Market Socialism

I'd like to understand what anons here think Market Socialism exactly is. I've been getting contradictory assumptions and ideas here, and you know how unbiased wiki is.


1) How exactly is it different from other types of Socialist economy?
Regardless of your opinion about USSR (not Socialist!), please compare to Soviet economy as well.

2) Is capital market (i.e. market of capital goods) allowed?
Basically, can co-ops trade the dreaded Means of Production with little-to-no oversight from central authority?

3) Why do you think it works (better) and does not collapse into capitalism?
Or why it does collapse. This also works.

4) Where it was implemented or was attempted to be implemented?
And how it ended the way it ended (if ended, hello Rojava).

5) (optional) [Hardcore mode] Why your definition of Market Socialism is the correct one?

market socialism is basically capitalism

...

Market Socialism is a pretty broad term that can mean anything from Mutualism to whatever the Vietcong are doing these days.

The defining characteristics of every kind of "Market Socialism" is pretty much "Socialism" (Worker control of the means of production) in any form (State or nah) plus Markets (free exchange of goods and services for money/labour vouchers).

1) It's not centrally planned because a market can't be.

2) Depends on if you're asking Mutualists or whatever the Chinese Communists are today.

3) Because none of that famine, plus all of that increase in life quality, without that pesky bourgeoisie (because they don't exist!). It won't collapse into Capitalism because Capitalist property norms and profit won't exist either.

4) To some extent, Yugo, but not really. Look at Josiah Warren, who started a coop store under Mutualist Principles, and then stopped when he thought "Yeah, that worked."

5) Because dictionary.

You fucking wot mate. Do you even lange model?

a market literally depends on property and profit

Just to give some kind of insight into the subject, this pdf explains how the Yugoslav economy functioned, detailing how the planning was done, and how the workers organized themselves and so on

Lange model creates a pseudo-market, can't really be called a market of exchange if everything being exchanged is predetermined.


Proudhon brah, Spooner brah, Tucker brah, Use and Occupancy brah

The abolition of private property with the retention of markets trading in commodities.

In my view its the final step before the abolition of the market system, not a final goal. It is capitalism with a democratised workplace, in some sort of syndicate or federation, essentially. With or without a central state.

It is necessary to democratise completely both the means of production and markets.

Only once the markets are under the total control of the proletariat can they then be abolished.

Only once was the workplace has been seized can the market place be seized. While the owning class control the workplace they control everything.

Without the owning class to profit from the market, the market itself becomes unnecessary and so the people are in a position to allocate resources on a democratic basis, having gradually collectivised the markets. In turn giving us the fully automated luxury communism we all hope for.

Furthermore, there is nothing to stop a group of proles, with the necessary cash, from seizing their workplace completely within and protected by the liberal legal framework. Down this path, the state could in fact whither away from within, just Karl suggested.

I think that Market Socialism and Anarcho-capitalism share some common ground in that they're both semantically and practically implausible.

why dont you explain it yourself or stop being a revisionist

You had me with you until the last paragraph.

Except that you need to have a system that can accurately allocate resources, which is hard to do. A market is one such tool to help with that.

it was a lazy half explained p.s. I bet I could convince you.

as well as a market becoming unnessary once nobody technically owns it, so it becomes necessary to allocate the resources in some other manner. If all the markets and means of production have become democratised, the proletariat are in a perfect position to democratically allocate resources to where they are needed.

Commodification of labor is often considered to be incompatible with Socialism, no?

Is that all? Any economy without central planning is Market Socialism?

Your opinion, please. I'm aware of idea being "controversial". It is explicitly stated in OP.

What famine?

Core concept of "Capitalist property norms" is unregulated ownership of means of production.

I'd ask why would it stop existing, except I have no idea what your Market Socialism looks like. Does it have industrial goods market or not?

"That's like, totally, not vague at all." (c)

I.e. your only example is this Josiah Warren's co-op store?

Which one? Soviet? Or the one written by Mises association?

I do remember Lange model being defined as "not strictly market socialism" in wiki. The whole concept is dumb on several levels, but this part is mostly correct.

So imagine a pool of several co-ops are started, they have an agreement by which they all pour money into the buying out of one of the co-ops. That is, buying the land it stands on, paying back entirely all debts, etc. Now, this completely democratised business can make much more profit, which is then pumped back into another one of the co-ops. At the same time, this business, owned by the people who work it, has ceased in a sense to be private property, it is now a becon of worker owned property.

With every co-op bought out and democratised, the revolution grows stronger and the property becomes public(er).

This is merely the first stage of the revolution, sporadic co-op building. The next would be to begin to build schools, hospitals, and so fourth.

The goal being to simply buy out until the state outside the federation is insignificant.

Market socialism: socialization of the means of production - not Nationalization, not Statization, but exactly working place democracy.

Planning is determined through various levels of political representation, through delegates elected by the workers; the profits, if any made, are owned by the workers themselves, for example (hence socialized property). Planning is still present, although in different form, in relation to the Stalinist way; in this sense, though, planning starts in a decentralized way up to a centralized "overwatching" of the economy, and society, itself.

The markets are only a way of allocating resources - which, in return, only are able to properly "function" after being delimited by the planning determined by the workers, in the local, state, and federal levels.

Althought key components of the economy could be owned essentially by the State - like the production of energy. But even still, the workers of said sector were the ones who'd decide the hows and whats of their own work.

The best part is, within a liberal system these businesses would technically still be private property and they would be forced to defend the revolution until it was too late.

Literally how can a market not have profits

If those profits are under the control of everybody who worked for them, not just a boss.

Commodities are still produced to be bought and sold for profit by co-operatives or partnerships but limited liability corporations wouldn't exist.

Fixed-capital is just a commodity so it would be bought and sold but it would have to be held by individuals/co-operatives/partnerships so it would have a much higher turn-over then corporate capital meaning it would be worth a lot less.

Individuals or co-operatives would democratically manage what is to be done with their profits themselves and wouldn't be controlled by having to maximize at all costs the return on investment for private share-holders.
Instead of having something like a Federal Reserve managing monetary policy in the interest of private bankers you would have banking institutions where the money supply would be controlled by commercial/consumer demand for actual goods and services instead of just inflating intangible asset values.

Nowhere has made these types of reforms

What commodities? For clarity, I'll divide "commodities" into four categories: Labour, Industrial goods, Life necessities, Luxuries.

The subsequent part was not understood by me, because there are no quotes, nor numbers. Did you actually answer the questions I asked? Are you AnCap?


It's called reformism, aka SocDem. It's not revolution. You sure you are on the right (left) board?


Yep. Last paragraph was point of no return.

it still has profits then…

I.e. Syndicalism?

Is labour a resource? Are industrial goods (means of production)?

What takes priority? Market or planning? Because this describes any Socialist economy whatsoever (everything could be reduced to differently delimited markets, no?).

An oxymoron. Socialism will be tradeless.

No.

Look, user, I'll refer you to this pdf. It has: "numbers" - which you asked the black flag poster for -, specifications. All of your question are contained there.

But I know you won't read it! Because even in the last thread you completely ignored it. Next you'll ask "What is your definition of x". Not going to bite it.

O-kay. That's all?

But no other restrictions?

Why not? Their well-being depends on having enough money to modernize their equipment in time and stay competitive.

I have only one real question: what anons think.

Okay. Tripcode it is.

Bourgeois

Bump.

The workers would also have complete control over the means of production directly, and would have to rely on a state intermediary that can easily itself become akin to a bourgeois class of owner bureaucrats.

Why would other restrictions be necessary?


Because the workers are the shareholders. They set their own goals and work according to their own ambitions. They wouldn't have these conditions forced on them.

This is just obtuse, obviously if the profit motive is collectivised then the co-op will work for the benefit of its workers instead of its owner. What about this is not an improvement for you and (as I said) a stepping towards a democratically planned economy?

This, abolishing the profit motive is a means to an end, with the end being the creation of a society in which class is abolished and the means of production are controlled democratically. If you collectivize/democratize the means of production then you have accomplished one of those goals and have moved that much closer to traditional socialism and therefore to communism.

I don't understand why orthodox Marxists would have a problem with Market socialism, it's just an intermediate step in the transition from capitalism to socialism. You BUILD socialism you don't just implement it.

The co-op will work for profit.

Markets. Idiot.

No, capitalism is not allowed in socialism.

All failed socialism collapses into capitalism, just like failed capitalism collapsed into feudalism. It works better because markets require much less micromanagement.

Yes, their own profit. I don't see the point you're trying to make.

>Market socialism is the transition from capitalism to socialism
Wonder why we don't trust you…

So not capitalism.

So not democracy.

ME MEME IS BEING USED!

Please continue.

You're being retarded and sectarian for no reason m8. Market socialism is still socialism because the workers control the means of production, they aren't privately owned and traded for profit.


What are you implying that I secretly don't want to create a socialist society? You're as retarded as Anarchists bitching at Marxists because they don't want to jump to communism right away. I figured that given Marx's insistence on the importance of the intermediary stage or socialism that the concept of another intermediary stage would be largely amenable to a Marxist.

Capitalism can be transformed into market socialism or mutualism with relative ease. From there it's an easy step to syndicalism, and from there to a planned economy.

But they are. This is exactly what a market is about.

No, products are traded for profit. The means of production are owned by the workers and only the workers.

It's ____READ MARX_____

Wait, you think means of production aren't products?

Exactly, not quite capitalism, not quite communism. Market socialism. Desirable as a stepping stone.

I'm curious as to what the alternative stepping stone is.

There's no room for a "stepping stone". Communism is what will come after capitalism.

By what process

The difference is that with means of production you can produce products and with regular consumer product you cant.

By removing an ever-growing part of the production from the markets.

by what process

By producing goods and distributing them instead of selling them.

how do you get to the point where you have the power to produce and distribute goods

Well if you're referring to manufactured goods that are used in production such as industrial equipment, then yes, these could be privately owned by an individual. However since all enterprise would be collective they wouldn't be able to use them without giving control of them to the workers. So people could hoard factory equipment and let it gather dust in their garage I guess.

OK so your master plan is to have a production regulated by markets (exactly like capitalism), except for the "means of production" which trade will be forbidden… by law?

Depending on the goods we are talking about, a few hundreds dollars can be enough tbh.

The question you should be asking is: how do we get to the point where we expanded this production to all the types of products in the whole world?
And the answer is: by any means necessary. It's a question of tactics, not of strategy.
The strategy being: for every factory, every store, every city, every country under our control, our task is to remove as much of its production as possible from the markets.

how about you stop being an ignoramus

For-profit production is not unique to capitalism.


Means of production is a pretty common term even in bourgeois economics, you look like a chump quoting it. Yes, exchanges in ownership of productive property will be forbidden as they are held in common by all of society.

Is this sarcasm? It works really bad over the internet. Non-verbal cues are missing.

I don't see any mechanisms that would protect people's right to work.

IRL we had individual people getting richer and instituting monopoly on work. Who is to say that co-ops can't do the same?

They are shareholders of their own co-op. Not the whole market. Market is not theirs to control. It's a result of many co-ops interacting. Therefore, there will be objective outside circumstances (basis) influencing them that could not be avoided.

To avoid being outcompeted from market and become poor and desititute (eventually starving to death), worker co-ops will have to stay competetive. I.e. follow certain behaviour, regardless of "their own goals" and "their own ambitions".

They will have these conditions forced on them. There is nothing they can do to prevent it. There is no mechanism that would regulate the market. Instituting one would mean creating central authority. Central planning by any other name …

Wouldn't market socialism have the consequence of pitting the working class against each other?

Bump

Yes it is. Middle-Age peasants didn't produce for profit, neither did antique slaves.
They had always been an exception until… capitalism.

That's basic reformism.

What you say is very true; why the Stalin moustache?

Bump.


I'm quite certain some did.

Define "exception". Merchants still aren't majority.