the positive critique

[JKSCHW at aol.com]

Brad raises an important question, again, by askinga bout positive alternative. Doug asserts--I won't say defends, since he offers no argument--the alternative probably preferred by most people on this list, democratic planning. In a recent post  that was taken up and then dropped I remarked that Hayek's attack on this alternative has yet to be answered in a plausible way.

I have suggested a different alternative, market socialism--roughly, public ownership of the means of production, worker self-management in industry, and market competition among production units.  This alternative moots the question of how to retain the advantages of markets by keeping them. It shifts the challege back to Brad and other defenders of capitalism to explain to us exactly what it is that capitalists do that is so necessary that we have to let them privately own productive assets. Brad, your turn.

--jks