Re: Market and Capitalist Socialism

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28 Jan 1996, Chris, London wrote:

> My difficulty with this debate, is that if you go back one step, to talk just
> about commodity exchange, any political system, capitalist or socialist
> will have to deal with the inevitably unequal accumulation of surplus
> between different enterprises, whatever the subtleties of their legal
> status.

Sure, there will be inequality among enterprises. Unless you think
socialism requires that everyone receive the same income, why is this in
itself a problem? The concerns are two, though:

1) That inequalities will be unjust, since economic success depends so
much on luck, and

2) That the inequlities will create inequalities of political power.

As to the first, that's why we have to have redistributive taxation. As to
the second, there's a problem. It will be lessthan in capitalism, since
better off firms won't make their members a class and since they won't be
that much better off. But the potential for rent-seeking and other
political misnbehavior is great in an economy as politicized as the MS
economy. However, planning is no solution, since it creates a privileged
group in the planners. I suspect that the problem is one we have to live
with. There is no fix for it in any system.

--Justin




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