Editor(s): Frank Roosevelt; David Belkin
Description: This book is a contribution to current efforts to transform the concept of socialism. It moves away from the traditional socialist antipathy towards commodity exchange and advocates a significant role for markets in post-capitalist society. Going beyond the familiar arguments of socialists who blame markets for many of the more objectionable aspects of capitalism-- alienation, inequality, exploitation, instability, and possessive individualism--the contributors to this volume see markets as making possible a dispersion of political power, decentralization of economic decision-making, and efficient use of scarce resources. Continuing in a long line of liberal socialist thinkers who have understood the disadvantages of relying too heavily on the state to coordinate and direct the economic activities of a nation, today's market socialist theorists accept the painful lessons of the Soviet and East European experience with central planning. They also build on recent advances in "positive political economy" that have made possible a richer understanding of the respective roles--and limits--of markets and political structure (including firms) as ways of organizing economic activities and allocating resources. Several contributors address the question of whether or not reliance upon markets is compatible with the promotion of socialist objectives such as economic security, social equality, political democracy, stable community life, and opportunities for all to achieve individual self- realization.
Comment(s): Provides a superb introduction to both the history and the current contours of ideas about market socialism. It comes to assess and praise the possibilities for alternatives to capitalism, not to bury them. -- DAVID GORDON, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS, NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH; This lucid collection of articles by many leading socialists ... sensibly scrutinizes the realistic prospects for market socialism. It is mind-warming given the dashed hopes surrounding the failed "socialist" experiment in Eastern Europe. -- ALICE H. AMSDEN, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; Why Market Socialism? reads like a Who's Who of the modern debate on market socialism. In the pages that follow well reasoned and accessible essays present both constructive and skeptical views on a idea who star has notably risen with the fall of Communism. It is the best compendium now available on the subject. -- SAMUEL BOWLES, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT AMHERST; Tackles the central problems of devising political and economic systems, which balance economic growth and efficiency, political democracy and social equity. In his masterly introduction, David Belkin integrates the practical with the theoretical and these current developments with the historical critiques of capitalism flowing from John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx; he explains where the contributors agree and where they disagree, and thus informs the crucial debates on these questions now underway in Eastern Europe, in developing countries and western democracies. -- ELIZABETH DURBIN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Review(s): This significant collection ... provides a judicious and challenging editorial ambience on the tension between 'market' and 'planning,' a classical debate that, since the implosion of the Soviet bloc, has obtained a new direction. ... An appropriate addition to all libraries. -- CHOICE
Hardcover Information 1-56324-465-9 $81.95 Paperback Information 1-56324-466-7 $39.95 412 pp. Index.
Publication Date: December 1994 Published by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.