In both capitalist and socialist countries, it has long been assumed that economic life can be guided in accordance with an ideological commitment. Such a commitment encounters the progressive transformation in economic life that is implicit in both the capitalist and the socialist dynamic. This conflict between ideology and the dynamic of change – between ideology and reality – is the dialectic of the present time. Just as capitalism is restrained by ideology from a greatly needed role for the state, so socialism is kept by ideology from the useful, perhaps inevitable, role of the market. In this century, both systems have served the well-being of humankind beyond anything imagined in previous times. The chances for economic success are strongly enhanced when the world is dealt with as it is. In a world of continuing transformation, thought should not be surrendered to ideological rigor.
