The Development of Socialist Economic Thought (original) (raw)
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REVIEW: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Dobb was the most prominent Marxian political economist in Britain during the middle years of the 20th century. He was actively writing from the early 1920s to the 1970s. In this short book 1 , Brian Pollitt has brought together a number of publications from the last period of Dobbs life some of which have never appeared before in English. Taken together they give a revealing insight into the thoughts of an erudite Western Marxist as he tried to report on and come to terms with the economic debates going on in Eastern Europe at that time.
Radical Philosophy, 1985
Beyond the Market? comments on Boris Frankel The editors have asked me to comment on Frankel's Beyond the State?, since Frankel devotes several pages to a criticism of the sort of arguments which I advanced in my Economics of Feasible Socialism and in some other works. The key issue is evidently the relationship between socialism and the market mechanism. Frankel also criticises the ideas of many other thinkers, and-challenges some aspects of Marxist orthodoxy. Let me say at once that I found his work refreshing, vigorous and honest. Agreements He devotes much space to a CrItIcIsm of received ideas about the state, and he is right to do so. Its role in modern societies, in East and West alike, is very different indeed from the 'orthodox' models, both of Marx and of the 'ideal-type images of capitalism' of 'Chicago' laissez-faire. The traditional distinctions between the state and 'civil society', between base and superstructure, are in urgent need of drastic amendment. Frankel rightly focuses on many confusions: should (for instance) a movement such as Poland's 'Solidarity' be demanding freedom of social institutions from the state, or control by society over the state? What role should the state, and state planning, play in models of socialism which stress the autonomy of selfmanaged productive units? Perhaps, as he claims, 'stateless socialism will probably only guarantee unfreedom and inequality.' What, within any sort of class analysis, should be the status of state employees, which in more developed countries constitute a sizeable percentage of the total workforce? Evidently, such categories as 'exploitation' and 'surplus' value do not relate to them. A large part of our economy no longer fits into the Marxist division of it into 'Departments I and II'. These and some other 'sacred cows of Marxian orthodoxy' must be abandoned, argues the author. It is not my intention to enter more deeply into discussion of these matters, only to stress that Frankel is fully justified in raising these issues, and does so in ways which stimulate and inform. Who is 'productive'? This reader was, however, worried about his retention of one element of the dogmatic tradition: the treatment of 'unproductive' (or non-surplus-generating) labour. The problem here is not one of the typical employee in the public sector: obviously, a hospital nurse, probation officer, city architect, street sweeper, tax inspector, do not generate surplus value in any sense of the word, and their incomes evidently arise out of taxation. Marx, as is known, treated
Review of other socialist proposals
We have in the past tended to avoid expressing criticisms of other socialist writers, prefering instead to concentrate our critical faculties on prominent conservative economists. For the French edition of this book the publishers have asked us to review several contemporary socialist authors in order to explain where we stand in relation to them. One should bear in mind that ideas developed independently by different writers may coincide on some points and differ on others. Some of these differences may, in the big picture, be relatively unimportant , reflecting as they do each individual author's journey to their current position from different cultural starting points. Other differences may be more significant insofar as they relate to substantive policy issues. One may have the most varied views of history withouth this causing dispute if one's views on what should be done in the future coincide. Thus, in our reviews that follow we attempt to distinguish what we consider to be essentially scholarly differences with others, from politically important differences. Parecon Parecon is both the title of a bookAlbert (2003), and a neologism that its author intends to replace the word socialism. He feels that the word socialism has become so encumbered by notions of 'market socialism' that it has become necessary to invent an entirely new word to designate the non-market post-capitalist system that he advocates. Parecon stands for Participatory Economics, and the concept is the joint work of Michael Albert and his frequent collaborator Robin Hahnel. Albert can be thought of as either a libertarian socialist or an anarchist, and we would consider ourselves in sympathy with a considerable portion of what he writes, particularly his critique of the market and of market socialism. We do have differences with him on some issues of policy and on his analysis of the causal mechanisms underlying problems both with capitalism and hithertoo existant socialisms. If below, we seem to be rather critical of him on these points, it should not obscure the point that in terms of the overall spectrum of modern politics we are very close neighbours. The points on which we agree in terms of general objectives are: • A payment system based on labour (he calls it one based on effort). The objectives here are broadly the same though there is some difference of emphasis. 177
The Evolution of Socialism 15 48 05
The aim of this paper is to show that the collapse of the Soviet-type centralised planning model makes it necessary for Marxist thinkers to identify a new production mode which can be assumed to sprout from the ashes of capitalism as the offshoot of the stepwise evolution of the one currently in place. In the author's opinion, this new production mode exists and is a system of worker-controlled firms, i.e. a model that can be rated as the outgrowth of the capitalistic dynamic since it is this that taught workers how to manage production on their own. Insofar as it is true that the 'goalposts' of modern democracy are majority rule and the underlying principle that each head is entitled to one vote, it is hard to see why this principle should hold good for politics but not also for economic processes. Setting out from this reflection, the author contends that the precondition for extending democracy today is proceeding from the political arena to the social sphere. Whereas central planning is founded on the utopian assumption that a social system may prove viable although it denies workers a say in decision-making and the right to pursue the profit motive, a cooperative firm system would not carry any utopian overtones since the members of worker'controlled firms would engage in business with the aim of maximising both their incomes and the satisfactioin associated with their work. The paper argues that, if a society resolves to adopt a plan and this plan is expected to be developed by close reference to the market, its organisation would prove much more efficient in a system of worker-controlled firms than in one with capitalist-owned firms.
REASON, FREEDOM AND MODERNITY vol 9 The Political Economy of Socialism
This volume recognises that the political economy of the socialist society has tended to be overlooked in marxist analyses in favour of the critique of the capitalist mode of production. Marx himself expressed an hostility towards blueprintism, leaving as much freedom as possible to actual agents in specific social relations. However, the experience of the global economy since 1980 have cast doubts upon the viability of the socialist project. Despite ample evidence of the crisis tendencies and contradictory dynamics of capitalism, socialism no longer seems a burning political topic given its failure to supply an economic alternative. Rather than much attention being given to socialist alternatives, there is a lowering of sights coinciding with a deep seated crisis of socialist theory, above all of the theory of a socialist economy. This volume shows that whilst Marx may be weak with respect to the institutional means of the socialist economy, he is strong at the level of principle. Taking an Aristotelian view that principles are a strong foundation for any architecture, this volume sets about filling in the details of a viable socialist economic order.