When Free To Choose was first published a decade ago, we were sufficiently optimistic to label our final chapter "The Tide Is Turning." The climate of opinion was, we thought, shifting away from a belief in collectivism and toward a belief in individualism and private markets. We did not dream that that tide would turn as dramatically as it has--on both sides of the Iron Curtain.Le sigh. It is to laugh, for otherwise it would be to weep. At least Milton was not around to see the current state of affairs, and we can only hope that said affairs did not distress Rose too badly.
Ten years ago, many people around the world believed that socialism was a viable, even the most promising, system for promoting material prosperity and human freedom. Few people anywhere in the world believe that today. Idealistic faith in socialism still lives on, but only in some ivory tower enclaves in the West and in some of the most backward countries elsewhere. Ten years many people were convinced that capitalism, based on free private markets, was a deeply flawed system that was not capable of achieving both widely shared prosperity and human freedom. Today conventional wisdom regards capitalism as the only system that can do so.
Let us spread the Good Word in hopes that what we are seeing from the ivory tower of the Oval Office is the last, dying surge of collectivism.
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