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Market socialism is a type of economic system involving social ownership of the means of production within the framework of a market economy. Various models for such a system exist, usually involving cooperative enterprises and sometimes a mix that includes public or private enterprises. [1] [2] In contrast to the majority of historic socialist economies, which have substituted the market mechanism for some form of economic planning, market socialists wish to retain the use of supply and demand signals to guide the allocation of capital goods and the means of production. [3] [4] [5] Under such a system, depending on whether socially owned firms are state-owned or operated as worker cooperatives, profits may variously be used to directly remunerate employees, accrue to society at large as the source of public finance, or be distributed amongst the population in a social dividend. [6]
Market socialism can be distinguished from the concept of the mixed economy because most models of market socialism propose complete and self-regulating systems, unlike the mixed economy. [7] While social democracy aims to achieve greater economic stability and equality through policy measures such as taxes, subsidies, and social welfare programs, market socialism aims to achieve similar goals through changing patterns of enterprise ownership and management. [8]
Though the term "market socialism" only emerged in the 1920s during the socialist calculation debate, [9] a number of pre-Marx socialists, including the Ricardian socialist economists and mutualist philosophers, conceived of socialism as a natural development of the market principles of classical economics, and proposed the creation of co-operative enterprises to compete in a free-market economy. The aim of such proposals was to eliminate exploitation by allowing individuals to receive the full product of their labor, while removing the market-distorting effects of concentrating ownership and wealth in the hands of a small class of private property owners. [10]
Although sometimes described as "market socialism", [11] the Lange model is a form of market simulated planning where a central planning board allocates investment and capital goods by simulating factor market transactions, while markets allocate labor and consumer goods. The system was devised by socialist economists who believed that a socialist economy could neither function on the basis of calculation in natural units nor through solving a system of simultaneous equations for economic coordination. [12] [9]
Real-world attempts to create market socialist economies have only partially implemented the measures envisioned by its theorists, but the term has sometimes been used to describe the results of various attempts at liberalization in the Eastern Bloc including Hungary's New Economic Mechanism, the economy of Yugoslavia, Perestroika, and the economic reforms of China as well as Lenin's New Economic Policy. [13]
The key theoretical basis for market socialism is the negation of the underlying expropriation of surplus value present in other modes of production. Socialist theories that favored the market date back to the Ricardian socialists and anarchist economists, who advocated a free market combined with public ownership or mutual ownership of the means of production.
Proponents of early market socialism include the Ricardian socialist economists, the classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill and the anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. These models of socialism entailed perfecting or improving the market mechanism and free price system by removing distortions caused by exploitation, private property and alienated labor.
This form of market socialism has been termed free-market socialism because it does not involve planners. [14] [15]
Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets that he moved toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook, and defending some socialist causes. [16] Within this revised work he also made the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, [17] albeit altered in the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on unearned incomes which he favoured; and those on earned incomes, which he did not favour. [18]
Mill's Principles, first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period. [19] As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles dominated economics teaching. In the case of Oxford University, it was the standard text until 1919, when it was replaced by Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics .
In later editions of Principles of Political Economy, Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies". [17] [20]
Mill also promoted substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives, writing:
The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations and working under managers elected and removable by themselves. [21]
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Libertarian socialism |
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon developed a theoretical system called mutualism which attacks the legitimacy of existing property rights, subsidies, corporations, banking and rent. Proudhon envisioned a decentralized market where people would enter the market with equal power, negating wage slavery. [22] Proponents believe that cooperatives, credit unions and other forms of worker ownership would become viable without being subject to the state. Market socialism has also been used to describe some individualist anarchist works which argue that free markets help workers and weaken capitalists. [23] [24]
For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". [25] Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist, [26] and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published, [27] an enterprise for which he built his own printing press, cast his own type, and made his own printing plates. [27]
Warren was a follower of Robert Owen and joined Owen's community at New Harmony, Indiana. Josiah Warren termed the phrase "cost the limit of price", with "cost" here referring not to monetary price paid but the labor one exerted to produce an item. [28] Therefore, "[h]e proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did. They could exchange the notes at local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce". [26] He put his theories to the test by establishing an experimental "labor for labor store" called the Cincinnati Time Store where trade was facilitated by notes backed by a promise to perform labor. The store proved successful and operated for three years after which it was closed so that Warren could pursue establishing colonies based on mutualism. These included Utopia and Modern Times. Warren said that Stephen Pearl Andrews' The Science of Society, published in 1852, was the most lucid and complete exposition of Warren's own theories. [29]
Later, Benjamin Tucker fused the economics of Warren and Proudhon and published these ideas in Liberty calling them "Anarchistic-Socialism". [30] Tucker said: "[T]he fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labour, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labour by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labour. [...] And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as anyone. But the minute you remove privilege [...] every man will be a labourer exchanging with fellow-labourers. [...] What Anarchistic-Socialism aims to abolish is usury [...] it wants to deprive capital of its reward". [30] American individualist anarchists such as Tucker saw themselves as economic market socialists and political individualists while arguing that their "anarchistic socialism" or "individual anarchism" was "consistent Manchesterism". [31] Left-wing market anarchism is a modern branch of free-market anarchism that is based on a revival of such market socialist theories. [32] [33] [34] [35]
Beginning in the early 20th century, neoclassical economic theory provided the theoretical basis for more comprehensive models of market socialism. Early neoclassical models of socialism included a role for a central planning board (CPB) in setting prices equal to marginal cost in order to achieve Pareto efficiency. Although these early models did not rely on conventional markets, they were labeled market socialist for their utilization of financial prices and calculation. Alternative outlines for market socialism involve models where socially owned enterprises or producer co-operatives operate within free markets under the criterion of profitability. In recent models proposed by American neoclassical economists, public ownership of the means of production is achieved through public ownership of equity and social control of investment.
The earliest models of neoclassical socialism were developed by Léon Walras, Enrico Barone (1908) [36] [37] [38] and Oskar R. Lange (c. 1936). [39] Lange and Fred M. Taylor (1929) [40] proposed that central planning boards set prices through "trial and error", making adjustments as shortages and surpluses occurred rather than relying on a free price mechanism. If there were shortages, prices would be raised; if there were surpluses, prices would be lowered. [41] Raising the prices would encourage businesses to increase production, driven by their desire to increase their profits, and in doing so eliminate the shortage. Lowering the prices would encourage businesses to curtail production to prevent losses, which would eliminate the surplus. Therefore, it would be a simulation of the market mechanism, which Lange thought would be capable of effectively managing supply and demand. [42]
Although the Lange–Lerner model was often labelled as market socialism, it is better described as market simulation because factor markets did not exist for the allocation of capital goods. The objective of the Lange–Lerner model was explicitly to replace markets with a non-market system of resource allocation. [43] [44]
H. D. Dickinson published two articles proposing a form of market socialism, namely "Price Formation in a Socialist Community" ( The Economic Journal 1933) and "The Problems of a Socialist Economy" (The Economic Journal 1934). Dickinson proposed a mathematical solution whereby the problems of a socialist economy could be solved by a central planning agency. The central agency would have the necessary statistics on the economy, as well as the capability of using statistics to direct production. The economy could be represented as a system of equations. Solution values for these equations could be used to price all goods at marginal cost and direct production. Hayek (1935) argued against the proposal to simulate markets with equations. Dickinson (1939) adopted the Lange-Taylor proposal to simulate markets through trial and error.
The Lange–Dickinson version of market socialism kept capital investment out of the market. Lange (1926 p65) insisted that a central planning board would have to set capital accumulation rates arbitrarily. Lange and Dickinson saw potential problems with bureaucratization in market socialism. According to Dickinson, "the attempt to check irresponsibility will tie up managers of socialist enterprises with so much red tape and bureaucratic regulation that they will lose all initiative and independence" (Dickinson 1938, p. 214). In The Economics of Control: Principles of Welfare Economics (1944), Abba Lerner admitted that capital investment would be politicized in market socialism.
Economists active in the former Yugoslavia, including Czech-born Jaroslav Vaněk and Croat-born Branko Horvat, promoted a model of market socialism dubbed the Illyrian model, where firms were socially owned by their employees and structured around workers' self-management, competing with each other in open and free markets.
American economists in the latter half of the 20th century developed models based such as coupon socialism (by the economist John Roemer) and economic democracy (by the philosopher David Schweickart).
Pranab Bardhan and John Roemer proposed a form of market socialism where there was a stock market that distributed shares of the capital stock equally among citizens. In this stock market, there is no buying or selling of stocks that leads to negative externalities associated with a concentration of capital ownership. The Bardhan and Roemer model satisfied the main requirements of both socialism (workers own all the factors of production, not just labour) and market economies (prices determine efficient allocation of resources). New Zealand economist Steven O'Donnell expanded on the Bardhan and Roemer model and decomposed the capital function in a general equilibrium system to take account of entrepreneurial activity in market socialist economies. O'Donnell (2003) set up a model that could be used as a blueprint for transition economies and the results suggested that although market socialist models were inherently unstable in the long term, they would provide in the short term the economic infrastructure necessary for a successful transition from planned to market economies. [45]
In the early 21st century, the Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff refocused Marxian economics giving it a microfoundational focus. The core idea was that transition from capitalism to socialism required the reorganization of the enterprise from a top-down hierarchical capitalist model to a model where all key enterprise decisions (what, how, and where to produce and what to do with outputs) were made on a one-worker, one vote basis. Wolff called them workers self-directed enterprises (WSDEs). How they would interact with one another and with consumers was left open to democratic social decisions and could entail markets or planning, or likely mixtures of both.
Advocates of market socialism such as Jaroslav Vaněk argue that genuinely free markets are not possible under conditions of private ownership of productive property. Instead, he contends that the class differences and inequalities in income and power that result from private ownership enable the interests of the dominant class to skew the market to their favor, either in the form of monopoly and market power, or by utilizing their wealth and resources to legislate government policies that benefit their specific business interests. Additionally, Vaněk states that workers in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises have stronger incentives to maximize productivity because they would receive a share of the profits (based on the overall performance of their enterprise) in addition to receiving their fixed wage or salary. The stronger incentives to maximize productivity that he conceives as possible in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises might be accomplished in a free-market economy if employee-owned companies were the norm as envisioned by various thinkers including Louis O. Kelso and James S. Albus. [46]
Giacomo Corneo, Professor of Public Finance and Social Policy at the Free University of Berlin, espouses an "updated version of market socialism" where large firms would be publicly owned (though by no more than 51% share), [47] which would allow the government to distribute a social dividend, while the rest of the firms would be privately owned and subject to regulations to protect employees, consumers and environment. [48]
Matt Bruenig advocates for a version of market socialism he calls "funds socialism," which involves sovereign wealth funds acquiring shares of private enterprises to socialize ownership and control of firms. [49] [50] Bruenig claims that this form of market socialism is similar to that advocated by Yanis Varoufakis, Rudolf Meidner, and John Roemer. [50]
Another form of market socialism has been promoted by critics of central planning and generally of neoclassical general equilibrium theory. The most notable of these economists were Alec Nove and János Kornai. In particular, in 1983 Nove proposed what he called "feasible socialism", [51] a mixed economy consisting of state-run enterprises, autonomous publicly owned firms, cooperatives and small-scale private enterprise operating in a market economy that included a role for macroeconomic planning. [52]
A number of market socialist elements have existed in various economies. The economy of Yugoslavia was widely considered to have been a form of market-based socialism, based on socially-owned cooperatives, workers' self-management, and market allocation of capital. [53] Some of the economic reforms introduced during the Prague Spring by Alexander Dubček, the leader of Czechoslovakia, included elements of market socialism. [54]
Likewise, Vietnam's socialist-oriented market economy is self-described as market socialist. It has an extremely high prevalence of cooperatives, especially in agriculture and retail, with the continued state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy. [55] Cooperative businesses in Vietnam are also incentivized and supported by the government, receiving many benefits that private companies do not. [56]
Peter Drucker described the United States system of regulated pension funds providing capital to financial markets as "pension fund socialism". [57] William H. Simon characterized pension fund socialism as "a form of market socialism", concluding that it was promising but perhaps with prospects more limited than those envisioned by its enthusiasts. [58]
The economy of Cuba under the rule of Raúl Castro has been described as attempting market socialist reforms. [59] Similarly, the economy of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi could be described as a form of market socialism as Muammar Gaddafi's Third International Theory shared many similarities with Yugoslav self-management. [60] [61]
Policies similar to the market socialist proposal of a social dividend and basic income scheme have been implemented on the basis of public ownership of natural resources in Alaska (Alaska Permanent Fund) and in Norway (the Government Pension Fund of Norway). [49]
After a decade of political, social and economic turmoil following the Cultural Revolution, China began its reform and opening-up in 1978 and formally amended its constitution in adopting the socialist market economy as the country's economic system in 1993. [62]
The phrase market socialism has occasionally been used in reference to any attempt by a Soviet-type planned economy to introduce market elements into its economic system. In this sense, market socialism was first attempted during the 1920s in the Soviet Union as the New Economic Policy (NEP) before being abandoned. Later, elements of market socialism were introduced in Hungary (nicknamed goulash communism), Czechoslovakia (sloganized as socialism with a human face), Yugoslavia (known as Titoism) in the 1970s and 1980s. The contemporary Economy of Belarus has been described as a market socialist system. The Soviet Union attempted to introduce a market system with its perestroika reforms under Mikhail Gorbachev. During the later stages there was talk within top circles that the Soviet Union should move toward a market-based socialist system.
Historically, these kinds of market socialist systems attempt to retain state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy such as heavy industry, energy and infrastructure while introducing decentralised decision making and giving local managers more freedom to make decisions and respond to market demands. Market socialist systems also allow private ownership and entrepreneurship in the service and other secondary economic sectors. The market is allowed to determine prices for consumer goods and agricultural products, and farmers are allowed to sell all or some of their products on the open market and keep some or all of the profit as an incentive to increase and improve production.
Both the Eastern European and Chinese socialist approaches to market reforms assume that a "market economy" is not necessarily a capitalist market economy, and that a socialist economy is not necessarily a planned economy. [63] This view draws support from Karl Marx's observations that markets existed under historical modes of production such as the Roman slave market economy and feudal markets. [63]
The term market socialism has been used to refer to reformed economic systems in Marxist–Leninist states, most notably in reference to the contemporary economy of the People's Republic of China, where a free price system is used for the allocation of capital goods in both the state and private sectors. However, Chinese political and economic proponents of the socialist market economy do not consider it to be a form of market socialism in the neoclassical sense [64] and many Western economists and political scientists question the degree to which this model constitutes a form of market socialism, often preferring to describe it as state capitalism. [65]
Although similar in name, market socialism differs markedly from the socialist market economy and socialist-oriented market economy models practiced in the contemporary People's Republic of China and Socialist Republic of Vietnam, respectively. Officially these economic systems represent market economies that are in the long-term process of transition toward socialism. [66] Key differences between models of market socialism and the Chinese and Vietnamese models include the role of private investment in enterprises, the lack of a social dividend or basic income system to equitably distribute state profits among the population and the existence and role of financial markets in the Chinese model—markets which are absent in the market socialist literature. [65]
The Chinese experience with socialism with Chinese characteristics is frequently referred to as a socialist market economy where the commanding heights are state-owned, but a substantial portion of both the state and private sectors of economy are governed by market practices, including a stock exchange for trading equity and the utilization of indirect macroeconomic market mechanisms (i.e. fiscal, monetary and industrial policies) to influence the economy in the same manner governments affect the economy in capitalist economies. The market is the arbitrator for most economic activity, with economic planning being relegated to macro-economic government indicative planning that does not encompass the microeconomic decision-making that is left to the individual organizations and state-owned enterprises. This model includes a significant amount of privately owned firms that operate as a business for profit, but only for consumer goods and services. [67]
In the Chinese system, directive planning based on mandatory output requirements and quotas were displaced by market mechanisms for most of the economy, including both the state and private sectors, although the government engages in indicative planning for large state enterprises. [67] In comparison with the Soviet-type planned economy, the Chinese socialist market model is based on the corporatization of state institutions, transforming them into joint-stock companies. As of 2008, there were 150 state-owned corporations directly under the central government. [68] These state-owned corporations have been reformed and become increasingly dynamic and a major source of revenue for the state in 2008, [69] [70] leading the economic recovery in 2009 during the wake of the global financial crises. [71]
This economic model is defended from a Marxist–Leninist perspective which states that a planned socialist economy can only emerge after first developing the basis for socialism through the establishment of a market economy and commodity-exchange economy; and that socialism would only emerge after this stage has exhausted its historical necessity and gradually transforms itself into socialism. [64] Proponents of this model argue that the economic system of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states attempted to go from a natural economy to a planned economy by decree, without passing through the necessary market economy phase of development. [72]
Some democratic socialists advocate forms of market socialism, some of which are based on self-management. Others advocate for a non-market participatory economy based on decentralized economic planning. [73]
The French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the first person to call himself an anarchist and considered among its most influential theorists. Proudhon is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". [74] Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the French Revolution of 1848, whereon he referred to himself as a federalist . [75] Proudhon's best-known assertion is that "Property is theft!", contained in his first major work What Is Property?, published in 1840. The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities. It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with Proudhon. The two influenced each other and met in Paris while Marx was exiled there. Their friendship finally ended when Marx responded to Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty with the provocatively titled The Poverty of Philosophy . The dispute became one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association. Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and market socialist economic theory that advocates a socialist society where each person possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market. [76] Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration. [77] Mutualism is based on a labor theory of value which holds that when labor or its product is sold it ought to receive in exchange goods or services embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility". [78]
Mutualism originated from the writings of Proudhon. Mutualists oppose the idea of individuals receiving an income through loans, investments and rent as they believe these individuals are not laboring. Although opposed this type of income, Proudhon expressed that he had never intended "to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose". [79] Insofar as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labor, mutualists support markets or artificial markets and property in the product of labor. However, mutualists argue for conditional titles to land, whose ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called possession), [80] advocating personal property in place of private property. [81] [82] However, some individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker started calling possession as property or private property. [83] [84]
Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist [26] and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published. [27] For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". [85] Later, the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker "was against both the state and capitalism, against both oppression and exploitation. While not against the market and property he was firmly against capitalism as it was, in his eyes, a state-supported monopoly of social capital (tools, machinery, etc.) which allows owners to exploit their employees, i.e., to avoid paying workers the full value of their labour. He thought that the "labouring classes are deprived of their earnings by usury in its three forms, interest, rent and profit". Therefore, " Liberty will abolish interest; it will abolish profit; it will abolish monopolistic rent; it will abolish taxation; it will abolish the exploitation of labour; it will abolish all means whereby any labourer can be deprived of any of his product". This stance puts him squarely in the libertarian socialist tradition and, unsurprisingly, Tucker referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "[a]narchistic socialism". [86] [87]
French individualist anarchist Émile Armand shows clearly opposition to capitalism and centralized economies when he said that the individualist anarchist "inwardly he remains refractory – fatally refractory – morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single systems are equally repugnant to him.)". [88] He argued for a pluralistic economic logic when he said that "Here and there everything happening – here everyone receiving what they need, there each one getting whatever is needed according to their own capacity. Here, gift and barter – one product for another; there, exchange – product for representative value. Here, the producer is the owner of the product, there, the product is put to the possession of the collectivity". [89] The Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Giménez Igualada thought that "capitalism is an effect of government; the disappearance of government means capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously. [...] That which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing that is being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist. The fight, but of consciousness, is against the State". [90] His view on class division and technocracy are as follows "Since when no one works for another, the profiteer from wealth disappears, just as government will disappear when no one pays attention to those who learned four things at universities and from that fact they pretend to govern men. Big industrial enterprises will be transformed by men in big associations in which everyone will work and enjoy the product of their work. And from those easy as well as beautiful problems anarchism deals with and he who puts them in practice and lives them are anarchists. [...] The priority which without rest an anarchist must make is that in which no one has to exploit anyone, no man to no man, since that non-exploitation will lead to the limitation of property to individual needs". [91]
Left-wing market anarchism is a market socialist form of individualist anarchism, left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism [92] associated with scholars such as Kevin Carson, [93] [94] Roderick T. Long, [95] [96] Charles W. Johnson, [97] Brad Spangler, [98] Samuel Edward Konkin III, [99] Sheldon Richman, [100] [101] [102] Chris Matthew Sciabarra [103] and Gary Chartier, [104] who stress the value of radically free markets, termed freed markets to distinguish them from the common conception which these libertarians believe to be riddled with capitalist and statist privileges. [105] Referred to as left-wing market anarchists [106] or market-oriented left-libertarians, [102] proponents of this approach strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of free markets and self-ownership while maintaining that taken to their logical conclusions these ideas support anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly liberal or radical views regarding socio-cultural issues. [107] [108]
The genealogy of contemporary left-wing market anarchism, sometimes labelled market-oriented left-libertarianism, [109] overlaps to a significant degree with that of Steiner–Vallentyne left-libertarianism as the roots of that tradition are sketched in the book The Origins of Left-Libertarianism. [110] Carson–Long-style left-libertarianism is rooted in 19th-century mutualism and in the work of figures such as Thomas Hodgskin, French Liberal School thinkers such as Gustave de Molinari and the American individualist anarchists Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner. While with notable exceptions market-oriented libertarians after Tucker tended to ally with the political right, relationships between those libertarians and the New Left thrived in the 1960s, laying the groundwork for modern left-wing market anarchism. [111] Left-wing market anarchism identifies with left-libertarianism which names several related yet distinct approaches to politics, society, culture and political and social theory, which stress both individual freedom and social justice. [112]
Unlike right-libertarians, left-libertarians believe that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights [113] [114] and maintain that natural resources (land, oil, gold and trees) ought to be held in some egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. [114] Those left-libertarians who support property do so under different property norms [115] [116] [117] [118] and theories, [119] [120] [121] or under the condition that recompense is offered to the local or global community. [114]
Market abolitionists such as David McNally argue in the Marxist tradition that the logic of the market inherently produces inequitable outcomes and leads to unequal exchanges, arguing that Adam Smith's moral intent and moral philosophy espousing equal exchange was undermined by the practice of the free market he championed—the development of the market economy involved coercion, exploitation and violence that Smith's moral philosophy could not countenance. McNally criticizes market socialists for believing in the possibility of fair markets based on equal exchanges to be achieved by purging parasitical elements from the market economy such as private ownership of the means of production, arguing that market socialism is an oxymoron when socialism is defined as an end to wage labour. [122]
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society a system of private property would still exist, and would be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies that were selected by property owners, whose ownership rights or claims would be enforced by private defence agencies and/or insurance companies. These agencies or companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police. Some anarcho-capitalist authors have argued that voluntary slavery is compatible with anarcho-capitalist ideals.
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set solely by the bids and offers of the participants.
Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Although usually contrasted with social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Some anarcho-capitalists claim anarcho-capitalism is part of the individualist anarchist tradition, while others disagree and claim individualist anarchism is only part of the socialist movement and part of the libertarian socialist tradition. Economically, while European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most American individualist anarchists of the 19th century advocated mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that violates the entitlement theory of justice, that is, gives privilege due to unjust acquisition or exchange, and thus is exploitative, seeking to "destroy the tyranny of capital,—that is, of property" by mutual credit.
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism makes the individual its focus, and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation".
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is considered the standard left wing ideology in most countries of the world. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism.
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a market economy is the existence of factor markets that play a dominant role in the allocation of capital and the factors of production.
Laissez-faire is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism. As a system of thought, laissez-faire rests on the following axioms: "the individual is the basic unit in society, i.e., the standard of measurement in social calculus; the individual has a natural right to freedom; and the physical order of nature is a harmonious and self-regulating system." The original phrase was laissez faire, laissez passer, with the second part meaning "let (things) pass". It is generally attributed to Vincent de Gournay.
Market anarchism is the branch of anarchism that advocates a free-market economic system based on voluntary interactions without the involvement of the state; a form of individualist anarchism and libertarian socialism.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and anti-capitalist market socialist economic theory that advocates for workers' control of the means of production, a market economy made up of individual artisans and workers' cooperatives, and occupation and use property rights. As proponents of the labour theory of value and labour theory of property, mutualists oppose all forms of economic rent, profit and non-nominal interest, which they see as relying on the exploitation of labour. Mutualists seek to construct an economy without capital accumulation or concentration of land ownership. They also encourage the establishment of workers' self-management, which they propose could be supported through the issuance of mutual credit by mutual banks, with the aim of creating a federal society.
Individualist anarchism in the United States was strongly influenced by Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert Spencer and Henry David Thoreau. Other important individualist anarchists in the United States were Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Batchelder Greene, Ezra Heywood, M. E. Lazarus, John Beverley Robinson, James L. Walker, Joseph Labadie, Steven Byington and Laurance Labadie.
Democratic socialism is a left-wing set of political philosophies that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society. Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support revolutionary or reformist politics to establish socialism. Democratic socialism was popularised by socialists who opposed the backsliding towards a one-party state in the Soviet Union and other nations during the 20th century.
Types of socialism include a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production and organizational self-management of enterprises as well as the political theories and movements associated with socialism. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective or cooperative ownership, or to citizen ownership of equity in which surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole. There are many varieties of socialism and no single definition encapsulates all of them, but social ownership is a common element shared by its various forms. Socialists disagree about the degree to which social control or regulation of the economy is necessary, how far society should intervene, and whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.
Social anarchism, also known as left-wing anarchism or socialist anarchism, is the branch of anarchism that sees liberty and social equality as interrelated.
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was an American individualist anarchist and self-identified socialist. Tucker was the editor and publisher of the American individualist anarchist periodical Liberty (1881–1908). Tucker described his form of anarchism as "consistent Manchesterism" and "unterrified Jeffersonianism".
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist, using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists. Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist. Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as the synthesis of community and individualism. Some consider his mutualism to be part of individualist anarchism while others regard it to be part of social anarchism.
Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society. Thus, the concept posits not the absence of a social hierarchy but the uninheritability of class status. Helen Codere defines social class as a segment of the community, the members of which show a common social position in a hierarchical ranking. Codere suggest that a true class-organized society is one in which the hierarchy of prestige and social status is divisible into groups. Each group with its own social, economic, attitudinal and cultural characteristics, and each having differential degrees of power in community decision.
Anarchism and libertarianism, as broad political ideologies with manifold historical and contemporary meanings, have contested definitions. Their adherents have a pluralistic and overlapping tradition that makes precise definition of the political ideology difficult or impossible, compounded by a lack of common features, differing priorities of subgroups, lack of academic acceptance, and contentious historical usage.
....it is important to realize that the school of thinking calls itself "market socialism" is further divisible along three different lines: (1) whether its goal, market socialism, involves only worker-owned enterprises, or a mix of enterprises some worker-owned, some privately-owned, some nationalized, etc. (2) whether market socialism will eventually by followed by communism...
Market socialism is the general designation for a number of models of economic systems. On the one hand, the market mechanism is utilized to distribute economic output, to organize production and to allocate factor inputs. On the other hand, the economic surplus accrues to society at large rather than to a class of private (capitalist) owners, through some form of collective, public or social ownership of capital.
It is an economic system that combines social ownership of capital with market allocation of capital...The state owns the means of production, and returns accrue to society at large.
Social democracy achieves greater egalitarianism via ex post government taxes and subsidies, where market socialism does so via ex ante changes in patterns of enterprise ownership.
It was in the early 1920s that the expression 'market socialism' (marktsozialismus) became commonplace. A special term was considered necessary to distinguish those socialists prepared to accept some role for factor markets from the now mainstream socialists who were not.
[...] [B]y the 1820s, 'Smithian' apologists for industrial capitalism confronted 'Smithian' socialists in a vigorous, and often venomous, debate over political economy.
The first stage was marked by the realization by socialists that prices must be used for economic calculation under socialism; accounting in some kind of 'natural unit,' such as the amount of energy or labor commodities embodied, simply would not work. The second stage was characterized by the view that it would be possible to calculate the prices at which general equilibrium would be reached in a socialist economy by solving a complicated system of simultaneous equations [...]. The third stage was marked by the realization, by Lange and others, that markets would indeed be required to find the socialist equilibrium [...].
Mill, in contrast, advances a form of liberal democratic socialism for the enlargement of freedom as well as to realize social and distributive justice. He offers a powerful account of economic injustice and justice that is centered on his understanding of freedom and its conditions
Finally, there is the curious circumstance that Lange's system is widely hailed as a pioneering effort in the theory of market socialism, when it is demonstrably no such thing: even the name 'market socialism' predates Lange, and Lange's system is explicitly a proposal to replace the market with a non-market system.
Usually Oskar Lange is regarded as the originator of the concept of market socialism, in spite of the fact that he never spoke of market socialism and would not have been the first if he had. In fact, Lange's model involves only a partial market simulation for the trial-and-error iterative construction of a central plan, which belongs to the set of decentralization procedures in central planning.
...the federal shareholder should retain only 51 percent of their shares. Private ownership of the remaining 29% percent has a key role to play in creating an incentive structure that leads those firms to maximize profits.
The blueprint has private ownership in the means of production with respect to small- and medium-sized firms, because we think that individualism at the level of entrepreneurial initiatives is an important ingredient for economic dynamism. But all large firms would be in public ownership, and this would be the key difference with respect to today's economic system.
Some have endorsed the concept of market socialism, a postcapitalist economy that retains market competition but socializes the means of production, and in some versions, extends democracy to the workplace. Some holdout for a nonmarket, participatory economy. All democratic socialists agree on the need for a democratic alternative to capitalism.
The ownership [anarchists oppose] is basically that which is unearned [...] including such things as interest on loans and income from rent. This is contrasted with ownership rights in those goods either produced by the work of the owner or necessary for that work, for example his dwelling-house, land and tools. Proudhon initially refers to legitimate rights of ownership of these goods as 'possession,' and although in his latter work he calls this 'property,' the conceptual distinction remains the same.
Ironically, Proudhon did not mean literally what he said. His boldness of expression was intended for emphasis, and by 'property' he wished to be understood what he later called 'the sum of its abuses'. He was denouncing the property of the man who uses it to exploit the labour of others without any effort on his own part, property distinguished by interest and rent, by the impositions of the non-producer on the producer. Towards property regarded as 'possession' the right of a man to control his dwelling and the land and tools he needs to live, Proudhon had no hostility; indeed, he regarded it as the cornerstone of liberty, and his main criticism of the communists was that they wished to destroy it.
Tucker and Bakunin both shared Proudhon's opposition to private property (in the capitalist sense of the word), although Tucker confused this opposition (and possibly the casual reader) by talking about possession as 'property'
The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his "Wealth of Nations," – namely, that labor is the true measure of price...Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy...This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew...That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought...So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American, – a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article.
el capitalismo es sólo el efecto del gobierno; desaparecido el gobierno, el capitalismo cae de su pedestal vertiginosamente.... Lo que llamamos capitalismo no es otra cosa que el producto del Estado, dentro del cual lo único que se cultiva es la ganancia, bien o mal habida. Luchar, pues, contra el capitalismo es tarea inútil, porque sea Capitalismo de Estado o Capitalismo de Empresa, mientras el Gobierno exista, existirá el capital que explota. La lucha, pero de conciencias, es contra el Estado.[capitalism is only the effect of the government; once the government is gone, capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously.... What we call capitalism is nothing other than the product of the State, within which the only thing that is cultivated is profit , well or ill-gotten. Fighting, then, against capitalism is a useless task, because whether it is State Capitalism or Company Capitalism, as long as the Government exists, the capital that exploits will exist. The fight, but of conscience, is against the State. ]
¿La propiedad? ¡Bah! No es problema. Porque cuando nadie trabaje para nadie, el acaparador de la riqueza desaparece, como ha de desaparecer el gobierno cuando nadie haga caso a los que aprendieron cuatro cosas en las universidades y por ese sólo hecho pretenden gobernar a los hombres. Porque si en la tierra de los ciegos el tuerto es rey, en donde todos ven y juzgan y disciernen, el rey estorba. Y de lo que se trata es de que no haya reyes porque todos sean hombres. Las grandes empresas industriales las transformarán los hombres en grandes asociaciones donde todos trabajen y disfruten del producto de su trabajo. Y de esos tan sencillos como hermosos problemas trata el anarquismo y al que lo cumple y vive es al que se le llama anarquista...El hincapié que sin cansancio debe hacer el anarquista es el de que nadie debe explotar a nadie, ningún hombre a ningún hombre, porque esa no-explotación llevaría consigo la limitación de la propiedad a las necesidades individuales.[Property? Bah! It's not a problem. Because when no one works for anyone, the hoarder of wealth disappears, as the government must disappear when no one pays attention to those who learned four things in the universities and for that sole reason they claim to govern men. Because if in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, where everyone sees and judges and discerns, the king is in the way. And what is involved is that there are no kings because they are all men. large industrial companies will be transformed by men into large associations where everyone works and enjoys the product of their work. And anarchism deals with those problems that are as simple as they are beautiful and the one who complies with them and lives is the one who is called an anarchist... The emphasis that the anarchist must tirelessly make is that no one should exploit anyone, no man to no man, because that non-exploitation would entail the limitation of property to individual needs.]