>-clip-
>I myself think that the abolition of
>markets (though not of private property or wage labor) is a pipe dream, but
>debate about market socialism versus nonmarket socialism is important.
>Participation in reform struggles is essential; it's mainly what we do
>
>CB: Justin, I don't think I have asked you the following specific question
>before : Could you expand on this formulation of a "market without private
>property" ?
>
Sure, Charles, though I don't have the energy to get involved in the deabte about market socialism. I will take this as a query rather than as an occasion to discuss the matter or defend it againast advocates of all out planning.
This is the model David Schweickart presents in Against Capitalism and many papers. Imagine a situation where enterprises are owned by the state, but democratically self-managed by workers who are not employees, but cooperators. These enterprises compete against each other for sales in a market. They make money (or not), and pay the workers from the profits they make, reserving some of the profits for capital improvements. They also pay a sort of assets sex, a kind of rent to the state, for the use of enterprise property. If they don't make money, they go bankrupt and are folded up. They are financed in terms of new investment by granys from state banks which are made on the basis of expected profitability as well as other criteria, such as envirinmental protection, job creation, and community stability, but they must be profitable unless there is an express political decision to subsidize an unprofitable enterprise.
In this model: productive assets are publically owned, except for income stream flowing from their use, which goes to the workers, There are no capitalists. Investment is planned, and does not depend on the animal spirits of the coupon-clipping class, there si no rentier class. Enterprises are democratically managed; bosses are elected and accountable. Workers are not employees but cooperators, they receive profit shares, not wages. But the firms compete in a market, trying to make profits and vying for market share.
Anyway, that is one way to imagine markets without private property.
jks
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