[iguy]

> it is wrong to argue that every socialist country will share the Soviet fate

Clearly not all of them will be invaded by the germans, but there are nevertheless strong similarities, and quite general lessons to be learned about human behavior. Just concluding that that Russia does bad things misses the point.

Political control of the economy inevitably means an enormous concentration of power. Instead of your boss, your landlord, your mayor (and your priest) being independent forces, if they are all one person, then that person has tremendous, almost total, power over your life. The history of what people do to others when they have total power is not pretty.

The US founding fathers were keenly aware of this, although they lived too early to imagine that economic control was really something ought to be included in the list. Their concerns about un-opposed power have not been proven ill-judged.

[legatus]

Political control of the economy by a vanguard party leads to an enormous concentration of power, I agree. But I also disagree that is about all socialist nations: I can only argue that countries based on the ideals of both Republican Spain and the Free territory of Ukraine should be attempted again, this time without the extreme conditions that characterized them the first time. If they really end up as you say, then we shall conclude that socialism as a political theory is irreparably flawed, but until then it's wrong to conclude that.