A NATURAL EXPERIMENT IN STYLES OF CAPITALISM - PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

This study compares two professional sports-baseball and basketball. I n organization professional baseball comes closer to a US style indivi dualistic capitalism system, with relatively free competition for play ers and a relatively weak commissioner. Professional basketball, on th e other hand, comes much closer to a Japanese style communitarian capi talism system, with limited amounts that clubs can spend on players an d with a strong commissioner. While the basketball system protects the economics of small market clubs better, as might be expected, it does not protect their winning records better. Surprisingly, the small mar ket clubs win more in the individualistic system of baseball.