50 SOCIAL SCIENTIST that the theorists of convergence see the "synthesis" of capitalism and socialism as taking place on a capitalist basis, that is, on the basis of private ownership of the means of production. Typical in this respect are the views of Buckingham, who believes that three of the four foundations of capitalism... seem likely to be carried over from pure capitalism and incorporated into the newly emerging economic system. First, private property in capital plant and equipment . . . Second, economic incentives and profit motivation . . . Third, the market system is everywhere reasserting it&elf as the principal mechanism for controlling the allocation of goods and services. For the sake of balance Buckingham does, admittedly, name the three features which the future "integral" economic system is to borrow from socialism, namely, growing equality, workers^ control over working conditions, and economic planning. Clearly this list omits the most important feature: public ownership of means of production. "Integration" and'<"Synthesis'5are thus essentially a smokescreen thrown up to conceal the intended absorption of socialism by capitalism. Idealist Ambivalence The fundamental methodological error of the "synt^esis^ conception is its idealist, wishful thinking approach to the long-term economic development of society. The proponents of the convergence theory reason as follows: modern capitalism has certain shortcomings but it also has certain merits; socialism, too, has its merits and drawbacks; clearly people will understand this and, having done so, will synthesize the merits of both economic systems, remove their shortcomings, and create an "optimum59 economic and social system. Actually, however, the economic development of society is not a matter of free choice or free will, it is governed by objective economic laws. On the one hand the operation of economic laws of capitalism leads to the shaping, within the framework of the capitalist mode of production, of the material and organizational prerequisites of the transition to socialism, and, on the other, to exacerbation of the contradiction between the social nature of production and the capitalist form of appropriation, a contradiction that can be solved only by a revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. As regards the social system, the economic laws operating within its framework determine a gradual growing over of socialism into communism. Thus, the future belongs not to any visionary mixed-type economic system but to socialism and communism. Although essentially bourgeois, the convergence theory differs from primitive bourgeois apologetics regarding the permanence of capitalism, Its proponents no longer proclaim boldly that the future belongs to an "integral" economic system, a synthesis of capitalism and socialism. This is noteworthy. The convergence theory is intrinsically ambivalent. On