Maybe I'm too generous but I've always assumed there's some though put into the whole market socialism thing and it's not as silly as it seems on surface level. Can't be bothered to read though.
It's a pretty contentious concept among the left. The fact that leftists in this post are arguing about it and will probably argue with my interpretation is proof of that.
Market Socialism (at least from my understanding as a Marxist) is a branch off or revision of Orthodox Marxism that has been historically practiced by Marxist leaders/ states; Tito's Yugoslavia is the best case example but arguably China, Vietnam and Cuba all do as well today. Some Marxists even think Lenin briefly did it with the NEP.
That being said, a lot of Marxists are very much opposed to the idea of 'markets' ever being compatible with Socialism, and any attempt to introduce markets into a Socialist system is an attempt at introducing bourgeois elements or straight up Capitalism back into society. And this is not entirely false. Yugoslavia eventually collapsed, not just because of Western pressure but also due to contradictions in their own system, and China and Vietnam do have pretty rich Capitalists that severely exploit their workers.
Anarchists are entirely opposed to it as far as I know (any Anarchists here can elaborate if needed).
I'm an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism, so I'm not sure how much my opinion counts, but I'll try to do an analysis from an anarchist perspective. I don't think you can have a market economy without private property and we all now how Bakunin felt about private property. Additionally, as it's been mentioned previously, markets assign value, which creates hierarchical relationships, something we also really don't like. I can't imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism but I'd be open to other perspectives.
I’m an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism
There's a lot to unpack here lol
I can’t imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism
Proudhon, De Cleyre, Lloyd Garrison, and others historically. There's also a strand in the modern-day trying to uphold this line of thinking through blogs and think-tanks, but on the ground they're pretty much eclipsed by syndicalist and insurrectionist practice.
It could, but it doesn't have to. I think Graeber made this point really well in History of Everything (and less well in his other books) where he pointed out that goods have and do move around through mechanisms other than markets or planned economies.
He gives the following examples on pg. 23-24:
Dreams and Vision Quests: Pre-colonial Iroquoians would travel for days to get items they had seen in dreams, moving them from town to town over the years. In plains societies, the vision quest served a similar role.
Traveling healers: They would develop entourages of people they had cured who would divide their possessions among the troupe, allowing goods to travel across huge swaths of the American SE without markets.
Women's gambling: Gambling with shells, according to archaeologist Warren DeBoer, moved shells and other adornments halfway across the continent, again, without markets.
In Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, he argues that many "currencies" were enmeshed in social relationships that extended beyond the transactional nature of the market. Wampum, for example, was never just money (until the colonial era) and the transfer of wampum could also create kinship ties or end feuds. Even markets weren't always markets.
To move past history and into the speculative, anarchist have laid out plans for centrally planned economies which are accountable to their memberships and also partable. Parecon is one particular example. I'm not laying this out as an endorsment of parecon, but as a speculative counter-example to federated communes operating on market logic.
As a more open ended speculation, I'd like to ask: What might the Soviet economy have looked like if the Soviets had stayed democratic and if the workers had remained armed?
No, those people aren't market socialists, the theoretical framework underpinning Market Socialism splits from Leninism and most socialist tendencies at the crossroads of the calculation debate, which is ironic since it was a market socialist who accidentally/indirectly refuted his own tendency while arguing publicly with Heyak over the concept of planning itself
All those people you mention maintained a position of strict transitional-ism which market socialists reject because they glorify wage labor
Tito was the market socialist. Limiting market socialism as a label solely to followers of Lange is pointlessly narrow and a heterodox definition of the word, that renders debating its merits pointless.
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, I'm not a Tito expert, if he was then he should have known better, goodness sake even Langes the father of it redeemed himself when he realized he had fallen into a rhetorical trap set by Mises
But either way I hate to break it to you the Lange model was the only "coherent" theory the marketists could muster, the Austrians were correct about one crucial aspect, parasitical capital finance is the motor that makes the market run, it's why certain market socialists like Lange, Kamikazed themselves to bring down Hayek by pointing out inventory input/output planning was already developing internal to capitalist firms and along interfirm networks and under socialism it would develop further, this was the 1930s the Austrians lost the debate and Hayek quite literally went insane and exiled himself to self-publishing
Even Austrians give the game away when they praise the likes of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Kōnosuke Matsushita, it's not a matter of whether non-market calculation is possible, it's always been about what type of calculation and for whose benefit as this gross-ass quote by a top Austrian so aptly demonstrates
Darwin, Marx, and Freud make up the trinity often cited as the "makers of the modern world." Marx would be taken out and replaced by Taylor if there were any justice... For hundreds of years there had been no increase in the ability of workers to turn out goods or to move goods... When Taylor started propounding his principles, nine out of every 10 working people did manual work, making or moving things, whether in manufacturing, farming, mining, or transportation... By 2010 it will constitute no more than one-tenth... The Productivity Revolution has become a victim of its own success. From now on what matters is the productivity of nonmanual workers. -- Peter Drucker, The Rise of the Knowledge Society Wilson Quarterly (Spring 1993) p.63-65[15]
The literature is pretty diffuse but Republic of Wal-mart had a decent section covering the topic, most biographies about Hayek and Langes also cover it
The NEP was neither market "socialism" nor was it a main economic driver of the USSR for decades. By the time of Lenin's death, he knew the NEP had run even longer than he had intended it to and wanted to see it's end with the transition to a planned economy - unlike Trotsky and his circle of ultra-Leftists who concidered any tactical retreat of economic policy heresy against their dogma or Bukharin's clique of right-opportunist capitulationists who desired to continue the NEP for decades with no regard for capitalist counter-revolutionary undermining.
Inferring Lenin was a market socialist is both historical revisionism, and reddit pol-comp brain rot.
The NEP was an intentional program to introduce markets into a socialist system in order to build the means of production of the USSR.
The eventual abandonment of the market is a common ideological underpinning in market socialist thought, and saying the NEP wasn't a market socialist system because they planned to introduce a planned system is missing the forest for the trees.
There was no socialist system in the tail end of the Civil War and the early years of the war-ravaged USSR, go read a history book before trying to make historical conclusions.
It was a stop-gap measure to bandage over the wounds of famine and war communism through a temporary restoration of private trade and petty capitalism in order to allow the country go through a period of primitive acumulation. You're completely delusional if you think capitalism with any socialist or communist party at the helm is a form of socialism, just as you'd be completely delusional if you keep trying to push the naked lie that Lenin is a market socialist.
Where did you get the info that Lenin thought the NEP should be ended? I hear that line thrown around a lot but as late as May 1923 he was writing articles that seem to defend the NEP and it's role in socialist construction.
Maybe I'm too generous but I've always assumed there's some though put into the whole market socialism thing and it's not as silly as it seems on surface level. Can't be bothered to read though.
It's a pretty contentious concept among the left. The fact that leftists in this post are arguing about it and will probably argue with my interpretation is proof of that.
Market Socialism (at least from my understanding as a Marxist) is a branch off or revision of Orthodox Marxism that has been historically practiced by Marxist leaders/ states; Tito's Yugoslavia is the best case example but arguably China, Vietnam and Cuba all do as well today. Some Marxists even think Lenin briefly did it with the NEP.
That being said, a lot of Marxists are very much opposed to the idea of 'markets' ever being compatible with Socialism, and any attempt to introduce markets into a Socialist system is an attempt at introducing bourgeois elements or straight up Capitalism back into society. And this is not entirely false. Yugoslavia eventually collapsed, not just because of Western pressure but also due to contradictions in their own system, and China and Vietnam do have pretty rich Capitalists that severely exploit their workers.
Anarchists are entirely opposed to it as far as I know (any Anarchists here can elaborate if needed).
I'm an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism, so I'm not sure how much my opinion counts, but I'll try to do an analysis from an anarchist perspective. I don't think you can have a market economy without private property and we all now how Bakunin felt about private property. Additionally, as it's been mentioned previously, markets assign value, which creates hierarchical relationships, something we also really don't like. I can't imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism but I'd be open to other perspectives.
There's a lot to unpack here lol
Proudhon, De Cleyre, Lloyd Garrison, and others historically. There's also a strand in the modern-day trying to uphold this line of thinking through blogs and think-tanks, but on the ground they're pretty much eclipsed by syndicalist and insurrectionist practice.
Not an anarchist but this mutualism/market anarchist thing is pretty en vogue on twitter, especially among the PNW scene.
Also wouldn't trade among decentralized communes essentially function as a market as there is no central authority to set price signals?
It could, but it doesn't have to. I think Graeber made this point really well in History of Everything (and less well in his other books) where he pointed out that goods have and do move around through mechanisms other than markets or planned economies.
He gives the following examples on pg. 23-24:
Dreams and Vision Quests: Pre-colonial Iroquoians would travel for days to get items they had seen in dreams, moving them from town to town over the years. In plains societies, the vision quest served a similar role.
Traveling healers: They would develop entourages of people they had cured who would divide their possessions among the troupe, allowing goods to travel across huge swaths of the American SE without markets.
Women's gambling: Gambling with shells, according to archaeologist Warren DeBoer, moved shells and other adornments halfway across the continent, again, without markets.
In Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, he argues that many "currencies" were enmeshed in social relationships that extended beyond the transactional nature of the market. Wampum, for example, was never just money (until the colonial era) and the transfer of wampum could also create kinship ties or end feuds. Even markets weren't always markets.
To move past history and into the speculative, anarchist have laid out plans for centrally planned economies which are accountable to their memberships and also partable. Parecon is one particular example. I'm not laying this out as an endorsment of parecon, but as a speculative counter-example to federated communes operating on market logic.
As a more open ended speculation, I'd like to ask: What might the Soviet economy have looked like if the Soviets had stayed democratic and if the workers had remained armed?
Nah it's as dumb as you think it is
Famous morons: Tito, Lenin, every member of the Chinese communist party since the 80s, the Vietnamese communist party,
No, those people aren't market socialists, the theoretical framework underpinning Market Socialism splits from Leninism and most socialist tendencies at the crossroads of the calculation debate, which is ironic since it was a market socialist who accidentally/indirectly refuted his own tendency while arguing publicly with Heyak over the concept of planning itself
All those people you mention maintained a position of strict transitional-ism which market socialists reject because they glorify wage labor
Username checks out. I wish I could theory this hard.
I read the Deep Socialist lore like I read Star Wars/40K lore, that's how you keep it interesting
IS tanks are dreadnoughts and T-34 are Leman Russ'. Lenin is the God-Emperor and Stalin is Robute Gulliaman.
Actually I hate this now lmao
Tito was the market socialist. Limiting market socialism as a label solely to followers of Lange is pointlessly narrow and a heterodox definition of the word, that renders debating its merits pointless.
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, I'm not a Tito expert, if he was then he should have known better, goodness sake even Langes the father of it redeemed himself when he realized he had fallen into a rhetorical trap set by Mises
But either way I hate to break it to you the Lange model was the only "coherent" theory the marketists could muster, the Austrians were correct about one crucial aspect, parasitical capital finance is the motor that makes the market run, it's why certain market socialists like Lange, Kamikazed themselves to bring down Hayek by pointing out inventory input/output planning was already developing internal to capitalist firms and along interfirm networks and under socialism it would develop further, this was the 1930s the Austrians lost the debate and Hayek quite literally went insane and exiled himself to self-publishing
Even Austrians give the game away when they praise the likes of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Kōnosuke Matsushita, it's not a matter of whether non-market calculation is possible, it's always been about what type of calculation and for whose benefit as this gross-ass quote by a top Austrian so aptly demonstrates
If you have the time could you do a write up on this on c/marxism?
I would but I have toothache :sadness:
But Republic of Wal-mart had a good summary of the topic :stalin-approval:
where can I read more about this?
The literature is pretty diffuse but Republic of Wal-mart had a decent section covering the topic, most biographies about Hayek and Langes also cover it
cool, thanks
The NEP was neither market "socialism" nor was it a main economic driver of the USSR for decades. By the time of Lenin's death, he knew the NEP had run even longer than he had intended it to and wanted to see it's end with the transition to a planned economy - unlike Trotsky and his circle of ultra-Leftists who concidered any tactical retreat of economic policy heresy against their dogma or Bukharin's clique of right-opportunist capitulationists who desired to continue the NEP for decades with no regard for capitalist counter-revolutionary undermining.
Inferring Lenin was a market socialist is both historical revisionism, and reddit pol-comp brain rot.
The NEP was an intentional program to introduce markets into a socialist system in order to build the means of production of the USSR. The eventual abandonment of the market is a common ideological underpinning in market socialist thought, and saying the NEP wasn't a market socialist system because they planned to introduce a planned system is missing the forest for the trees.
There was no socialist system in the tail end of the Civil War and the early years of the war-ravaged USSR, go read a history book before trying to make historical conclusions.
It was a stop-gap measure to bandage over the wounds of famine and war communism through a temporary restoration of private trade and petty capitalism in order to allow the country go through a period of primitive acumulation. You're completely delusional if you think capitalism with any socialist or communist party at the helm is a form of socialism, just as you'd be completely delusional if you keep trying to push the naked lie that Lenin is a market socialist.
Where did you get the info that Lenin thought the NEP should be ended? I hear that line thrown around a lot but as late as May 1923 he was writing articles that seem to defend the NEP and it's role in socialist construction.