Postscript: Tremors in the Paradigm

This is by way of a footnote on my previous post. In it I commented about how both Communism and Capitalism, in their adherence to economic determinism and rational market economics, were departures from the "sliding scale" of recognition of the circumstances of the purchaser found in the social market paradigm. On reflection, I realized that some might object, and point out the Communist maxim, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", and feel I had not been fair to Marx.  However, the context is important.  Marx wrote always in terms of class consciousness and class struggle, and deprecated the role of the isolated individual.  In writing about the Revolution of 1848 in France, he observed, "French peasants form a class in the same sense that a sack full of potatoes forms a sack of potatoes."  Thus, to continue and expand my previous metaphor, while Capitalism turns neighbors into isolated mutual predators, Communism turns neighbors into packs of mutual predators.  Both are antithetical to "neighborly democracy."