David Schweickart - Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialist

MARKET SOCIALISM

Market Socialism

The Debate Among Socialists

Participants
David Schweickart
James Lawler
Hillel Ticktin
Bertell Ollman

Published in 1998 by
Routledge
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Published in Great Britain in 1998 by
Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1998 by Routledge

Design and typography: Jack Donner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Market Socialism: the debate among Socialists / edited by Bertell Ollman;
participants, David Schweickart, James Lawler, Hillel Ticktin,
and Bertell Ollman
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-91966-5. ISBN 0-415-91967-3 (pbk.)
1. Mixed economy. 2. Socialism. 3. Capitalism.
I. Ollman, Bertell. II. Schweickart, David.
HB90.M365 1997
338.9DC21

9718313
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-91967-8 (pbk)

Contents

David Schweickart is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. He holds Ph.D.s in mathematics (University of Kentucky) and philosophy (Ohio State University). He is the author of Capitalism or Workers Control? An Ethical and Economic Appraisal and Against Capitalism , and of numerous articles on Marxism, market socialism, and other topics related to socialist theory and practice.

James Lawler is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo and President of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Existentialist Marxism of Jean-Paul Sartre and I.O ., Heredity, and Racism, the editor of How Much Truth Do We Tell the Children? The Politics of Children's Literature, and has written numerous articles on the ideas of Marx, Hegel, and Sartre as well as on different aspects of educational theory.

Hillel Ticktin is a Reader in Russian and East European Studies and Chairman of the Center for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movements at the University of Glasgow. He is also Editor of Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory . His Ph.D. comes from the University of Moscow. He is the author of Origin of the Crisis in the USSR: The Political Economy of Disintegration and Politics of Race Discrimination in South Africa, and co-author of The Ideas of Leon Trotsky, and has written over eighty articles on various topics related to these titles.

Bertell Ollman is a professor in the Department of Politics at New York University. He received his doctorate from Oxford University. He is the author of Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, Social and Sexual Revolution, and Dialectical Investigations, and co-editor of Studies in Socialist Pedagogy , The Left Academy: Marxist Scholarship on American Campuses, three volumes, and The U.S. Constitution: 200 Years of Criticism. He is also the creator of the Class Struggle board game.

BERTELL OLLMAN

"Cheshire Puss [asked Alice]
Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?'
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the
Cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

And so it is for all of us. Capitalism today occupies an increasingly narrow strip of land between the unnecessary and the impossible, with water from both sides washing over it in ever larger waves. But before the beleaguered population seeks the safety of higher ground, they have to be persuaded that the already colossal problems of capitalism are not only getting worse but that there is indeed a higher ground to which they can decamp. Margaret Thatcher's words, "There is no alternative," are now found on millions of lips the world over. People who believe this will put up with almost any degree of suffering. Why bother to struggle for a change that cannot be? The collapse of the Soviet Union seems to have reinforced this view, oddly enough, even among many on the Left who never considered the Soviet Union a model of anything. In this historical setting, those of us who believe that a qualitatively superior alternative is possible must give top priority to explaining and portraying what this is, so that people will have a good reason for choosing one path into the future rather than another. Developing our criticisms of capitalism is simply not enough, if it ever was. Now, more than ever, socialists must devote more of our attention tosocialism.

Many socialists in the United States and elsewhere have begun to respond to this crisis in belief by giving future possibilities an increasingly important place in their account of present troubles. One group of socialists who have done this more systematically, and more persistently, than perhaps anyone else are those who have come to be called "market socialists," with the result that market socialism is now one of the main topics of debate on the Left world-wide. The main questions addressed here includeWhat is market socialism? How would it work? Which of our current problems would it solve, which leave untouched? How would it come about? What is its relation to capitalism? How does it compare with more traditional visions of socialism? Did Marx take a position on it? What do other socialists find lacking in it, and what do they propose instead? In the present volume, four socialist scholars, who have been deeply involved in this debatetwo for, two againstgive their answers to these questions.

First, a proviso. The four of us are well aware that the oppressed of this world are not asking "How do we organize society to obtain a more efficient use of resources?" Likewise, for them, "Do we need more workers' coops or a rational economic plan?" is not a pressing question. Instead, they want to know how the content of their lives will be better under socialism. Will they have more interesting, safer, higher paid, and more secure jobs? Will they still be worried about not having enough money to buy the things they want? Will they get the education and medical help that their family needs? Will they still have bosses and landlords and crooks andyescops who threaten their well being in so many ways and make them anxious and afraid? Most of the rest is "mechanics," important to be sure, but, in the eyes of most people, to be taken up only after these essentials are spoken to. Yet, every end comes with its appropriate means. Without ignoring any of these questions, the authors of this book have been mainly concerned with defining the structural reforms that could bring about these needed changes. The work of translating whatever is of value in our scholarly exchange into direct answers to what people are actually asking remains, of course, an ongoing challenge.

David Schweickart, James Lawler, Hillel Ticktin, and I participated in a debate on market socialism at the Socialist Scholars' Conference in New York City in April 1995. We have all been involved in similar debates with each other and with other scholars at various meetings both in the United States and abroad, and we have all written articles on this subjectin Schweickart's case, two books. In the present volume, we have tried to convey not only our views on market socialism but also something of the intellectual excitement that comes from being in a debate of this kind. So rather than simply stating our positions, each of us also criticizes one person from the other side, and then responds to criticisms made of him. The order of the book is as follows: again short pieces in which each of us responds to the criticisms made of him.