Re: Beyond Communism and Capitalism?

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not sure this discussion has generated a lot of steam and maybe people
do not want to go on with it. Certainly it has not progressed much beyond
where I saw it when I signed off the list in August. Still, a few comments:

1. Let's avoid ad hominems. Some of us were market socialists more or less
from the start, and did not adopt the position in response to 1989; for
those who did, that does not reflect on the truth or justification of
their views. For those of us who didn't, many of us, including me, never
saw formerly existing "socialism" as socialism at all, and thus didn't
take its collapse as an idictment of socialism.

2. I think we can all agree that making up ready-made utopias for
intellectuals to dream about imposing on the workering class struggle is
pretty silly. The purpose of building models must be different:

        a. To test the operation of certain assumptions by thought-experiment;
        b. To try to identify potential problems with various approaches
by way of starting to think about solutions;
        c. Most importantly, to provide arguments for the feasibility of
alternatives to capitalism that will be useful politically, in view of the
widespread skepticism about such alternatives.

3. Complaints that workers have never taken up the idea of cooperatives or
worker ownership in their mass movements, and that this shows that these
are alien ideas imposed on the working class and useless to its struggle,
are ill founded. Depending on the political context, coopertaives and
worker ownership have been more or less popular among workers. In Europe
they are more popular and successful than in the US. Of course in the US
unions themselves have hardly been successful among workers, whether or
not they are popular. Few Marxists will conclude from this that unions are
a write-off. The explanation for the success or lack of it of any
particular alternative must be addressed at the right level and be
sensitive to national, political, and cultural conditions.

4. Cockshoot and Louis challenge those who, like me, accept the
calculation argument, to show that it is real by quantifying how big the
decision matrix actually is. This is an important and interesting task,
and I hope sokmeone competent does it. But these critics fail to
understand that it is pro-planners these daysd who have the burden of
proof, to show that the matrix is small enough to be manageable and that
other calculation objections can be met. This is because in the political
reality of the world outside Marxist theory, workers are deeply skeptical
of systematic planning alternatives. And they are the real target of our
arguments, not committed socialists like ourselves.

5. I think the Cockshott model, like the Lange model, is static and does
not address the dynamic objections to planning propounded by Hayek: that
information gathering will be systematically distorted, that planning is
rigid and cannot accomodate changes either in supply or demand, that it
stifles innovation and entrepreneurship, etc. Management is more than
accounting, even if computers can handle thge accounting tasks. Which I doubt.

6. I agree with Father Burns that the alternatives are not markers or
planning, but planning with or without markets. Certainly capitalist firms
and nations plan. Certainly we know that some things can be effectivelly
planned and that markets require some planning for their effective
operation. Those things are not disputed. The question concerns rather the
limits of planning, can it completely displace markets, given various
goals of efficiency and equity we wish to realize?

7. An objection to planning I'd like to hear discussed is this: it leads
to the improper politicization of many decisions. People are, to use
technical philosophical jargon, self originating sources of moral claims.
Some claims are valid and worthy of respect simply because people make
them. We don't wantto have to explain and justify all our preferences to
others. We shouldn't have to. The anonymity of the market allows us to
express such claims simply by putting our money down. If I want jazz CDs
or leather and latex for my sexual activities, I don't want to have to
explain this to my neighbors. Obviously not all preferences are like this
and some require public discussion. But voting on everything seems to me a
massive intrusion into privacy.

8. All this said, I agree with those who say that a good deal of our
practical struggle must be in restricting the extension of markets to
areas where they do not belong, where public discussion and democratic
procedures are appropriate. But the scope of these has to be discussed as
we go along.

9. I welcome any serious argument for nonmarket alternatives. I'd like to
believe there was one. Please convince me!

--Justin
        




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