Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialist

230 Pages·2016·2.077 MB·English

by  David Schweickart, James Lawler, Hillel Ticktin, Bertell Ollman

MARKET SOCIALISM
Market Socialism
The Debate Among Socialists
Participants
David Sweiart
James Lawler
Hillel Titin
Bertell Ollman
Published in 1998 by
Routledge
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Published in Great Britain in 1998 by
Routledge
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Copyright © 1998 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Market Socialism: the debate among Socialists / edited by Bertell Ollman;
      participants, David Sweiart, James Lawler, Hillel Titin,
      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. Sweiart, David.
      HB90.M365 1997
      338.9—DC21
97–18313
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-91967-8 (pbk)
Contents
Participants in the Debate
Introduction
BERTELL OLLMAN
Part One for
1."Market Socialism: A Defense"
DAVID SCHWEICKART
2."Marx as Market Socialist"
JAMES LAWLER
Part
Two
against
3."e Problem is Market Socialism"
HILLEL TICKTIN
4."Market Mystification in Capitalist and Market Socialist Societies"
BERTELL OLLMAN
Part ree criticism
5.Sweiart on Titin
6.Titin on Sweiart
7.Lawler on Oilman
8.Ollman on Lawler
Part Four response
9.Titin
10.Sweiart
11.Ollman
12.Lawler
Select Bibliography on Market Socialism
Index
Participants in the Debate
David Sweiart is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Loyola
University, Chicago. He holds Ph.D.s in mathematics (University of
Kentuy) 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 wrien
numerous articles on the ideas of Marx, Hegel, and Sartre as well as on
different aspects of educational theory.
Hillel Titin is a Reader in Russian and East European Studies and
Chairman of the Center for the Study of Socialist eory 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 wrien 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.
Introduction
BERTELL OLLMAN
"Cheshire Puss [asked Alice]
Would you tell me please, whi way I ought to go from here?'
"at depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the
Cat.
"I don't mu care where," said Alice.
"en it doesn't maer whi 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 geing worse but
that there is indeed a higher ground to whi they can decamp. Margaret
ater's words, "ere 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 ange that cannot be? e
collapse of the Soviet Union seems to have reinforced this view, oddly
enough, even among many on the Le who never considered the Soviet
Union a model of anything. In this historical seing, 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 oosing 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 aention to—socialism.
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 Le
world-wide. e main questions addressed here include—What is market
socialism? How would it work? Whi of our current problems would it
solve, whi leave untoued? 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
laing in it, and what do they propose instead? In the present volume, four
socialist solars, who have been deeply involved in this debate—two for,
two against—give their answers to these questions.
First, a proviso. e 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 beer 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 and—yes—cops who
threaten their well being in so many ways and make them anxious and
afraid? Most of the rest is "meanics," important to be sure, but, in the eyes
of most people, to be taken up only aer 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 anges.
e work of translating whatever is of value in our solarly exange into
direct answers to what people are actually asking remains, of course, an
ongoing allenge.
David Sweiart, James Lawler, Hillel Titin, and I participated in a
debate on market socialism at the Socialist Solars' Conference in New
York City in April 1995. We have all been involved in similar debates with
ea other and with other solars at various meetings both in the United
States and abroad, and we have all wrien articles on this subject—in
Sweiart'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, ea of us also criticizes one person
from the other side, and then responds to criticisms made of him. e order
of the book is as follows: Part I—essays by Sweiart and Lawler that