[PEN-L:8995] Re: more market socialism

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> How could the market be an "alternative"? an alternative to what? to
> socialism? it's clearly not an alternative to capitalism.

This is a little glib, Jim. You know perfectly well that there are serious
socialists, a fair number of us, who do argue that market socialism _is_
an alternative to capitalism, in fact, the best one. The most extended
case for this view is David Schweickart's Against Capitalism (Westview
1996), which is not lightly to be brushed aside. The general point is that
markets are logically compatible with socializerd ownership and worker
control and require neither private ownership nor wage labor, the
differentia of capitalism. This might not work for a number of reasons,
but the case can be articulated in too much detail to say that market
socialism is _clearly_ not an alternative. That is just false.

> What is "alternative" would be some new scheme for controlling markets in
> order to avoid the nasty effects of markets that Hahnel and others
> emphasize (encouraging narrow individualism, etc., etc.) An alternative
> might be a scheme for forcing markets to behave the way they're advertised
> in economics books.
>
> Of course, once one starts doing that, the allegedly apolitical market is
> no longer apolitical and can no longer live up to the ideals of the "market
> socialists."

Well, it depends on what you mean by the ideals of markets socialist. My
ideals are freedom, justice, and democracy, with efficiency in there too,
and I think that a regulated socialized  market would do pretty well on
those counts--better thana  wholly planned economy a la Mandel or Albert
and Hahnel. Maybe you are thinking of some hypothetical neoclassical
socialist in the manner of Stiglitz's imaginary target in Whither
Socialism, but no one actually ever maintained that position.

> In any event, it's a big mistake to make a virtue out of necessity, to
> glorify the compromise as an end in itself, as many market socialists seem
> to do. It's important to develop the democratic-socialist ideal more
> concretely, so that we don't have to make such compromises. But compromises
> are hard to avoid.

I don;t kno who you are thinking of. I'm not terribly happy about the
compromise with markets, but they do have certain virtues. I am even less
happy about the systematic defects of planning that no one has been able
to address in a systematic way.

> If "market socialism" is a transition phase, note, we have to be _very_
> careful. Market institutions involve all sorts of groups (merchants, etc.)
> that have vested interests in preserving markets. Further, they can use
> their power and influence to turn themselves into full-scale capitalists
> (as might the "neutral technocrats" that many market socialists presume
> will regulate markets in a fair and efficient way).

I myself do not view market socialism as transitional, erxcept in the
sense that every social instututional instution is transitional to
something. I am however unimpressed with the arguments that MS has
degenerative tendencies. The best argument to this effect was made by
Scott ARnold in a debate with Schweickart in Economics and Philosophy back
in 1987, and I think Schweickart trounced Arnold. I wrote a little piece
on it myself. I can recap the main points if there's interest.

 So these vested
> interests will fight like hell to preserve their privilege (perhaps allied
> with the technocrats, who they ply with bribes), i.e., to prevent the
> emergence of real democratic socialism.

I guess there will be no vested interest in planned socialism, no
technocrats to influence, no politics in a wholly politicized economy?

In any case I think market socialism can be real democratic socialism, in
fact, more democratic than planned socialism, for the reason that planning
inefficiencies in a wholly planned economy will prevent the will of the
people from being carried out, while in market socialism targeted
incentives and regulation would be better at realizing the democratic will.

>
> I haven't seen any of the advocates of market socialism examining the
> dynamics of their proposed systems, thinking about the barriers to future
> progress that will arise. But I have not read all of the literature by any
> means. I hope that they haven't been swept away by the static logic of
> market-think.

Perhaps you shoukd read Schweickart, who's more of an institutionalizt
left-Keynesian than a neoclassicist. (Roemer is pretty neoclassical, but I
dodn't care for his mode.) Many of the rest of us are Hayekians of some
sort, which is a very different mode of analysis than neoclassicism; it's
political economy that denies the centrality or even existence of
equilibrium and focuses on time and politics asa basic part of the logic
of markets. Since we are socialist, we don't hgo in for the Hayekian
allergy to government and the glorification of the market over all forms
of economic coordination, but static analysis is not a problem for this
quasi-Austro-Marxism.

>
> BTW, I haven't read Pierson's book on market socialism, but one point I
> thought I saw in Ron's exposition was: why would anyone be willing to fight
> like hell against the capitalists (who will fight like _bloody_ hell) if
> they're fighting for market socialism?
>
If they think it's a lot better than what they've got, if they think it
will win freedom, why wouldn't they? I guess I don't see the logic that
treats markets as the enemy. They're tools of coordination which may be
used to promote what we really care about, which isn't an end to markets,
but an end to exploitation, not the stopping of buyionga nd selling, but
freedom and democracy.

--Justin