“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

So we celebrated the doctoral anointing of Mr. Show-tay last evening. Amidst the discussions, Dr. Show-tay argued that if I wanted to push for a non-capitalist social organization,the onus was on me to provide examples of success. I accepted that responsibility, but I shouldn’t have. It certainly is a responsibility, but the other side, I realized last night, also has the onus of showing successful examples of capitalism.

Two things emerge from this balance of responsibility, both of which became clear in our discussion about Cuba. The first is that success has to be defined. For the good doctor, the glory of iPods and Crank 2 constitute tangible success. For myself, I preferred to prize good health and free time.

The second issue is that one must consider the distribution of “success”.  And this is where, I think, it becomes much more difficult to demonstrate the success of capitalism. Herr Doctor argued that Cuban migration to the US was an example of revealed preferences, demonstrating that those who have lived under a non-capitalist system prefer capitalism. Ignoring the asymmetric information issues here, it’s necessary to put this case into perspective. It is a situation in which people are seeking to move from the periphery of capitalism to its core. Life in the core, indeed, has many advantages over the life in the periphery, but the two are not separable. The good life at the center is predicated on deprivation at the margins. Thus, we cannot look at the success of a system of social organization from the perspective of isolated examples.

Going forward, it now seems clear to me that we need to carefully define the desires that constitute the measure of success and that we can only consider success in a wholistic manner.