"Bush campaign ads using team"

[Chaerophon]

It should be obvious that one cannot "combine" them; one can only replace one with the other, depending on the sphere of economics one is discussing. And, historically speaking, it should be obvious which one is prefered; things like the potato famine in Ireland (where, due to the Corn Laws, Ireland was a net grain exporter during the famine, as it was economically unfeasable to sell to the local populace), the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism.

Actually, it isn't obvious at all. Ever since the 'evolutionary socialism' of Eduard Bernstein and the British 'Fabian Socialists', there have existed social democrats/democratic socialists who envision socialism as an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. As in Marx, they assume that the capitalist epoch is necessary and that it will eventually be eclipsed by socialist state forms. However, the evolutionary socialist sees the process as being one in which capitalism is slowly reformed from within as the means of production are slowly returned 'to the people' through public ownership and the gradual reform of state structures. In Canada we have a vibrant history of such socialists, starting with the CCF in the 1930's right up to the NDP of the modern era. Many elements of the modern NDP are less optimistic about the chances for the actual formation of a truly socialist state; however, the tradition remains very relevant.

As a side note, the Corn Laws weren't socialist; they were mercantilist. In fact, Marxists actually supported the anti-Corn Law movement as it was seen as a class struggle against the landed aristocracy.

Another point worth noting is that, particularly in Canada, the public ownership of utilities was viewed as a boon by capitalists, and it has often been argued that the public ownership of industries and utilities povided capitalists with the necessary infrastructure to advance industry in general. Of particular note is the Canadian National railroad and Ontario hydro. Furthermore, capitalists and economists alike endorsed the Keynesian economic movement of the 1950's-1970's and, more than any other period in history, that period was marked by an explosion in the creation of jobs and capitalist infrastructure. This was the period when the Western world truly separated itself from the rest and now, with the force of the West to 'free up' markets being brought to bear in the less developed regions of the world, we can economically (if not necessarily at a micro, middle- to lower- class level) afford to engage in supply-side rather than demand-side measures as a result of the abundance of cheap overseas labour available in Free Trade Zones and other such capitalist meccas. In sum, we disallow other nations from protectionism and the stimulation of their own native industry through the conditional policies and threat of sanction from the WTO, IMF, and World Bank so that we may, in turn, bring our manufacturing and low-level production capacities to them in a free trade environment such that we may exploit their perennially low wages.

In other words - and the net increase, over the past 20 years, in the gap between our own economic well-being and that of those in the third world serves as proof - protectionism and public ownership isn't always a burden on capitalist economies. In fact, the development of native infrastructure and industry can often benefit greatly from it.