[PEN-L:9416] Re: market socialism, cont.

[BAIMAN <rbaiman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael et. al.,

Sorry again for the late reponses - I realize that you may not catch this
but what the hell!

Regarding my comments - I don't think the issue is the "purity" of market
socialism vis avis markets but the counter-productive political
implications of advocating "market-something" when you cant't as a
socialist support market allocation as a principle whatever the result
(as a Hayekian or neo-liberal can).  Here I agree with Robin Hahnel and
other anti-market socialists.

Regarding reform or transition politics - this was one of
Pierson's points as your summary of Schweickart's review also notes.  I
would  have to disagree with S.'s conclusions though I think (at least as
you praphrase - I have to read the review (thanks for the reference) he
does capture some of Pierson's key arguments - with a particular spin!

My own spin would be that not withstanding their claims to the contrary
"market socialists" DO NOT offer a "feasible" political STRATEGY
to go
beyond Social-Democracy and Communism and (mostly - S. being one of the
exceptions as he includes democratically planned net investment as part
of his "economic democracy" - I think planning should be extended to
other realms like labor markets, social pricing of basic
infrastructure, commanding heights of commodity
production, etc. but at least S. goes pretty far in this direction) DO NOT
offer a practical VISION of socialism .  The focus on property rights
is not a good and feasible political transitionary strategy.  Focusing
on "anti-market"  politics in my view is key to current progressive
strategy - needless to say "market socialism" tends to point away from
this.

  On vision Pierson's point is that market socialists tend to
neglect the non-market spheres like the state, civil society, etc.
The point is that socialist values require extensive
democratical "social choice" which cannot be derived from markets i.e.
there is ultimately no escaping "democratically planned socialism"
INCLUDING extensive social choice type planning within the economy if it
is to reflect socialist values especially of radical democracy.

I don't see this as "muddle headed" - I don't think Pierson or any
socialist has any problems with the goal of "socializing" social
property so I don't think the issue is that this is "too radical". Its
just that though this is always an important issue for socialists "market
socialism" makes it THE ISSUE and (sometimes the only issue) and this is
not politically advantageous and undermines the broader socialist project
which requires a lot more than just changing property relations within a
market.

S. may be right that Peirson doesn't talk alot about class power (there
are a lot of other books on this) but I don't think he is trying to avoid
or neglect his reality - the focus of the book is on analyzing the
strngths and weaknesses of "market socialism" and deriving political
conclusions from this analysis.  One could alternately argue that singling
out the one issue of capitalist ownership is not an effective way to
proceed politically at this time.  This does not mean that it is thereby
dropped from the socialist agenda - rather it needs to be included in a
much broader socialist agenda that market socialists have (mostly) dropped.

Best Regards,

Ron Baiman
Roosevelt Univ., Chicago


 On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Michael Hoover wrote:

> > According to ypu, Pierson has two main
> > objections to market socialism.
> > 1) A market socialist economy cannot be a "pure" free market economy but
> > will require extensive government regulation to deal with externalities,
> > 2) Market socialism cannot be achieved by reformist means.
> > --Justin
> > > 	I think pen-l readers (market socialists and non alike) may find
> > > SOCIALISM AFTER COMMUNISISM: THE NEW MARKET SOCIALISM by Christopher
> > > Pierson (Penn State , 1995) of interest.
> > > Ron Baiman
>
> I recently read a review - I'v not read Pierson myself - by David
> Schweickart in American Political Science Review...according to
> S, P maintains, on the one hand, that market socialism is
> unfeasible because it is too radical - it takes aim at the heart
> of the contemporary economic order and aims to replace capitalist
> ownership of the means of production with some form of social
> ownership...on the other hand, S says that P asserts that market
> socialism is unfeasible because it isn't radical enough -  that
> market socialists have insufficiently addressed ways in which
> the political state and civil society can be more democratic and
> that market socialists haven't adequately explored questions of
> ownership...
>
> S suggests that P's "logical muddle" is the result of his failure
> to address the question of class power - that the fundamental
> reason for the infeasibility of market social is the sheer power
> of the capitalist class...This class - identified by S as the 1% or
> so of the US population that owns one-third or more of the wealth -
> has rigged the electoral game so as to make certain there will be no
> effective challenge to it power in the foseeable future...S indicates
> that references to this class, to its lock on the mass media,
> campaign financing, are essentially absent from P's book...
>