Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 11:36:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin Cabral <kcabral-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-I: Failure of imagination


On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Rob Schaap wrote:

> [Making the producer the owner of the self's labour, means of production
> and product (rather than a 'factor of production' s/he is today) strikes me
> as of the very essence of the Marxist project.  But it is not the whole
> essence, is it?  We still have a problem with 'the commodity' - else we
> have a revolution to replace corporate capitalism with the sort of
> capitalism Smith wrote about - and that sort of capitalism, regardless of
> Gould's reservations about historicism, will eventually become corporate
> capitalism again.
> 
> I've not read Schweikart - but I'd love a good pro-market-socialist
> argument that takes this on.]

	Well, the sort of market socialist scheme that I envision will be
revolutionary in that it will place ownership of (most) firms in the hands
of the (democratic) state, and the (partial, but vast majority of)
management of these firms in the hands of their workers. The legal rights of
workers will be	similar to that of corporate shareholders. They will be
entitled to divide revenues from sales and organize production
democratically as they see fit for as long as they pay the government's tax
on capital assets -- but they will not legally own the means of production.
They will not be able to liquidate them as a capitalist owner could,
because they are the property of the state which effectively rents their
use to firms. 

	The other major constraint upon cooperatives is the control of 
investment by the public through democratically managed financial
institutions which are responsible for distributing money gained from the
capital assets tax amongst firms according to social priorities. The people
have leverage over the cooperative firms through these (locally and
nationally controlled) institutions, and can accomplish a great deal of
planning through them. 
									
	As for counter-revolution, unless the worker-managers absolutely 
hate their lot, and decide to abort the revolutionary project by voting the
capitalists into office they will not loose their cooperatives to
individual or joint-stock capitalists and their managers. If capitalists
try to take over firms, or (democratically elected) managers deny workers
their constitutional rights to an equal share of votes in the management of
the firm or attempt to take over a firm by some trickery the state will do
whatever it takes to prevent them from doing so. Just as any capitalist
state would do now. We need the rule of law, and constitutional rights
under socialism for the sake of trust and security for as long as
individuals put forth conflicting claims to scare resources. 
						
> Which is a very good reason to focus on the commodity problem.  If things
> are made purely for market exchange, they'll be marketed.  If theyy're well
> marketed, they'll sell.  If they have the use value of a fridge magnet,
> we'll have mis-allocated social investment, huge variability in wealth, and
> a host of other familiar problems.
							
	A couple of things here. First, the constraints upon investment
can be used to allocate social investment progressively according to
social priorities. Any production which is deemed fruitless by society
will not have social resources allocated to it for investment, or
expansion. This is certainly very significant, in that it will check the
expansion of production according to social priorities. Therefore a couple
of firms may have some success producing disposable ball point pens or
lacquered fountain pens with brass internals, gold clips and bands, and
solid-gold nibs with platinum highlights. But the scale of each will be
very dependent on the amount of social resources society allocates towards
them according to social priority. 

	So if it's democratically decided that social resources
should be allocated towards the improvement of hospital facilities
rather than of Bic or Pelikan pen factories than so be it. Otherwise the
expansion of production will tend not to happen unless investment resources
are allocated socially for rational choice reasons since no capitalists
will exist wishing to maximize profits by expanding the scale of production
and workers will probably prefer more leisure time over more work and
therefore production. And workers will not want to set aside parts of
their own paycheck towards expansion of the scale of production of a firm
since, as Jaroslav Vanek has convincingly demonstrated, the individual
worker-managers of a firm will generally not gain anything from expanding
the size of a firm, and they may ever lose some revenue, since they cannot
extract surplus value from a new subsidiary or plant. 

	The only thing that worker-managers may want to do would be to add more
workers to the firm, but not expand the scale of production, so that they
may all have more leisure time. Also, society will operate upon a
commitment to full employment (or at least a Rawlsian difference
principle, which will have the consequence of encouraging full employment)
which in a hypothetical situation of zero-population growth will be
Pareto-optimal. I should note here that I do not accept
Pareto-optimality as a standard of justice, but I think it's
significant as a determinant of the influence of planning
according to social necessity, which will be great. Externalities which hurt
Pareto-optimality will probably be minimal, since society will have
incentives to distribute many of its resources gained from general income
(which would help stem inequality, if you accept that as a reasonable goal
in and of itself.. which I probably don't) and capital tax towards their
minimization (i.e. clean and sustainable energy, recycling, research and
development of technology).

	I've outlined a few thoughts which may help address concerns with
commodity production but I've held off on some points for lack of time.
Schweickart develops many of these arguments that I've ommitted, and many
of those that I've included. You should probably try to get a copy of the
book to read the whole thing, or flip to the chapters about commodities,
marketing, and irrational sales techniques. I should also add, now that
I'm thinking about the latter point, that Dave suggests limitations and
regulations upon sales techniques as one way to prevent and deter that
consequence of production for profit. 	
	
> I want to be a market socialist, but maybe I'm not quite one yet.

	And for Lou, it is true that Schweickart's model is designed for
countries with more or less developed economies, including the
ex-Communist states. But he does not attempt to pass it off any other way,
as if it's a universal and timeless model. Indeed you might find his
historical materialism showing through in his "Marxian Reflections"
chapter. Of course, you would'nt know since you rarely take the time to
read the authors that you so flippantly dismiss. 

Kevin Cabral
Columbus, Ohio





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