SP:My point was rather that questions of institutional design cannot be settled wholly a priori. Alternatives to capitalism are largely forged in the struggle against it. Starting where we are now, it is hard to say what kind of socialism will emerge in the struggle against capitalism. It will differ from place to place too.
JKS. I agree, of course.
JKS:Do you see things as operating differently under planned socialism? Are you with Charles B on this, no unions, nos trikes, one party, which is the Communist Party that represents the worker's interests by definition?
SP:If there is only one class then there is nothing to strike against.
JKS. GAAK. Workers strike for lots of reasons, and not just or mainly against the dominant class.
> Of course this is what the authorities said in the USSR and China but it
obviously wasn't true.
JKS, But even if it was, would that be a justification for banning strikes?
> JKS:I agree about the hard budger constrint, but that has nothing to do with labor markets. The HBC means that if a firm is failing, it doesn't get bailed out. It means real bankruptcy.
SP:Yes, but it is the _fear_ of the company you work for going bankrupt and you going unemployed and into poverty that forces people to work hard, accept concessions and speed ups. That fear is what drives labor markets, taking it away takes the teeth out of the market.
JKS. But losing your money and the fruit of your efforts would be bad even if you were not threatened with poverty and unemployment, as you would be under any self-respecting socialist system. It is true that fear oif bad things happening is part of the incentive structure and leads (we hope) to people working harder or more efficiently. At least in MS there is something to encourage that, good and bad. Planned socialism seems to rely on a vague hope that people will have changed to work better without any incentives.
> I
would add that a lot of people do not need incentives to work hard, they
just
do it for pleasure or out of conscience. This would increase in a
socialist workplace. Peer pressure goes along way in
getting others to pick up the slack.
JKS. Oh, so it's OK to enforce speed up through threats of osctracism and the silent treatment, but not through threats that if you fuck up the whole place will shut down.
JKS: Democratic planning is not an incentive.
SP: No, what I meant was giving workers a greater say in micro *and* macro aspects of their lives is an incentive. So is giving them a greater say in the spheres of consumption and culture.
JKS. Worker participation increases productivity in a market context, that is a solid result.
JKS: The incentive in MS to work hard is increased profit shares.
SP:If it's a market ecnonomy, profit shares will rise and fall. So workers are supposed to set up a fund that will see them through hard times?
JKS. You see a problem with this?
SP. I'd just say: "why are firms competing? We all belong to the same class, why not co-ordinate our activities.?"
JKS. Because, as Hayek showed, we can't.
SP. Further, what kind of culture are you going to promote in MS, a competitive or co-operative one?
JKS. Both, obviously.
JKS: I think this[imperialism] is more problematic. Schweickart argues that MS would be less likely to be imperialist because worker self-managed firms are not expansionist.
SP:If they aren't expansionist how are they to survive in a market
JKS. Because no firms are expansionist. This is an effect of the fact that they are labor-self managed, so they will not expand beyond the point at which added workers add to the profit shares of each.
SP. economy? Or is it forbidden by law?
JKS. No.
SP. You need to explain how the nature of capital accumulation will change in MS such that firms do not to expand to mass surplus value or market share.
JKS. This is a well-known result due to Benjamin Ward.
>JKS. You misunderstand what is the HBC. It is true that there is a tension between efficiency and equity, but it is a tradeoff and not absolute. the market will not collapse if the government has to hire some people who cannot be picked up by coops for whatever raeson.
SP:It depends on how many such people there are.
JKS. Sure. The assumption is, not too many. Why should there be too many?
JKS:Besides, there are lots of public goods that we market will not provide for those people to work on. Many of these are necessary for markets to operate, like roads.
SP:OK.
>
JKS: And you don't see the difference between this and being told, you
will be a housepainter in Vancouver; we have enough economists, thank
you.
SP:That is what happens to many people today and its not because they are crappy economists.
JKS. As as fired philosopher, I know the drill.
SP. Good old manual labor would do intellectuals some good at least part of the year
JKS. No doubt, and if they want to do it, as they might if it were made more attractive, I say, great. but I guarantee you that no workers will support the authoritative allocation of labor. If you can't see the difference between market and bureaucratic coercion, the workers can.
SP. BTW, has anyone read Joe Stiglitz' book *Whither Socialism*?
JKS. Yes, why do you ask?