Sometimes I think that “the masses” who are sick of the concentration of capital in the hands of the few be more receptive to the idea of worker ownership and democratic control of companies/enterprises. It seems to me it would be much more palatable to people that productive (in the Marxist sense) companies in their current form just be given to the workers and the board of directors for day-to-day operations would be elected by the workers not the shareholders, with major decisions made by plenum of the workers. Unproductive companies would just become artisanal, small-scale neighborhood/city-level reach.
Plus I’m thinking worker-owned companies would eventually be easier to nationalise, since it is no longer the decision of a few looking to increase profits but rather a decision of many who’d be looking out in the workers’ interest.
I avoided the word “co-op” cause of the connotations but yeah, pretty much. I also think Yugoslavia had the right idea (perhaps execution was lacking) with direct worker control and allowing small (up to 5 people) companies all in a tightly controlled market. It always seemed to me Yugoalavia was on the right path.
I’m thinking about this because I feel like the left doesn’t have a “moderate” alternative. The only parties who wish to change our economic system are the Communist/Marxist-Leninist parties, who aren’t present everywhere in the West. The socdems, the liberals, the “centrists”, the conservatives, the fascists, the Christians… these are all slightly different flavours of the same thing economically speaking. And then the only alternative to this is the hardcore Marxist-Leninists who people have literally been programmed and brainwashed into hating. Why not a market socialist party?
Feel free to dispel my idealist, petit-bourgeois notions. ;)
NB. I am for state-ownership, central control, basically I’m for any kind of change in the communist direction and away from our current system, but for the sake of this thread I’m a market socialist.
Yugoslavia was on the wrong path. Just research their debt problem.
The reality is, if you have the power to force cooperatively owned enterprises to be the dominant, then you have the power to force property reform and unseating the bourgeoisie.
If you don’t have the power to force cooperatively owned enterprises to be the dominant model, then you’re talking about incremental changes. And yes, we should do those things where we can, but they are not building socialism
The bourgeoisie do not want workers owning most of the enterprises out there. So if you incrementalize, the bourgeoisie will outmaneuver you and contain you. This is also why if you can force it through the state, you’re already beating the bourgeoisie, so you need to take the opportunity to remove them from power completely.
The problem with the Yugoslavian experiment was that the revolutionaries had a liberal philosophy of shared ownership of private property instead of property reform. They relied on the exploitation of the global South. But also the experiment was so short lived the contradictions didn’t have time to emerge due to their debt explosion. The contradictions of everything being coops is ultimately that everyone is incentivized to exploit everyone else and natural power structures will emerge and replicate exactly the problems of non-cooperative capitalism.
The problem with the Yugoslavian experiment was that the revolutionaries had a liberal philosophy of shared ownership of private property instead of property reform.
What’s the difference between the Yugoslavia model and SWCC model then?
The market in Yugoslavia was far less robust as it is China. In Yugoslavia, profits were distributed to coop workers, but profits weren’t particularly useful for guiding the economy as the bureaucrats still decided what to do. This created power tensions with Yugoslavian worker councils and the bureaucracy that resulted in major inefficiencies, ultimately resulting in the massive debt problems of Yugoslavia. In essence, Yugoslavia’s system required constant borrowing to maintain, meaning it was entirely unsustainable.
In China, the market is so robust it has a financial industry. Profits accrue to a national bourgeoisie who own direct the private sector according to their profit motives. This makes China’s market work incredibly efficiently. However, China’s central planning function is also incredibly powerful and owns the vast majority of land in the country, meaning the national bourgeoisie don’t own the real material wealth of the country and are subordinated to the party.
At first glance, this makes China look “less socialist” than Yugoslavia, except that China’s system is sustainable and pro-social whereas Yugoslavia’s system was unsustainable and anti-social (the power struggle between workers and the part created a downward spiral that accelerated after Tito’s death, indicating that society had not advanced past a single person’s ability to organize it).
The other important thing to note is that China keeps the market and the state more separated than Yugoslavia did, which gives Chinese systems more expressive and adaptive power. In Yugoslavia, the lines were blurred and the number of ways to solve systems problems were limited to tinkering with central planning or tinkering with coops. In China, there state-owned enterprises, there are private enterprises with embedded party officials, there are land use rights/laws/leases, and the separation between the public and private sectors allow for the explicit building up of one or the other when there is an imbalance that threatens the system’s sustainability. This balance, we trust, is being maintained as the means of social reproduction are developed towards the conditions that lead to socialism and ultimately communism, which is the stated position of the party. Yugoslavia also saw itself as a transitory state, but not one with two separate components that could be balanced against each other, and this separation and balance may be the most important insight of communist theory in the last 50 years, possibly 100 years.
Just research their debt problem.
Have you researched it? It wasn’t that big, Problem with the debt was that the creditors demanded payment in full and Yugoslavia wasn’t allowed to restructure their debt. They did this to inflate the currency and stoke nationalism in Croatia and Slovenia that then led to them breaking off, followed by “shock therapy” and massive theft of state property. Each ex-Yugoslavian country that each now accounts for like 1% of total exports to the EU, now has a bigger debt (by every metric) than all of Yugoslavia during the “debt crisis”. But now it’s the good debt to those same institutions.
if you have the power to force cooperatively owned enterprises to be the dominant, then you have the power to force property reform and unseating the bourgeoisie.
True, I guess.
They relied on the exploitation of the global South.
Who did Yugoslavia exploit?
The contradictions of everything being coops is ultimately that everyone is incentivized to exploit everyone else
Not with market controls, controlling the price, quotas, etc.
The capitalist mode of production is different from the previous modes of production in that it is not so strictly defined by a specific social relation, and is very adaptable. It can subsume slave relations, sem-feudal relations, wage labor (obviously) and even cooperative relations into itself and continue as if nothing happened.
The reason for this is that the capitalist mode of production is contingent on production being performed for exchange, rather than for use. So long as you have exchange and commodity production, you have capitalism, still affected by the falling rate of profit (the fundamental long term contradiction of capitalist society).
This means that “market socialism” doesn’t really exist, unless by “market socialism” you mean a country that is transitioning between capitalism and socialism thus has both markets and economic planning (like the PRC).
it is not so strictly defined by a specific social relation, It can subsume slave relations, sem-feudal relations, wage labor (obviously) and even cooperative relations into itself and continue as if nothing happened.
Yes. Because since the industrial revolution we work as the machine requires. Skilled, artisan labour of home production was replaced by the machine. People were no longer trained to make things, but to operate machines. That’s why the social relations of the people outside of “work” didn’t matter that much because no matter whether you’re a slave or serf or a worker, you still have to pull the same levers and push the same buttons. So far most social and political systems have chosen to more or less keep the same relationships at the point of production as they were when the industrial revolution happened, during 19th century capitalism. Our educational system also comes from the 19th century. The sitting in classes for a set amount of time, the ringing of the bell, the monotony, this is supposed to prepare you for factory, monotonous work in capitalist society. This is why capitalism has been so successful. People’s school socialisation and how the workplace is organised, which go hand in hand, become the blueprint of how to organise society. This is evident in how people keep electing “business leaders” into politics, because they think managing a country and its people is like managing a company.
The reason for this is that the capitalist mode of production is contingent on production being performed for exchange, rather than for use.
But one could argue that the capitalist mode of production is contingent on the profits going towards private accumulation of capital and that the real breaking from the mode of production towards a new one happens when the relationships of the workers to the means of production are changed, allowing new ways of organising production. These changes will accumulate into qualitative change at the base, a technical revolution. This will then necessitate a social revolution.
unless by “market socialism” you mean a country that is transitioning between capitalism and socialism thus has both markets and economic planning (like the PRC).
I actually don’t know anything about China’s transitioning plan. I’m not denying it exists, I’m just saying I don’t know what their plan is. Reading governance of China is on a long to-read list.
I don’t see any issues with market socialism. In my view, state-owned industries are effective in addressing essential needs and resolving concerns that transcend profitability, such as constructing infrastructure, ensuring access to healthcare and education, and so on.
Meanwhile, cooperative ownership proves to be an effective method for providing desirable amenities, allowing the market to function as an allocator. Furthermore, the ability to organize in a self-directed manner contributes to individuals’ feelings of control over their lives and increased sense of freedom.
In this manner, I view state-owned industries and cooperative ownership as being complementary. Additionally, to facilitate a seamless transition from our current capitalist system, it’s feasible for the central bank to assume the role that venture capitalists currently play. Individuals with business ideas could apply for loans at the central bank, provided they operate their enterprises as cooperatives. This would also enable the state to steer the market economy towards socially beneficial objectives.
Agreed.
to facilitate a seamless transition from our current capitalist system
Yes, it seems like the logical next step if we are to actually change our current system. That’s why I am surprised there is no party out there advocating it.
I think the issue is that the parties represent the ruling class, and they have no interest in implementing such policies. That’s the real problem politically, it’s impossible for parties that represent the interests of the workers to actually get in power and stay in power. This is part of the reason why you end up needing a single party system to actually establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I think the issue is that the parties represent the ruling class, and they have no interest in implementing such policies.
Even the communist party? I don’t think there exists a single party in Europe that represents the workers, not a single one.
Breaking ownership of private enterprise into a thousand pieces does nothing to subvert the perverse incentives of the market system it already exists within. Workers in co-ops will prioritize profit in the same way the board of trustees would in a traditional corporation. If you’re looking for a way to solve systemic problems and dislodge social habits, this is not it. It’s a reform, and not even an especially good one.
If you’re looking for a way to solve systemic problems and dislodge social habits, this is not it. It’s a reform, and not even an especially good one.
See, this is the inflexibility I am talking about and this is ultimately what turns people away from communism/Marxism-Leninism.
I’m sorry, are you saying that I’m “inflexible” because I didn’t immediately agree with your casual analysis? If you’re so convinced you’re right, make an argument.
And yes, I do agree that not being a communist is liable to make someone not be a communist. Water is wet, too.
are you saying that I’m “inflexible” because I didn’t immediately agree with your casual analysis?
No, I was not talking about you personally, I was pointing out that what you said is usually what people who call themselves Marxist-Leninists say to dismiss other strategies or ways of achieving the movement’s goals.
I am not convinced I am right. In the OP I said that for the purposes of this discussion I am defending market socialism so that I (and maybe others) can better understand it. I am sorry if my response seemed hostile, it wasn’t meant to be.
As for the argument, it is that these “reforms” can eventually lead to bigger qualitative change. I think alienation is a big problem in today’s capitalist society, and if people thought or felt they had more of a stake in their workplace, in their community they might be more inclined to make structural changes in favour of collective ownership. Ownership already is broken up in a million pieces, through shares, it just so happens that a handful (or one) hold the majority of shares while the rest of the “owners” own a smaller share.
Now we’re in a situation where work is organised and decisions are made to appease shareholders, people who have no stake in how the work is organised. Those are also the people who elect the board of directors. This is something that is close to people’s understanding. People can more easily see the immediate injustice of the workplace and the workplace hierarchy that affects them, than they can the injustice of homelessness in their country. So that is why I think the workplace is a good place to start making changes without making too drastic changes in the distribution part of the economy. Just a thought.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel with NEP Soviet Union et modern China… That being said, it’s not a bad economic system for transitioning
