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many in Latin America regard "the Colossus of the North." Yes, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez have gained a lot of ground in places like leftist Bolivia and even "conservative" Columbia, but have a somewhat more equivocal position in places like Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, which have also elected left-leaning heads of State. These countries clearly seek to maintain friendly relations with the United States. (Havana Journal, 6/11/06)

The election of socialists to high office in Central and South America, while puzzling to capitalist cheerleaders, is perfectly understandable - and is due in large measure to the sort of reforms pushed by the United States that do little to address critical underlying problems. The electoral revolution was further assisted by the fact that, all things considered, there is very little difference between capitalism and socialism as far as the ordinary person is concerned. Both rely on the wage system as the primary means by which the bulk of the population gains its income. Both concentrate ownership of the means of production: capitalism in the hands of a small private elite, socialism in the hands of a relatively small bureaucratic elite. Both (despite all the rhetoric to the contrary) view the individual ordinary worker as fungible, something that can be replaced when worn out, increases in cost, or a reasonable and cost-efficient substitute becomes available.

Driven to desperation by the failure of one system, people switch to the other. They little realize that the basic problem is not the honesty or the corruption of the people running the system, the objective (and non-existent) advantages of one system over the other, or anything except the fact that in neither system are ordinary people empowered with direct and significant ownership of the means of production. As Daniel Webster stated in 1820, "power naturally and necessarily follows property." Whether capitalism or socialism, then, ordinary people are left powerless because they lack property in the means of production.

Humanity will probably never achieve the "perfect" economic system where all drudgery work is eliminated and everyone is free to do the work he or she loves. It becomes imperative, however, for transforming economies - whether capitalist to socialist or vice versa - indeed all the nations of the world, to implement effective programs of expanded ownership of productive assets. The alternative is a pendulum swing between capitalism and socialism

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