Robert Lawson Socialism Summary

The next articles we discussed were Economic Freedom by Robert Lawson and Socialism by Robert Heilbroner. These two articles compare two types of economic systems: Socialism and Capitalism. The authors list the pros and cons of each system and try to push one system over the other. Heilbroner talks about socialism which is defined as a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production. Heilbroner goes on to explain the beginning of socialism and some of the problems that emerge from this type of economic system. One of the problems he discusses is that of planning. In socialism the government plans everything. Since the government has to decide of how much of a product and what product to produce they get over

On the other hand Lawson discusses the idea that people should have personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete in markets, and protection of person and property. These ideas promote the economic system of capitalism. The government also has an important role in this system but it should refrain from taking people’s property and from interfering with personal choice. The idea is that this leads to a better quality of living. Lawson goes on to explain the beginning of capitalism and tries to measure economic freedom. He uses five categories and each category has a score from one to ten. Then the average is taken to come up with a score for the country. Countries with higher economic freedom scores tend to have better life expectancy, higher GDP per capita, higher economic growth, and higher income for the poor. This article provides evidence of why certain countries were towards the bottom of the Gapminder chart. Most of the bottom countries did not have much economic freedom as opposed to the top half. There leaders and governments were dictators and only cared about maintaining their