>Yoshie says:
>That the market rations resources "efficiently" through bankruptcies
>doesn't sound like an attractive argument for market socialism with
>which to appeal to working people, no?
> >>
>
>So you would keep in business enterprises that waste time and other
>resources and make stuff nobody wants at the expense of not making
>stuff that people do want?
>
>In my experience of arguing with ordinary working people over the
>decades, they are far more attracted to and persuaded by market
>socialism than planned socialism.
>
>--jks
Kotz & Weir say that "[t]he Soviet economy operated with a perpetual
shortage of goods relative to demand, which allowed producers to
readily dispose of whatever they produced, whether or not it was what
the customers really wanted" (_Revolution from Above_ p.41). On the
other hand, "Some products were of high quality, including weapons,
aircraft, metals, spacecraft, fuel cells, chemicals, and some types
of machinery" (Kotz & Weir p.41). It is not as though in the Soviet
Union consumer goods had been produced under planning while weapons,
etc. had been produced for the market. The contrast between
high-quality weapons and low-quality consumer goods must have come
from differences in power. The Soviet military had the power to
demand high-quality goods, whereas ordinary Soviet citizens (who
lived as atomized consumers) didn't. I don't think that market
socialism would have changed the quality of consumer goods for
better, in that powerless citizens would be as powerless in the
market as under planning. What would have made a difference is the
cessation of imperialist hostility (which would have made it possible
to decrease military investment) and more importantly *democracy*
(*power* of the people to make economic decisions).
In the capitalist world as well, the poor majority cannot but put up
with whatever goods they can afford, regardless of their quality,
_if_ they are lucky enough to get them at all. In fact, they are
worse off than Soviet citizens were, for the poor under capitalism
are not even theoretically entitled to any goods -- hence no shortage
and seeming efficiency.
Yoshie
