Marty's note is exactly the sort of a discussion I would have liked to have seen in the earlier discussions about market socialism. Rather than making absolute statements or talking about examples where emotion runs ahead of rationality, he offers an excellent case study.
One question I have about the Chinese story: how much was the initial rhetoric about market socialism just a ruse for people who appreciated the opening to get rich quickly? If they were sincere market socialists, then the Chinese example would tend to corroborate my own belief that the incentives of markets are the dominant genes of market socialism and the socialist genes are recessive -- maybe a poor metaphor, but I mean that the market mentality tends to crowd out socialist values under such a scheme. Justin, from our earlier discussions, did not seem to accept my interpretation, but I'm not sure that China vindicates me. Robert McIntyre wrote about market socialism in Bulgaria and East Germany, in which he tried to show that state firms to spun off entrepreneurial businesses to experiment in order to investigate consumer tastes. They did not have profit incentives so there were not exactly market socialism, but they did take advantage of potentially useful properties of markets. One other Chinese question: as in the Russia, much of the successful entrepreneurial (can you use that word to describe the thuggery-corruption infested system that exists today in Russia?) drew upon the outstanding socialist educational system. I'm astounded when I meet Chinese academics to seek a well-trained they are. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
