>Charles: It was
>
>g) a little too bureaucratic and eltist, and
>therefore not power to all of the people.
>
>as in your last sentence. That is the error of the trial of formerly (
and actually existing in Cuba) socialism that the working class can use in
more definitely projecting what to do the next time<
Broadly I agree but this does not deal with the economic question.
I suggest a long rear view on the 20th Century is that Lenin's sketch of a mixed market economy for a generation, as outlined in "On Cooperation" should have been extended for the century and now into the 21st century until there are institutions of global government that can start to tame finance capitalism on a world scale.
That socialist states should have retained a market in all areas as under capitalism except that
a) competitive access to finance capital should have been controlled by the state on social criteria (thereby abolishing it as capital) and
b) the state should have had the monopoly of land ownership (but retained a competitive market in bidding for the use of land, so that increases in land valuation from increased economic activity in one area could be used by the state for redistribution to other areas or for other purposes).
Broadly I am in sympathy with the practical agenda and theoretical positions of Schweickart in "Against Capital", except that he has little to say about the land question, although this is crucial for getting social control over the intensifying processes uneven development across the world.
IMO
Chris Burford
London