Market socialism

[JKSCHW at aol.com]

Charles asks whether my ides about market socialism are deriived in a certain
way, but then underspecifies what that way might be. I can't follow from his
presentation what he thinks the basis for whatever sort of MS he is talking
about is. I like Elson's ideas and think that her feminist slant on MS has a
lot of merit. I basically gow ith Schweickart's economic democracy as lais out
in Against Capitalism and elsewhere, though, although I think the point of
this ort of modeling is heuristic--to make socialsim plausible, to show that
we have good answers to hard questions, and not to serve as a recipe for the
cookshop of the future. My own thinking derives from two lines of reasoning:

1. As against central planning models, I find Hayek's defense of market
economics persuasive in view of the epistemological problems of planning. But
unlike Hayek, I don'ts ee that markets necesasrily commit us to private
property.

2. As against capitalsim, I start from the question of what capitalists as
capitalists do, I mean private equity owners--apart from taking the wealth
created by the labor of others. The functions some capitalsits
serve--management, entrepreneurship. geberating capitsl, etc.--could be
performed by others and in a modern capitalist econimy are to a great extent.
The equity owners of corporations don't do anything except own and the
managers, etcx. are employees. Thsi suggests that we could get rid of the
parasites and let the workers perform these functions.

As to the question of public ownership, while I subscribe ti the slogan, I
think the realization of it will be complicated. Property rights are bundles
of right, e.g., to manage, use, alienate, enjoy income, etc., and these can be
distributed in different ways.

--jks

In a message dated 98-11-13 14:45:57 EST, you write:

<< On market socialism, I can some small

 business as private and all of the basic

 means of production as publically owned.

 

 Diane Elson's essay on this is important because

 it uses a feminist critique to modify the focus

 from production to production and reproduction

 of labor power, placing domestic reproduction of

 labor power on a par with production of use

 values.

 

 I can't recall whether Justin Schwartz's

 market socialist ideas are derived in this

 way. >>