The Car of Collectivism

The expression “mixed economy” defined economic and social policy during a large part of the twentieth century. It was popular in Europe after World War II, where most states, from France to Italy and the United Kingdom, were keen on increasing intervention in its name. In the glory days of Soviet communism, many economists detected a “convergence” between this regime and the West. A textbook of the 1960s on economic systems was typical, while moderate, in discussing the convergence between Western economies and command-and-control economies of the Soviet type: But if command is apt to give way to the market mechanism during the process of industrialization, the latter is also likely to yield everywhere more and more social control for the sake of ensuring stability, providing public services, and directing economic development in socially desired ways. In the past, these kinds of planning and steering were instituted too rigidly in the East and perhaps too loosely in the West; some future convergence on this plane is not at all unlikely.…