Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction: Social Common Capital
- 1 Fisheries, Forestry, and Agriculture in the Theory of the Commons
- 2 The Prototype Model of Social Common Capital
- 3 Sustainability and Social Common Capital
- 4 A Commons Model of Social Common Capital
- 5 Energy and Recycling of Residual Wastes
- 6 Agriculture and Social Common Capital
- 7 Global Warming and Sustainable Development
- 8 Education as Social Common Capital
- 9 Medical Care as Social Common Capital
- Main Results Recapitulated
- References
- Index
Introduction: Social Common Capital
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction: Social Common Capital
- 1 Fisheries, Forestry, and Agriculture in the Theory of the Commons
- 2 The Prototype Model of Social Common Capital
- 3 Sustainability and Social Common Capital
- 4 A Commons Model of Social Common Capital
- 5 Energy and Recycling of Residual Wastes
- 6 Agriculture and Social Common Capital
- 7 Global Warming and Sustainable Development
- 8 Education as Social Common Capital
- 9 Medical Care as Social Common Capital
- Main Results Recapitulated
- References
- Index
Summary
RERUM NOVARUM INVERTED: THE ABUSES OF SOCIALISM AND THE ILLUSIONS OF CAPITALISM
In his historic 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII identified the most pressing problems of the times as “the abuses of capitalism and the illusions of socialism” (Leo XIII 1891). He called the attention of the world on “the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class” and condemned the abuses of liberal capitalism, particularly the greed of the capitalist class. At the same time, he vigorously criticized the illusions of socialism, primarily on the ground that private property is a natural right indispensable for the pursuit of individual freedom. Exactly 100 years after Rerum Novarum, the New Rerum Novarum was issued by Pope John Paul II on May 15, 1991, identifying the problems that plague the world today as “the abuses of socialism and the illusions of capitalism” (John Paul II 1991 and Uzawa 1991a, 1992c).
Contrary to the classic Marxist scenario of the transition of capitalism to socialism, the world is now faced with an entirely different problem of how to transform a socialist economy to a capitalist economy smoothly. For such a transformation to result in a stable, well-balanced society, however, we must be explicitly aware of the shortcomings of the decentralized market system as well as the deficiencies of the centralized planned economy.
The centralized planned economy has been plagued by the enormous power that has been exclusively possessed by the state and has been arbitrarily exercised.
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- Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital , pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005