several features of the rival system. Some, in their naïveté, have gone even further — depicting the reforms as a return to Capitalism. Alternatively, others have looked upon the reforms as evidence of strength in the sense that Socialist leaders have been able to rise above their ideological prejudices and have embarked upon the adaptation of the system to meet the challenge of the higher stages of economic development and the technological revolution.