In a pair of incisive posts occasioned by this proposal, Brad DeLong explains why our shared alma mater is like socialist Yugoslavia, while Jim Manzi explains why it's a "$40 billion tax-free hedge fund with a very large marketing and PR arm called Harvard University."
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Ross,
Socialist Yugoslavia was run on market-socialist lines and avoided many of the systemic problems of both capitalist Western countries and the Soviet Eastern Bloc. It boasted the highest economic growth rate in the world for about fifteen years, achieved substantial levels of workers' participation and social equality, and was considerably less repressive than the Warsaw Pact countries (it was, of course, also neutral and non-aligned). It's still looked upon favorably by probably most of the people who lived there at the time. To be compared to socialist Yugoslavia isn't necessariluy a bad thing.
DeLong points out correctly that they did have fairly high unemployment, due to the fact that worker-owned firms try to keep the number of workers as small as possible. That is a correct criticism, but in the broad scope of things it's a fairly minor one.
Posted by Hector | May 13, 2008 8:13 AM