Joseph Sobran

When Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency in 1980, many conservatives (myself among them) were euphoric. They expected a wholesale reform in American government; there was even talk of a "Reagan Revolution." 

When Reagan left office eight years later, it looked as if the liberals had been right. 

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."