What the Change of System From Socialism to Capitalism Does and Does Not Mean

rT s wo systems can be said to have dominated the 20th century: the capitalist system and the socialist system.' However, this judgement is not selfevident. It usually encounters three objections. The first objection is that it is exaggerated and unjustified to mention the socialist system alongside the capitalist system, almost in parallel with it. In terms of world history, the socialist system was a brief interlude, a temporary aberration in the course of historical events. That view could well be the one that historians take in 200 years, but it is not the way we who live in the 20th century see things. The establishment, existence and partial collapse of the socialist system have left a deep and terrible scar on this century. The socialist system persisted for quite a long time and still persists to a great extent in the world's most populous country, China. Its rule extended, at its height, over a third of the world's population. The Soviet Union was considered a superpower, possessed of fearful military might. The socialist system weighed not only on the hundreds of millions who were subject to it, but on the rest of the world's population as well. The second objection questions whether there were only two systems. Is it not possible to talk of a third system that is neither capitalist nor socialist? I am not enquiring here into the question of whether it might be desirable to establish some kind of third system. I do not know what the 21st or 22nd century may bring. All