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Do such developments mean that socialism is on the wane? Probably not. Socialism certainly will live on as what some of its European advocates have called a "permanent experiment." The Social Democratic defeat in Sweden did not involve any shrinking of the social services. In the
Western social democracies, burgeoning bureaucracies will probably be viewed by voters as acceptable trade-offs for the security provided by a welfare state. As for the U.S.S.R.'s East bloc satellites, Aron concludes: "I find that there are no grounds for thinking that the leaderships of the Hungarian, Polish or Czechoslovak parties, once freed from the grasp of Soviet Russia, would convert to freedom of their own accord and renounce all, or important parts, of their power. As long as the Red Army tanks assure the permanence of their reign, they improve their brand image in the eyes of the governed, acquiring a partial legitimacy through concessions to popular aspirations and tinkerings with ideological conformism."
For Third World countries, socialism, as one U.S. State Department analyst explains, is almost certain to remain "a blueprint." Another American diplomat, William B. Young, points out that "in many less developed countries, only the government can effectively mobilize capital. In some countries, insecure leaders fear the existence of any private activity which would conceivably have the financial resources to challenge their authority."
What ultimately sustains all forms of socialism is the inherent appeal of an ideology promising to remake society in a manner that will foster a "new man" —assured of his material needs, emotionally and psychologically unfettered and bursting with creativity. To this the socialists like to contrast "heartless capitalism," with its alleged willingness to tolerate permanent working-class poverty. The reality that the socialist promise is largely unfulfilled is not viewed as conclusive by its ideologues. In answer they would probably paraphrase G.K. Chesterton to the effect that socialism, like Christianity, has not failed, because it has never been tried. Surveying Tanzania's mounting problems, for example, President Nyerere urges patience. "We are like a man who does not get smallpox because he got himself vaccinated," he explains. "His arm is sore, and he feels sick for a while. If he has never seen what smallpox does to people, he may feel very unhappy during that period and wish he had never agreed to the vaccination."
Nonsocialist societies, in fact, have done their own share of vaccinating and know the ache of a sore arm. Americans for decades have enjoyed Social Security and disability programs and unemployment benefits, to say nothing of the world's most extensive system of government-supported colleges and universities. Partly as a result, the U.S., like other industrial democracies, has begun to suffer the pains of a mushrooming bureaucracy.
Even the most libertarian governments, moreover, meddle with the marketplace, if only by regulating the money supply, setting import duties and granting tax advantages to selected economic sectors. But unlike the socialist, who sees the state as the main engine