Why Market Socialism is flawed

It seems to me that one of the main selling points of Market Socialism is that once we demokratize workplaces and install a SocDem state over it, the surplus of labor would not longer be extracted by capitalist shareholders while avoiding the inflated bureaucracy and brutal collectivization of Marxist-Leninism. Market Socialists love to point out how people's wages would raise when all the companies profits, which would otherwise end up being outsourced or outflow into the capitalists bank account, would be shared amongst the employees.

The problem is that the abundance of resources and commodities, which is enjoyed by the bourgeoisie, doesn't imply that there would necessarily be an abundance accessible for the proletariat once the profits are distributed amongst them. A rich person would not eat more than three meals a day. Pretty much all their status symbols are merely luxury items which are not needed to improve the welfare of the general population. There would still be the same amount of meat in the store and still the same amount of apartments available the city. While it's true that wages would rise, it would simply lead to an inflation of the currency due to a new influx of money. This can be seen in Yugoslavia, people there today sell notes of 10k dinars to tourists for a dollar because they are so utterly without value.

Market Socialist is anti-Marxist as it is embroidered with outdated proto-liberal ideology by following the logic of profit instead of dismantling it and engage in a detailed analysis of economics. If we really strife for communism, we must realize that only an entirely collectivized production and allocation of commodities under a planned economy will allow us to improve the living standard of all.

The recent popularity of Market Socialism, also on Holla Forums, is caused by the suitability of its ideology to be broken down to simple slogans - like Wolff and his NEP worship - while at the same time creating distance to the Marxist-Leninist states which are painted as evil in Western narratives. Titoist propaganda was perpetuated through the endorsement of Neocons like Thatcher and produced the silly "with a human face" meme. In the end, worship of Market Socialism is defeatism by giving in to Western Propaganda and ignorance among the population towards complex Marxist thought - you may as well just become SocDems.

Other urls found in this thread:

insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/
transform-network.net/journal/issue-092011/news/detail/Journal/workers-self-management-in-yugoslavia-an-ambivalent-experience.html
marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1937/08/nonsense-planning.htm
youtu.be/7RXIvvtpJ50
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Yes. Instead of liking an ideology that gives the workers more power than your shitty state capitalism ever could lets worship dead dictators who killed millions and never forget about "marxism"-Leninism. Face it at least we actually want the workers to own the means of production not like your anti-worker ideology.

translated:

Yes, i wholeheartedly agree, you're a faggot and don't know what you're talking about. Now go back to reddit.

Good thread OP. All valid criticism. Glad you made the thread because I never thought about this before.

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Thank you comrade, glad you don't take it personally unlike some triggered kids like

This does have valid criticism but your ideology is at least 20 times worse.

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Here's some actual in-depth takes on why market "socialism" is one big utopian meme (perhaps an even bigger meme than Soviet planned capitalism) coupled with examples of actually existing market socialism:
insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/
www.transform-network.net/journal/issue-092011/news/detail/Journal/workers-self-management-in-yugoslavia-an-ambivalent-experience.html

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Fix'd: transform-network.net/journal/issue-092011/news/detail/Journal/workers-self-management-in-yugoslavia-an-ambivalent-experience.html

But the rise in inflation could be prevented by state interferance in the economy and forcing the companies to lower prices slightly or raising them but at a much slower rate to controll the new influx of money into the economy. I'm not an expert at economy so I have no idea if this could work. If this was a retarded idea, please tell me so and why.

Correction:

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Thanks leftcom

Consider suicide

You first, you petty bourgeois faggot.

Try harder.

Why aren't co-ops socialism?

You're welcome. Give those links a read; they provide historical accounts and data about actually existing examples of so-called market socialism and what it really is: capitalism under the red banner (something you also like).

My armchair is way too comfy to permanently leave.

Planned economies are the bourgeois state and have nothing to do with the communist mode of production, nor does any honest reading of Marx suggest anything as such. Read Mattick: marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1937/08/nonsense-planning.htm

I don't understand. You haven't really presented any arguments here aside from "manna won't rain from the heavens".

The "main selling point" of market socialism is that saying "pssssssh, we can figure out how to run the world AFTER we take it over, I'm sure marxist theory magic will smooth everything out" is precisely why every revolution ever ends in le vanguard state faec

I don't understand this purest is animosity towards Market socialism. If anything it would be considered a stepping stone. Extrapolate our current situation in the u.s. into a more step by step process. We're all on the same side I feel like we're just playing this no true Scotsman bullshit game.

20th century communism is over. The time is to rethink and strategize how to better implement socialist ideology into every day law. Inch by inch until, before they know it, their voices are higher because we will have cut off their balls.

Sure. But how is that a problem specific to market socialism?

People in different income groups have different consumption patterns. A person who has ten times as much money as I doesn't buy every item I buy ten times. The first guess at what happens with demand when the income distribution gets more egalitarian is a decrease with regard to the most expensive luxuries and likewise with the cheapest crappiest food. People will buy less bread, rice, potatoes. Demand for the stuff in-between will rise. The problem is that the physical structure of the factories doesn't change instantly with a revolution, so you have factories for producing low-quality crap people now turn up their noses at, a bit too much for the other extreme as well, and a lack of capacity for the stuff in-between. Some super-fancy things made in the pre-socialist era can be turned into something to rent, I suppose.

This 100%

LITERALLY the philosophy of poverty top kek

Thereis central planning under capitalism, you qre a retard


Ironically, leftcoms who pretend to spend all day reading are the petty bourgs, as they can afford not to work, fag

Hey thanks :3
Check out my channel:
youtu.be/7RXIvvtpJ50
I'm going for a more rational but tounge-in-cheak communist vibe than some of the other Holla Forums tubes. Or don't check it out because I'm shilling my bullshit. Either way, stay woke!

Damn dude, this is really good shit. And that amazing production value too. I love ut

Please make a thread shilling your yt channel. It is really that good

Also it has a lot more potential than those generic guy talking to a camera shtick, no offense to those guys

Market socialism is literally capitalism with socialist characteristics.

Wow thanks a lot I actually don't want to shill too much just yet until I get a good library of content under my belt. I really do appreciate the kind words though

Thirded.

Oh, I didn't even notice it was you. Good shit, keep it up.

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Are you my wobbly friend from last night?

Thanks, consider thumbing down my videos, I work well with harsh criticism.

It really boggles the mind how someone can go on a small, isolated Communist board, spend his entire time attacking Communism, and somehow still think himself some kind of radical. Practically every post you have made served as a crude apology for the most vulgar, reactionary elements of society.

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Good, keep digging your whole deeper

Wrong, leftypol is not a communist torture chamber, this is not your safe space, it is literally not my problem marxists cant defend themselves against anarchists posters

Meh critique.

I already destroyed the nihilist anarchist market socialist in the other thread but if he wants to keep spamming his meme ideology he should go for it.


You are Capitalist with a human face. You do nothing fundamental to change the logic of capital. You focus exclusively on production relations and have a vulgar few of circulation.

Yes, posting a webm for the 17th time while failing to prove how your economic planning is not a market is totally proving someone wrong

Tell me more about how central planning does

What are you even referring to, former Communist countries? It would be a trivial matter to prove this never happened. All labor was allocated to industries directly by the state people's commissariats without any exchange involved. Enterprises had no authority to purchase anyone or anything.

No, I posted a two long critiques giving you both advice for approaching Marx's position, and why market socialism does not eliminate surplus value production, commodity fetishism of anarchy in production.

Who said anything about "central planning"?

Here's what you're missing, by profits going to the workers, you are also changing what is being coordinated for production. Yes there would be some inflation thanks to a difference in savings rates among the rich and poor, but thanks to the overwhelmingly change in demand leaning towards basic necessities, more basic necessities will be made and eventually competition will lower the cost of these goods. A good Keynesian social democratic government would further be able to smooth this process along.

just because we're heterodox doesn't mean we're "anti-marx". Who do you think is pushing this shit, prager u?

also
lel

Haha you actually belive this

Lol, whatnsurplus value? Are you talking about producing more value than the necessary for me to survive? And this is somehow bad? Lol, the philosophy of poverty strikes again!

You have still failed to provide a system which ends surplus value production or commodity fetishism

Ill ask you the same I did the last time:

-If I, an english teacher, am not supposed to exchange the products my labourmfor commodities to feed, home, trqnsport, dress, heal and satisfy myself, how am I supposed to survive? Are you going to send everyone to the farming sector?
-If I will have to meet production quotas, how is my labour not commodified? I cannot demand more value than the value i produced, otherwise I would be exploiting others

I'm not denying that an undeniably capitalist second economy existed in the last decades, or that exchange existed. But your claims that planning=market are pure nonsense founded on wishful thinking and ignorance of the Soviet economy. A factory marketing consumer goods is not sufficient for the law of value to regulate it's production. When, as under Communism, a higher social authority allocates it's production necessities to it it cannot act on the basis of capital. The fact is that Soviet firms may have produced for-profit but the nature of the economy necessarily subordinated profit to the plan.

No, the never ending subordination of the needs of the community to the logic of capital, of impersonal and erratic market forces. The inevitable fact that the elasticity of demand, the lack of effective demand due to a lack of fundamental change in the production of value culminates in the stronger firms overtaking the weak - the rebirth of Capitalism.

I can tell you my thoughts if you want.


That doesn't make any sense. Look, what needs to be eliminated is the impersonal exchange. The buyer has no idea if what he wants will be ready to bought, the seller has no idea if he can sell his product. Their meeting and exchange is an act of pure chance, anarchy.

"Production quotas" of use values is qualitatively different than the voluntary exchange that takes place on a market between capitalist and labourer, or firm and labourer.

There is commodity exchange under planned production, even if you want to call its something else

While you could arguee that you are not making use of money and prices, commodities would still have an exchange value on their own, a car has more value than a popsicle because it has more labour embodied in it, the law of value still exists under planned prodiction, in order for me to obtain a car, I would have to labour a similar amount of hours as the ones needed to assemble it

It might not act under the realm of capital, but there is still a market exchange, labour being the currency


There we go with the buzzwords again, are you implying planned production is huumyn nuture?

Yes, and this is bad because?
You keep missing the fact that under market anarchism, the weaker firm has the possibility to provide the exact same products as the stronger one, as there are no physical nor intellectual rights

First of all, production by demand can absolutely exists under market anarchism, second of all, your axiom that the consumer knows what he wants is false, the buyer not knowing if what he produces can be sold can be solved by observing market prices and by achieving production by demand
Moreover, what if the conaumer decides he no longer wants what he ordered? Are you going to force him to consume it? Whatnif the producer doesnt want to produce that? Are you going to force him to produce it? What if the consumer passes away?

Moreover, if production has to follow the demands of the individual, how exactly does that stops market forces, its is literally the most basic for of market exchange, where supply meets initial demand,

Again you are conflicting terms, production by demand can exist under a market economy

And this is bad because?

You juust admitted the supply of goods will meet the initial demand, how is this not a market

Moreover, under what authorityndoesnthe consumer has the authority over the seller, the seller decides to produce certain amount of bycicles because it is economically feasible for him, the consumer can decided to either
a) make use of one of the bikes
b) dont make use of the bike
c) join the bike manufacturer to provide better bikes

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How? Through cooperatives are still working for profit, right? There is no reason why they wouldn't just overtake the production cycles of capitalist producers that worked well before. The only thing that would disappear are the items for the super rich, but they make up only a marginal amount of a national economy.

No, because enough food and basic necessities are already there in the first world. I'm not becoming more hungry because I have more money. There is also no guarantee that a building cooperative that used to built lofts for the rich now suddenly builds apartments for the working class. You still rely on the shitty principle of a market based on the profit incentive, no matter how the means of production are owned. If a free, profit-based market would be in the best interest of the proletariat, porky would already build said apartments for the working class.

In the Third World this might be different, since production cycles there are often perverted or don't exist at all. This is why Lenin implemented the NEP.

Except that a SocDem government relies heavily on taxes to finance it's shit, and in SocDem theory, taxes are a means to give some of the profit that was stolen from the worker back to him via public and social infrastructure - but you already have eliminated capitalist extraction. Due to increasig percental income tax rates you'd also get significantly less money from the distributed profits among the workers compared to the taxation you put on porky. Since now the workers basically became porky, you would have a huge antagonism between state and cooperatives.


Market Socialism was tried in the 20th century as well. As I pointed out, it's mainly propaganda that makes you believe that it's not tainted unlike Marxist-Leninism which achieved more.

Also, I'm fine with it being a stepping stone, like version of the NEP for the First World after the Revolution until central planning is implemented.


This a lot of speculation there, and not based in historical evidence. Yugoslavia was known for producing cheap meat in shitty conditions particulary for the animals which was exported to the West en masse.


Pick up a book kid, we know you've read some Wikipedia articles, it's time to progress now

Your definition of market is literally "when people give shit to other people that can't produce said shit".

Nice backpedaling tho

Just no. A market is a place where goods are exchanged, ie where there property is transferred.

As this tankie said before, the 20th century includes so-called market socialism. If you are going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, at least do it consistently.

And yes, market "socialism" was a massive failure. One so massive that it coudn't even hide it: insurgentnotes.com/2013/10/yugoslav-self-management-capitalism-under-the-red-banner/

Furthermore,
channel Zizek, a guy who lived directly under the abhorrent failure of marksucc and the first thing he constantly discards when looking at alternatives is the idea that all we need to solve the contradictions of capital is to just democratize its economic unit.

It is more than clear ITT and on the board in general that any defendant of market socialism is wholly incapable of addressing the Marxist critique, and although I've heard of some initiatives by them to step up their game and write a comprehensive critique, I've still yet to see one. Perhaps PDF related could help illustrate the Marxist critique of the market and why market "socialism" is, for any well-read Marxist, simply capitalism with a more humane, ethical and democratic face, completely devoid of any proper answer to capital's inherent contradiction and the acknowledgement of use vs. exchange value.

(See WEBM related also)

To come back on
and why I wholeheartedly welcome any such notion, under the condition that it is actually consistent and honest.

None of us here, outside of the few tankies, want to repeat the political experiments of Stalin, Mao, etc. and produce more carbon copies of the so-called "planned economy". This vulgar dichotomy of planning versus market allocation is not only one that signals ignorance about what post-capital could look like, but it is misled in that it does not look at the very beginning of capitalism: commodification – something which can be accompanied by any form of distribution so long as it is commodified and propertied.

this. "planning" and "market allocation" are synonymous. "planning" simply signals centralized authority over the process of planning, in the case of e.g. NEP and post-NEP russia the russian state and comintern.

it's the same with cooperatives or any other capitalist firm: while market forces dictate exchange value, labor still needs to be allocated properly through planning to accompany it. this is why standard capitalist-led firm and cooperative are one and the same in telling labor how to meet these forces, the only difference is one is traditionally autocratic and top down and the other is horizontal. changes nothing about commodification of labor power and use values for purpose of exchange.

after capitalism can only come free associations of labor around appointing use values of how they see fit, instead of how market exchange dictates how exchange values should be appointed… that's always gonna be capitalism otherwise: producing to exchange property on the market.

Please don't post while doing meth.

Libsoc here

I really like this post. I just wish other anarchists wouldn't get so triggered and start spouting literal fucking propaganda and be up for a nuanced discussion and critique. Sadly, most of them don't read any Marxist theory, much less any anarchist theory.

As for market socs, can well-read ones explain to me how necessary resources will make their way to those in need? How do you prevent a collective from exploiting another?

ignore shitposting flag

What are you doing nigger.


No, I'm implying you personally have no control over the will of the market my friendo.

It regresses back into capitalism as more and more is centralized under one firm.

Moreover, what if the conaumer decides he no longer wants what he ordered? Are you going to force him to consume it? Whatnif the producer doesnt want to produce that? Are you going to force him to produce it? What if the consumer passes away?
Dude, I set up a situation to demonstrate the fact that this social relationship takes place in the form of commodity exchange. I've been to Home Depot to buy something and it wasn't there. Oh well. The owner didn't know if I was going to come in and buy it had it been there. Our social relationship takes place only in the exchange of commodities. Lack of effective demand refers to the fact that the production of surplus value is necessary in any market economy with a developed division of labour, and this leads to inequalities in the circuit of exchange. This can culminate and a crisis of overproduction, or a lack of effective demand.

Read Marx.

I just realized how pedantic the second part sounds. I mean, the interjection and ejection of money within all the exchanges can lead to inequalities within that circuit. I might produce something because I think I can make money and no one is able to buy it because there hasn't been a turnover of capital. The point is, any firm demands more money than they supply; the money capital laid out in productive capital should culminate in more money capital, or the same amount of money capital + surplus value. This circuit looks like M-C…..P(for production)….C'-M'. C' and M' are composed of the original capital plus surplus value (or C+c and M+m). The point is even in simple reproduction where money capital is supposed to be constant surplus value must be produced and this leads to all the crises inherent in surplus value Capitalist production.

I think you underestimate how many workers live below the poverty line in the US.

See above.

Production in a co-op is based around job security just as much as profit.

Except they didn't have the money to buy them dumbass.

also,
someone has no idea what Keynesian policies work.

Bump

you've sold me on identifying as a left com. seems like the most fitting ideology for shitposting trolls.