Capitalism and Democracy

Socialism has collapsed. The long, historic struggle between capitalism and socialism has come to an end, and capitalism has emerged the victor. This turn of events was foreshadowed by the privatization movement of the late 1970s and 1980s that swept England, the United States, and a number of Latin American countries. History still awaited the renunciation of socialism by those who lived it, but that soon came in the form of the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe and in the spiraling chain of events, set in motion by "perestroika," that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

China and Cuba continue to wave the socialist banner, but to most observers this seems an act of desperation - an effort to proclaim loyalty to an ideology that may be integral to their historical identity, but which all the world has now repudiated.