Alec Nove - The Economics of Feasible Socialism

The Economics of Feasible Socialism

The Economics of Feasible Socialism

Alec Nove

Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Glasgow

By Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

First published in 1983

Reprinted 1984

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Nove, Alec

The economics of feasible socialism.

1. Marxian economics

I. Title

335.408 HB97.5

ISBN 0-04-335048-8

ISBN 0-04-335049-6

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Nove, Alec

The economics of feasible socialism.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Socialism. 2. Socialism History. 3. Marxian economics. 4. Economic history. I. Title.

HX73.N67 1983 338.90091717 82-18169

ISBN 0-04-335048-8

ISBN 0-04-335049-6 (pbk.)

Set in 10 on 11 point Plantin by Typesetters (Birmingham) Ltd

Contents

Une socit do la justice et la morale seraient bannies ne saurait videmment subsister.

(V. Pareto)

The political uniqueness of our own era then is this; we have lived and still live through a desperate political and social malaise, while at the same time we have outlived the desperate revolutionary remedies that had once been thought to solve them.

Alvin W. Gouldner

The word socialism is apt to produce strong feelings, of enthusiasm, cynicism, hostility. It is the road to a future just society, or to serfdom. It is the next stage of an ineluctable historical process, or a tragic aberration, a culde-sac, into which the deluded masses are drawn by power-hungry agitator-intellectuals. My own attitude will emerge in the pages that follow. Let me make it clear that my object is not propagandist, in either direction. It is to explore what could be a workable, feasible sort of socialism, which might be achieved within the lifetime of a child already conceived. I have spent the last quarter-century studying and trying to understand the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Brought up in a social-democratic environment, son of a Menshevik who was arrested by the Bolsheviks, I inherited a somewhat critical view of Soviet reality: if this really was socialism, I would prefer to be elsewhere. (Luckily, I was elsewhere!) Of course the Soviet system did not take the shape it did because of betrayal, or the accident of Stalins personality. I have tried to describe the way in which the system developed, paying particular attention to the economic aspect. I have listened to critics who have contrasted the Soviet variety of socialism with the vision of Marx. That there are differences is obvious, but plainly it is not enough to note them, and then to criticise the reality of the USSR because it does not conform to the vision of Marx, or indeed of Lenin. What if the vision is unrealisable, contradictory? Does it make sense to blame Stalin and his successors for not having achieved what cannot be achieved in the real world? Can the excesses and crimes which they did commit in the real world have been due in some part to the doctrines they espoused? (If a loyal Marxist protests that these doctrines were humanist, that they did not envisage a despotic society or mass repression, one can remind him or her of what happened in other countries with a Christian doctrine and that fellow-Christians were the most numerous victims!) As an economist, I have been struck by the fact that the functional logic of centralised planning fits far too easily into the practice of centralised despotism.

Very well, but what is the alternative? Marx contrasted socialism utopian with socialism scientific. For reasons which will be expounded in the first part of this book, I believe that Marxs socialism was utopian. Can there be a socialism scientific? Not scientific in the sense that it can be proved scientifically that this is the way history marches, nor yet in the form of a blueprint of a perfect society which we would call socialist. Nothing perfect, nothing optimal. Something that can reasonably be expected to function with a reasonable probability of avoiding both despotism and intolerable inefficiency.

I feel increasingly ill-disposed towards those latter-day Marxists who airily ascribe all the worlds evils to capitalism, dismiss the Soviet experience as irrelevant, and substitute for hard thinking an image of a post-revolutionary world in which there would be no economic problems at all (or where any problems that might arise would be handled smoothly by the associated producers of a world commonwealth). I feel not too well-disposed either towards the Chicago school, whose belief in free enterprise seems quite unaffected by the growth of giant bureaucratic corporations, and whose remedies for current ills seem to benefit the rich and ignore unemployment. And even Milton Friedman is preferable to the abstract model-builders whose works fill the pages of our professional journals, since he at least advocates action in the real world (even though I believe the action he advocates is wrong).

Unexpectedly, I find myself quoting an American theologian:

At least weve got to examine socialism and not let it be a scare-word of the generation; at least weve got to challenge capitalism and not let it be the sacrosanct word of the generation; at least weve got to investigate some new mixes of the two that dont escalate into Stalinism, but also dont escalate into the mind-blowing profits that are clutched by the few at the cost of hope, and even life, to the many.

Yes, I know that the profit rate has fallen in recent years. Nor is it by any means obvious that the poor are poor because successful businessmen make a great deal of money. None the less, I do find the present distribution of wealth offensive, especially as it seems to bear so little relationship to any real contribution to welfare in any recognisable sense.

So I have put to myself some questions. What species of socialism could be envisaged? Would such a socialism be free of the defects of the Soviet model and of other really existing variants? Could it operate with reasonable efficiency, and give satisfaction to the citizens in their capacities as consumers and producers? Since economic and social problems cannot be assumed out of existence, a realistically conceived socialist society will have to cope with them, there will be contradictions, there will be strains, disputes. If human beings are free to choose, they are also free to choose wrongly, and there would be conflicts with choices made by others.

The plan of this book is as follows. After a brief examination of why it is that socialist ideas and aims must be taken seriously, I launch into a critical review of Marxs ideas on socialism which, to my mind, are very seriously defective and misleading. This is followed by an examination of the experience of the USSR and some other countries which have sought to introduce socialism, to see what lessons can be drawn. I also discuss there the lessons which some existing critics have already drawn, and the alternatives they propose. This is followed by a discussion of the problems of transition: how can one move towards an acceptable form of socialism, bearing in mind the many errors which can be (have been) committed on what was thought to be the way? Finally, a sketch is attempted of an economic system which would have two characteristics: it would be called socialist, and it could work, within a reasonable time scale.

All this may seem vastly ambitious. A German colleague to whom I described my intentions smiled and said: All you want is to replace Das Kapital with Das Sozial. This is not so. Apart from my intellectual limitations, the task would call for a multi-volume treatise. All that is being attempted here is to put forward ideas which could be further discussed, which certainly need further development. I hope readers will not consider the ideas half-baked; but they do not pretend to be complete.