Re: Beyond Communism and Capitalism?

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 20 Jan 1996, Justin Schwartz wrote:

> 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.
>

Louis: I'm sorry, Justin, this is not simply a question of ad hominems. I
view "market socialism" as a current within the left that has certain
political aspects that is impossible for me to ignore:

1) When Jim Lawler appears at the Socialist Scholars Conference on a
panel with Sidney Gluck who argues that the Chinese government,
all appearances to the contrary, is steering the country toward
communism, I see that politically. When the other panel member says that
the Scandanavian countries represent "socialism" now and the possibility
for "communism" down the road, I see that politically.

2) When the anticommunist Dissent magazine puts out a book called "Why
Market Socialism" and the introduction is written by the left-liberal
economist Robert Heilbroner, I see that politically.

3) When Monthly Review editor Harry Magdoff, who I count as one of the
most consistent and important Marxist thinkers of the last 50 years or
so, tells the editors of "Why Market Socialism" that their book is so
far-removed from the political framework of MR that he wouldn't even
consider having someone review it, I see that politically.

4) When David Laibman, editor of Science and Society, a journal I hold in
the highest respect, receives a communication from our own Father Burns
basically complaining that S&S gave market socialism short shrift, I see
that politically.

This is a contradiction you have to work out, not me. All of the evidence
I see around me is that, for the most part, market socialism is an
expression of social democracy. It is an economic model that is tied up
with the collapse of the Soviet model. This model serves to prop up the
argument that capitalism is a more or less permanent feature of our
planet at this time in history.

Sweden, the former Yugoslavia, or Bukharin's NEP become models, rather
than Castro's Cuba. I will be proposing a cyberseminar on Cuba in the
months to come, so we will have an opportunity to examine a society that
abolished the market in a fairly sweeping manner and that followed a
different trajectory entirely from the former Soviet Union. Having a
concrete example might help to focus our discussion. More on this later.


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