tentative thoughts

If you spent most of your life in the USA, were educated there, and then find yourself living in a country which was once dominated by the Soviet Union, it is natural enough to ask yourself about the differences between the US system and the Soviet one.  That difference is often described using the labels "capitalism" and "communism".

"Communism", however, does not correctly apply to the Soviet Union.  A communist society is a classless society--It has neither rich, nor poor, nor middle class.  One might say that a truly communist society was the goal of "communists" in Eastern Europe, and it might be thought that this intention suffices to justify use of the term.  In that case, there needs to be a further defense.  It's not enough to proclaim classlessness (or social justice) as your goal; there need to be steps taken if that proclamation is to be something more than hot air.

In the case of the United States, the trick is to align capitalism with democracy and freedom, and then drop the word capitalism.  Here, one must ask whether those under the sway of the USA (both citizens and non-citizens) are, on account of their location in the space of politics and power, more free and more able to exercise democratic rights.

The trick of USA propagandists is to define "freedom" as narrowly as possible, so that finally it comes down to the ability to sell one's self (for most people) or the ability to participate in markets.  ("Sell one's self" may be too strong; more accurately, you rent  yourself for 40 or 50 hours a week.......You sell your "labor power", if I've correctly recalled Marx....)

That is a drastically curtailed notion of freedom and human happiness.  It is, in fact, a notion which removes justice from the goods of human life---unless one can mount an economic argument to the effect that a capitalist economy has a certain structure, an argument whose conclusion is the Leibnizian claim that no better arrangement is possible.

Here, the ideologists of capitalism have over-reached themselves, and continue to do so.  The assert that capitalist economies tend toward so-called "equilibrium".

Unfortunately, that is not true.  As Richard D. Wolff has been stressing, the current disaster is only the latest in a long line of train wrecks....... Every time there is a so-called economic downturn, people lose their jobs, suffer anxiety, families fall apart.  People die sooner than otherwise they would have, and the lives that they have are not pleasant.  But this is invisible within the ideological framework instilled in the breast of every red-blooded American.

And a thought I've come across in various forms lately needs to be registered:  The very fact that the Soviet Union existed (with all of its imperfections), and existed as an alternative to the USA system, made life better within the USA.  that might not be quite right.  It could also be said that compromises were made with labor after World War Two because capitalists feared losing everything to a revolt.  (Richard D. Wolff seems to be saying that.)  However, workers in, say, communist Czechoslovakia had a kind of grey security not enjoyed today by workers in the USA.  And workers in the USA during the Cold War had (until the 1970's) advantages and comforts that have disappeared or are disappearing today.

Further Details/Recommended Reading:

See, e.g., Quiggins "Zombie Economics", or Steve Keen's "Debunking Economics", or (even more sharply) Yanis Varoufakis recent apology on behalf of the economics profession  "And the Good Ship Greece Sails On" (24 June) at http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/,  or Richard D. Wolff's "Occupy the Economy"