Chris Dillow — Socialism in one country

The takeaway:

The appropriate modes of economic organization vary from country to country. In saying this, I’m following Edmund Burke, who wrote:

Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

The answer might lie in a distinction made by Burke as described (pdf) by Jesse [Norman]. He distinguished between “embodied” reason – which proceeds from concrete actually-existing conditions – and abstract reason which began from theory. Those who give blanket, worldwide support to either capitalism or socialism are perhaps too prone to abstract reason and too little to embodied reason....

Marx also distinguished between rational abstraction and concrete abstraction, following Kant and Hegel. This distinction is often overlooked in Anglo-American thought.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Socialism in one country
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle