>The problem with Marxism is that whenever it doesn't work, people say it wasn't tried enough.
You see, that's funny, because a much more obvious example can be found in free-market austrian-school economic policies.
You see, that's funny, because a much more obvious example can be found in free-market austrian-school economic policies.
West Germanys post-war 'economic miracle' was largely guided by Austrian school economic thinking, while East Germany went the other way. This is the clearest A/B test ever devised of implementing two different economic strategies on a homogenous population. North/South Korea is also similar, but less so.
Most people don't even understand what the Austrian school actually says. That's not surprising, most people who comment on Marx have never opened his book, either.
For the record, it's based on the freedom to trade backed with strong rule of law using sound money. It also prescribes a lack of intervention by the government in the economy, mainly due to misallocation of productive resources and the likelihood of government intentionally or inadvertently creating monopolies that harm the consumer.
Probably the best introductory book on the subject is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_in_One_Lesson - Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Even if you oppose the idea, it's good to read and understand the theories and supporting arguments properly.
For the record, West Germany abandoned this model during the 1960s and moved towards a more social democratic model, and the USA hasn't tried it since before the 1930s. The current economies of the west are nothing like an economy under Austrian principles, in the same way the Chinese economy is nothing like an economy under Marxist/Maoist principles.
One of the most predictable things about Austrian advocates is their inability to conceive of alternatives beyond some kind of cartoon-stereotype Soviet command-economy. You seem to be aware of social democracy, so you are knowingly assuming a false dichotomy to make your point. I'd say it's even more intellectually dishonest when one considers that no one ever argues for a centrally-planned economy. At the very best, such a comparison holds no value today in evaluating Austrian-school thinking.
One half of the country chose the soviet command economy model, the other half chose to pursue an Austrian model. One half did immeasurably better than the other half. Those are the facts.
You can compare and contrast post-war West Germany and Great Britain if you like - the latter made great strides towards a more socialist governance probably as a direct result of the largely increased Government functions during the war, and the rise of those who thought that centrally planned economies would do better.
The point of bringing up West Germany is that the country prospered as a result of the liberal economic policies introduced in the immediate post-war period, both absolutely and relative against their East German counterparts, although the differences were small in the early years. It would be foolish to suggest that this is entirely down to the policy choices - all growth from zero looks impressive - however, it certainly did no harm and a lot of good.
That fact doesn't validate Austrian-school-thinking — merely that it worked better than Soviet central-planning given the global political and economic environment at the time, which says almost nothing. And even if you're arguing merely in favor of increased economic liberalization, this comparison still holds no value because social democracy has nothing to do with central planning! The points don't even exist along a linear axis — they are apples and oranges. The debate all over the world right now is about how best to implement social democracy, and comparing those two extreme economic philosophies doesn't contribute anything at all. To pretend it does is disingenuous.
The worst thing about right-wing followers of Austrian school thinking is that they refuse to consider the social outcomes when "market freedom" is taken too far; they are bent on destroying society as it exists and recreating a weak image of it inside their economic framework. Even von Hayek himself acknowledged the need for a basic social support system. This type of thinking is highly simplified, almost always ideologically-applied, and extremely toxic to our social fabric.
The preconditions were so different I think the example doesn't really show anything.
The Marshall plan was also equally applied to other war-torn Western European nations which didn't experience the same growth.
I agree that you can't isolate a specific economic philosophy from the general population and culture - the German people have always been very engineering minded and hard working - but something very interesting happened to post-war Germany, and it's always a good idea to look at this (same as the Finnish school example) and see what might have contributed.
I've generally seen the "not enough" argument in conjunction with Keynesian "government stimulus" (e.g., google "not enough stimulus" and the first half-dozen articles arguing that the recent $700B + stimulus was not big enough).
I haven't seen a similar corpus of arguments that the freenmarkets haven't worked because they weren't free enough. I think the chinese experiment opening up to capitalism is a great endorsement of additional freeing of markets "at the margin" increasing economic benefit.
Well, then I'm glad to find someone else who isn't under the impression that continuing and intensifying de-regulation and privatization will somehow solve our present economic crisis.
Read David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism (http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harv...) for a stunning exposition of the social and economic crises that have developed around the world as a result of governments attempting to apply this philosophy.
Responses like yours only reinforce my thesis: your philosophy can never be practiced successfully. Where it fails, the problem is only ever due to some sort of impurity or oversight in implementation. The market can never be "free enough".
[1] http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionC11 (sorry for a link that originates from the Anarchist FAQ but this is the best aggregated source on the subject I've found).
The wikipedia page is informative, if a little heavy going for the non-economist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School
As I posted above, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt is a simple, easy to read book that encapsulates most of the arguments put forth by the Austrian school.