Creating Market Socialism

DIVBased on interviews with ordinary Chinese citizens, this work examines how people, as opposed to Communist Party elites, are establishing the new economic order in China./div

“Nice idea, but it doesn’t work in practice.” How often have socialists had this claim thrown back at them? And now, after the events of 1989, many of the Left are openly wondering what a defensible idea of socialism would be. This work addresses this question, taking as its point of departure John Roemer’s model of “coupon socialism”. Roemer’s model aims to combine the market with a commitment to equality through a simple, yet starkly radical, proposal: all citizens would receive an equal number of coupons with which to buy ownership rights (voting, dividends) in companies. These coupons would constitute a second, separate form of currency, but could not be exchanged for ordinary money, nor transferred to other people. Not all the contributors to this collection endorse Roemer’s working model of market socialism, but they are all stimulated by his foray into a “real utopia”.

"First Published in 1998, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company."

A collection of essays on market socialism, originally published in Dissent between 1985 and 1993. Among other topics, they take issue with the traditional view that socialism means rejecting the use of markets to organise economic activities, and question the reliance upon markets.

N. Scott Arnold argues that the most defensible version of a market socialist economic system would be unable to realize widely held socialist ideals and values. In particular, it would be responsible for widespread and systematic exploitation. The charge of exploitation, which is really a charge of injustice, has typically been made against capitalist systems by socialists. This book argues that it is market socialism--the only remaining viable form of socialism--that is systematically exploitative.

Can we conceive of a market economy that fulfils the ideals of socialism? In this book, David Miller provides a comprehensive examination, from the standpoint of political theory, of an economy in which market mechanisms retain a central role, but in which capitalist patterns of ownership have been superseded.

What is "market socialism"? Can markets be used to achieve socialist ends? A distinguished group of academics here explore the political, social, economic, and philosophical implications of market socialism, and show how markets, sensibly used, can promote socialism more effectively than traditional socialist economic mechanisms. Focusing on the original issues of the British socialist debate, they cast a fresh light on these issues and begin the crucial task of rethinking the basis of socialism.

This title was first published in 2001. Spanning a quarter of a century, this collection makes conveniently accessible 14 of Yunker’s thorough and highly illuminating contributions to the literature on market socialism.