Joseph Sobran

The sudden collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe has amazed and elated the West. But what does it mean? If Communism has lost, what has won?

As I see it now, there are really two economies—two distinct systems of producing and exchanging wealth. Or rather, two systems that purport to do these things, though only one of them really produces anything, and the other is organized by a peculiar form of exchange.

The first is what is called the trade economy—the one summed up in the phrase "the free market." The other might be called "the tax economy."

American government, we are told, is notable for its stability. And so it seems, at least on the surface. But stability over a long period, as the Russian tsars could tell us, is no guarantee of permanence. And the tsars fell very suddenly after ruling far longer than the U.S. government's two centuries.