Michael et. al., Sorry again for the late reponses - I realize that you may not catch this but what the hell! Regarding my comments - I don't think the issue is the "purity" of market socialism vis avis markets but the counter-productive political implications of advocating "market-something" when you cant't as a socialist support market allocation as a principle whatever the result (as a Hayekian or neo-liberal can). Here I agree with Robin Hahnel and other anti-market socialists. Regarding reform or transition politics - this was one of Pierson's points as your summary of Schweickart's review also notes. I would have to disagree with S.'s conclusions though I think (at least as you praphrase - I have to read the review (thanks for the reference) he does capture some of Pierson's key arguments - with a particular spin! My own spin would be that not withstanding their claims to the contrary "market socialists" DO NOT offer a "feasible" political STRATEGY to go beyond Social-Democracy and Communism and (mostly - S. being one of the exceptions as he includes democratically planned net investment as part of his "economic democracy" - I think planning should be extended to other realms like labor markets, social pricing of basic infrastructure, commanding heights of commodity production, etc. but at least S. goes pretty far in this direction) DO NOT offer a practical VISION of socialism . The focus on property rights is not a good and feasible political transitionary strategy. Focusing on "anti-market" politics in my view is key to current progressive strategy - needless to say "market socialism" tends to point away from this. On vision Pierson's point is that market socialists tend to neglect the non-market spheres like the state, civil society, etc. The point is that socialist values require extensive democratical "social choice" which cannot be derived from markets i.e. there is ultimately no escaping "democratically planned socialism" INCLUDING extensive social choice type planning within the economy if it is to reflect socialist values especially of radical democracy. I don't see this as "muddle headed" - I don't think Pierson or any socialist has any problems with the goal of "socializing" social property so I don't think the issue is that this is "too radical". Its just that though this is always an important issue for socialists "market socialism" makes it THE ISSUE and (sometimes the only issue) and this is not politically advantageous and undermines the broader socialist project which requires a lot more than just changing property relations within a market. S. may be right that Peirson doesn't talk alot about class power (there are a lot of other books on this) but I don't think he is trying to avoid or neglect his reality - the focus of the book is on analyzing the strngths and weaknesses of "market socialism" and deriving political conclusions from this analysis. One could alternately argue that singling out the one issue of capitalist ownership is not an effective way to proceed politically at this time. This does not mean that it is thereby dropped from the socialist agenda - rather it needs to be included in a much broader socialist agenda that market socialists have (mostly) dropped. Best Regards, Ron Baiman Roosevelt Univ., Chicago On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Michael Hoover wrote: > > According to ypu, Pierson has two main > > objections to market socialism. > > 1) A market socialist economy cannot be a "pure" free market economy but > > will require extensive government regulation to deal with externalities, > > 2) Market socialism cannot be achieved by reformist means. > > --Justin > > > I think pen-l readers (market socialists and non alike) may find > > > SOCIALISM AFTER COMMUNISISM: THE NEW MARKET SOCIALISM by Christopher > > > Pierson (Penn State , 1995) of interest. > > > Ron Baiman > > I recently read a review - I'v not read Pierson myself - by David > Schweickart in American Political Science Review...according to > S, P maintains, on the one hand, that market socialism is > unfeasible because it is too radical - it takes aim at the heart > of the contemporary economic order and aims to replace capitalist > ownership of the means of production with some form of social > ownership...on the other hand, S says that P asserts that market > socialism is unfeasible because it isn't radical enough - that > market socialists have insufficiently addressed ways in which > the political state and civil society can be more democratic and > that market socialists haven't adequately explored questions of > ownership... > > S suggests that P's "logical muddle" is the result of his failure > to address the question of class power - that the fundamental > reason for the infeasibility of market social is the sheer power > of the capitalist class...This class - identified by S as the 1% or > so of the US population that owns one-third or more of the wealth - > has rigged the electoral game so as to make certain there will be no > effective challenge to it power in the foseeable future...S indicates > that references to this class, to its lock on the mass media, > campaign financing, are essentially absent from P's book... >
