On The Political Economy Of Market 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.

In this innovative book, David McNally develops a powerful critique of market socialism, by tracing it back to its roots in early political economy. He ranges from Adam Smith’s attempt to reconcile moral philosophy with market economics to Malthus’s reformulation of Smith’s political economy which made it possible to justify poverty as a moral necessity. Smith’s economic theory was also the source of an attempt to construct a critique of capitalism derived from his conception of free and equal exchange governed by natural price. This Smithian forerunner of today’s market socialism sought to reform the market without abolishing the social relations on which it was based. McNally explores this tradition sympathetically, but exposes its fatal flaws. The book concludes with an incisive consideration of efforts by writers such as Alec Nove to construct a “feasible” model of market socialism. McNally shows these efforts are still plagued by the failure of early Smithian socialism to come to grips with the social foundations of the market, the commodification of labor-power which is the key to market regulation of the economy. The results, he argues, are neither socialist nor workable.

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

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. An anthology of essays on market socialism originally published in Dissent Magazine between 1985 and 1993. This book: --Takes issue with the traditional view that socialism means rejecting the use of markets to organize economic activities; --Moves away from the commitment to central planning and state ownership; and --Addresses 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.

Bruno Jossa expertly illustrates that the creation of a system of cooperative firms is tantamount to a revolution giving rise to a new production mode capable of reversing the existing relationship between capital and labour. The book also demonstrates a revolution enacted by peaceful and democratic means in order for worker-managed organisations to outnumber capitalistic ones.

A reconsideration of socialism in the post-Soviet era based on the theoretical achievements of Japanese Marxist political economy. The origins and the various components of the broad current of socialist thought, as well as the implications of Marx's economic theories for socialism, are explored afresh. The Western debate on the rationality of a socialist economy, starting in the 1920s and continuing to the present, is reviewed and reassessed. The book further inquires into the nature, the achievements, and the character of the systemic change in the socialist economies of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. The existence of a broad range of alternatives for future socialism, which can be chosen flexibly by the people of each society, is the message suggested by the book.

The worldwide spread of neoliberalism has transformed economies, polities, and societies everywhere. In conventional accounts, American and Western European economists, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, sold neoliberalism by popularizing their free-market ideas and radical criticisms of the state. Rather than focusing on the agency of a few prominent, conservative economists, Markets in the Name of Socialism reveals a dialogue among many economists on both sides of the Iron Curtain about democracy, socialism, and markets. These discussions led to the transformations of 1989 and, unintentionally, the rise of neoliberalism. This book takes a truly transnational look at economists' professional outlook over 100 years across the capitalist West and the socialist East. Clearly translating complicated economic ideas and neoliberal theories, it presents a significant reinterpretation of Cold War history, the fall of communism, and the rise of today's dominant economic ideology.

Christopher Pierson assesses the evidence of terminal decline, but finds rather a whole series of deep-seated challenges to traditional forms of socialist and social democratic thinking. Above all, these problems are to be found in the political economy of social democracy and its commitment to incremental change in the context of an increasingly globalized market economy. The latter chapters of the book are devoted to an assessment of market socialism, one of the most vigorous and innovative attempts to seek to recast socialist aspirations under these quite changed circumstances. In essence, market socialism represents an attempt to reconcile new forms of social ownership with the seeming ubiquity of the market. Having outlined this position, Pierson carefully and systematically critiques it and, in the process, develops a set of distinctive arguments about the nature of social ownership, the potential of the labor-managed economy, and the appropriate forms for an extension of economic democracy.