Which philosopher is usually associated with socialism

If value were determined by actual labor time, workers would be told to slow down, since the longer they work, the greater the accumulated value. That does not happen because the value of products is instead determined by a social average over which workers have no control. This average varies continuously, due to technological innovations that increase the productivity of labor. It is communicated to the agents of production behind their backs, through the laws of competition.

The preponderance of abstract over concrete labor transforms the nature of work, since labor that is not compatible with valorization tends to become denigrated and undermined. It transforms our relation to nature, which becomes valued only insofar as it helps accumulate profit and capital. And it transforms the meaning of time, since we become governed by an abstract, quantitative, and invariable time determination over which we have no control.

Abstract labor is the substance of value; the more abstract labor becomes, the more value is produced. And the more value produced, the greater the drive to augment value and profit ever more. Capital is self-expanding value. It is an endless quest for an infinite magnitude—in a world of limited, finite resources.

The entire process hinges on actual labor time being forced to conform to socially necessary labor time. Quality no longer matters. Through labor, awareness of the three-dimensionality of time becomes an integral dimension of human existence. Through work, humanity controls time. Man surrenders to his future fate of a slave or fights for his future position as a master only because he chooses his present from the perspective of the future, and thus forms their present and their future on the basis of something that not yet is.

Kosik , In capitalism, however, time takes on a peculiar, inverted character. Humanity ceases to organize or control time; time instead organizes or controls humanity. It is commonplace to credit Marx for the notion that commodities have a dual character of use value and exchange value. This was no discovery of Marx, however, since the classical political economists knew it well.

What is novel with Marx is the distinction between value and exchange value. The latter is the form of appearance erscheinungsformen of the former. This distinction completely evaded the classical political economists as well as their neo-Ricardian socialist successors such as Proudhon, Thompson, Bray, and others , who focused on the quantitative determination of value the amount of labor time embodied in products of labor.

Even Marx did not arrive at a clear presentation of the distinction between value and exchange value until the publication of the second German edition of Capital in Marx writes in the section on the value form in chapter one:.

When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said in the customary manner that a commodity is both a use-value and an exchange-value, this was, strictly speaking, wrong. Marx [] b He reiterated this at the end of his life, in his most detailed defense of Capital :. Marx a Creating a society that no longer prioritizes exchange value over human needs requires a much more thoroughgoing transformation of human relations than tinkering with the market and relations of distribution.

Once the proper object of critique is identified, the actual alternative to capitalism comes into view. Value production renders human relations indirectly social through the domination of abstract forms such as money. Labor assumes a social or general character not through the self-conscious acts of producers but by exchange relations that are imposed upon them from without. In contrast, socialism is defined by the negation of this state of affairs.

Labor takes on a social character prior to the exchange of products, on the basis of the communal character of production. No outside force, such as socially necessary labor time, decides the pace or nature of work; the producers decide that for themselves.

As a new kind of non-alienated labor comes into being, the split between p. Since abstract labor is the substance of value, its supersession signals the end of production aimed at augmenting value.

And since exchange value is the phenomenal expression of value, the former becomes superfluous. Marx explicitly spells out this vision of a new society in the Grundrisse :.

The general character of labor would not be given to it only by exchange; its communal character would determine participation in the products. The communal character of production would from the outset make the product into a communal, general one. Mediation of course has to take place. Marx [—] a Not all forms of social mediation are constitutive of value production.

The latter is transcended when social relations become mediated by intersubjective connections between freely associated individuals. The alternative to abstract forms of domination is not, for Marx, domination by concrete collective or social entities such as characterized pre-capitalist societies. Instead, in a new society individuals collectively learn how to live without the domination of either concrete social hierarchies or the abstractions of value.

Cooperative forms of production and distribution can surely prefigure such forms of life after capitalism. Nevertheless, democratic and cooperative forms of decision making do not by themselves contravene the law of value so long as they are circumscribed by the dictates of socially necessary labor time—if not immediately, then over the long haul.

The notion that the alternative to capitalism can spring sui generis from isolated, separated experiments in collectivized living—a notion common to the tradition of Proudhon and his successors—was alien to Marx. So, is there a way out? The contrast of capitalist with non-capitalist modes of life makes it possible to break from the mind-forged manacles that naturalize transitory social formations. He first turns to the past by briefly surveying pre-capitalist economic forms in which common ownership of the means of production prevail.

No abstract entity, such as exchange value, mediates human relations; the connection between producers and their products are transparent. Marx will delve deeper into this subject in his studies of pre-capitalist societies after completing Volume 1 of Capital , in his voluminous writings of the s and s on communal forms in India, China, Russia, Indonesia, North Africa, and among Native Americans.

Exchange value and universalized commodity production come to an end. Producers decide how to make, distribute, and consume the total social product. Remuneration is based on actual labor time—the quantum of actual hours of labor. A new mode of conceiving, relating to, and organizing time becomes the cardinal principle of socialism.

But a parallel is not an identity. The exchange could not be more different than what exists in capitalism, since it is defined by a freely associated exchange of activities instead of an exchange of commodities based on an abstract average over which individuals have no control.

Socially necessary labor time confronts the individuals as an impersonal force that acts irrespective of p. Examples here are a society of independent commodity producers or a property-owning democracy in which individuals or groups of workers own firms.

Changes with regard to features ii , iii , and v are hotly debated amongst socialists. Regarding ii , socialists retain the view that workers should control their labor power, but many do not affirm the kind of absolute, libertarian property rights in labor power that would, e.

Cohen See Steiner , in contrast with G. Cohen , discussing the case of capitalists amassing capital to give it away through charity. Furthermore, some socialists argue that the search for profits in a market socialist economy is not inherently suspicious Schweickart [].

Most socialists, however, tend to find the profit motive problematic. An important point about this definition of socialism is that socialism is not equivalent to, and is arguably in conflict with, statism. If a state controls the economy but is not in turn democratically controlled by the individuals engaged in economic life, what we have is some form of statism, not socialism see also Arnold n.

When characterizing socialist views, it is useful to distinguish between three dimensions of a conception of a social justice Gilabert a. We identify these three dimensions as:. The characterization of capitalism and socialism in the previous section focuses on the social institutions and practices constituting each form of society i.

We step back from this institutional dimension in section 3, below, to consider the central normative commitments of socialism DI and to survey their deployment in the socialist critique of capitalism. We then, in section 4 , engage in a more detailed discussion of accounts of the institutional shape of socialism DII , exploring the various proposed implementations of socialist ideals and principles outlined under DI.

We turn to accounts of the transition to socialism DIII in section 5. Socialists have condemned capitalism by alleging that it typically features exploitation, domination, alienation, and inefficiency. Before surveying these criticisms, it is important to note that they rely on various ideals and principles at DI.

Whereas some Marxist socialists take the view that criticism of capitalism can be conducted without making use—either explicitly or implicitly—of arguments with a moral foundation, our focus is on arguments that do rely on such grounds. Socialists have deployed ideals and principles of equality, democracy, individual freedom, self-realization, and community or solidarity.

Cohen 17—9. Many socialists say that democratic participation should be available not only at the level of governmental institutions, but also in various economic arenas such as within the firm. Third, socialists are committed to the importance of individual freedom. This commitment includes versions of the standard ideas of negative liberty and non-domination requiring security from inappropriate interference by others. Finally, and relatedly, socialists often affirm an idea of community or solidarity , according to which people should organize their economic life so that they treat the freedom and well-being of others as intrinsically significant.

Cohen 34—5. Community is sometimes presented as a moral ideal which is not itself a demand of justice but can be used to temper problematic results permitted by some demands of justice such as the inequalities of outcome permitted by a luck-egalitarian principle of equality of opportunity G. However, community is sometimes presented within socialist views as a demand of justice itself Gilabert Given the diversity of fundamental principles to which socialists commonly appeal, it is perhaps unsurprising that few attempts have been made to link these principles under a unified framework.

This principle, presented with brevity and in the absence of much elaboration by Marx Marx [b: ] has been interpreted in different ways. One, descriptive interpretation simply takes it to be a prediction of how people will feel motivated to act in a socialist society.

Another, straightforwardly normative interpretation construes the Marxian dictum as stating duties to contribute to, and claims to benefit from, the social product—addressing the allocation of both the burdens and benefits of social cooperation. Its fulfillment would, in an egalitarian and solidaristic fashion, empower people to live flourishing lives Carens , Gilabert The normative principle itself has also been interpreted as an articulation of the broader, and more basic, idea of human dignity.

Aiming at solidaristic empowerment , this idea could be understood as requiring that we support people in the pursuit of a flourishing life by not blocking, and by enabling, the development and exercise of their valuable capacities, which are at the basis of their moral status as agents with dignity Gilabert b. The first typical charge leveled by socialists is that capitalism features the exploitation of wage workers by their capitalist employers.

Exploitation has been characterized in two ways. To maximize the profit resulting from the sale of what the workers produce, capitalists have an incentive to keep wages low. This descriptive characterization, which focuses on the flow of surplus labor from workers to capitalists, differs from another common, normative characterization of exploitation, according to which exploitation involves taking unfair, wrongful, or unjust advantage of the productive efforts of others.

An obvious question is when, if ever, incidents of exploitation in the technical sense involve exploitation in the normative sense. When is the transfer of surplus labor from workers to capitalists such that it involves wrongful advantage taking of the former by the latter? Socialists have provided at least four answers to this question. For critical surveys see Arnsperger and Van Parijs ch. III; Vrousalis ; Wolff The first answer is offered by the unequal exchange account , according to which A exploits B if and only if in their exchange A gets more than B does.

This account effectively collapses the normative sense of exploitation into the technical one. But critics have argued that this account fails to provide sufficient conditions for exploitation in the normative sense. Not every unequal exchange is wrongful: it would not be wrong to transfer resources from workers to people who perhaps through no choice or fault of their own are unable to work.

A second proposal is to say that A exploits B if and only if A gets surplus labor from B in a way that is coerced or forced. This labor entitlement account Holmstrom ; Reiman relies on the view that workers are entitled to the product of their labor, and that capitalists wrongly deprive them of it.

In a capitalist economy, workers are compelled to transfer surplus labor to capitalists on pain of severe poverty. This is a result of the coercively enforced system of private property rights in the means of production. Since they do not control means of production to secure their own subsistence, workers have no reasonable alternative to selling their labor power to capitalists and to toil on the terms favored by the latter.

Critics of this approach have argued that it, like the previous account, fails to provide sufficient conditions for wrongful exploitation because it would counterintuitively have to condemn transfers from workers to destitute people unable to work.

Furthermore, it has been argued that the account fails to provide necessary conditions for the occurrence of exploitation. Problematic transfers of surplus labor can occur without coercion. For example, A may have sophisticated means of production, not obtained from others through coercion, and hire B to work on them at a perhaps unfairly low wage, which B voluntarily accepts despite having acceptable, although less advantageous, alternatives Roemer b: ch.

The third, unfair distribution of productive endowments account suggests that the core problem with capitalist exploitation and with other forms of exploitation in class-divided social systems is that it proceeds against a background distribution of initial access to productive assets that is inegalitarian. This account relies on a luck-egalitarian principle of equality of opportunity.

According to luck-egalitarianism, no one should be made worse-off than others due to circumstances beyond their control. Critics have argued that, because of that, it fails to provide necessary conditions for wrongful exploitation.

If A finds B stuck in a pit, it would be wrong for A to offer B rescue only if B signs a sweatshop contract with A —even if B happened to have fallen into the pit after voluntarily taking the risk to go hiking in an area well known to be dotted with such perilous obstacles Vrousalis , Other critics worry that this account neglects the centrality of relations of power or dominance between exploiters and exploited Veneziani A fourth approach directly focuses on the fact that exploitation typically arises when there is a significant power asymmetry between the parties involved.

The more powerful instrumentalize and take advantage of the vulnerability of the less powerful to benefit from this asymmetry in positions Goodin A specific version of this view, the domination for self-enrichment account Vrousalis , , says that A exploits B if A benefits from a transaction in which A dominates B. Capitalist property rights, with the resulting unequal access to the means of production, put propertyless workers at the mercy of capitalists, who use their superior power over them to extract surplus labor.

A worry about this approach is that it does not explain when the more powerful party is taking too much from the less powerful party. For example, take a situation where A and B start with equal assets, but A chooses to work hard while B chooses to spend more time at leisure, so that at a later time A controls the means of production, while B has only their own labor power.

We imagine that A offers B employment, and then ask, in light of their ex ante equal position, at what level of wage for B and profit for A would the transaction involve wrongful exploitation?

To come to a settled view on this question, it might be necessary to combine reliance on a principle of freedom as non-domination with appeal to additional socialist principles addressing just distribution—such as some version of the principles of equality and solidarity mentioned above in section 4. Socialism would allegedly depress that freedom by prohibiting or limiting capitalist activities such as setting up a private firm, hiring wage workers, and keeping, investing, or spending profits.

Socialists generally acknowledge that a socialist economy would severely constrain some such freedoms. But they point out that capitalist property rights also involve interference. Workers could and would be coercively interfered with if they tried to use means of production possessed by capitalists, to walk away with the products of their labor in capitalist firms, or to access consumption goods they do not have enough money to buy.

In fact, every economic system opens some zones of non-interference while closing others. Hence the appropriate question is not whether capitalism or socialism involve interference—they both do—but whether either of them involves more net interference, or more troubling forms of interference, than the other.

And the answer to that question is far from obvious. It could very well be that most agents in a socialist society face less troublesome interference as they pursue their projects of production and consumption than agents in a capitalist society G. Cohen chs. Capitalist economic relations are often defended by saying that they are the result of free choices by consenting adults. Wage workers are not slaves or serfs—they have the legal right to refuse to work for capitalists. But socialists reply that the relationship between capitalists and workers actually involves domination.

Workers are inappropriately subject to the will of capitalists in the shaping of the terms on which they work both in the spheres of exchange and production, and within the broader political process.

Because of their deprivation 2 , workers have no reasonable alternative to using their entitlement 1 to sell their labor power to the capitalists—who do own the means of production Marx [ —3]. Through labor-saving technical innovations spurred by competition, capitalism also constantly produces unemployment, which weakens the bargaining power of individual workers further. The silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker….

Marx [ , ]. Because of the deep background inequality of power resulting from their structural position within a capitalist economy, workers accept a pattern of economic transaction in which they submit to the direction of capitalists during the activities of production, and surrender to those same capitalists a disproportional share of the fruits of their labor.

Although some individual workers might be able to escape their vulnerable condition by saving and starting a firm of their own, most would find this extremely difficult, and they could not all do it simultaneously within capitalism Elster —16; G. Cohen ch. Socialists sometimes say that capitalism flouts an ideal of non-domination as freedom from being subject to rules one has systematically less power to shape than others Gourevitch ; Arnold ; Gilabert b: —7—on which this and the previous paragraph draw.

The first, mentioned above, concerns the labor contract. Due to their lack of control of the means of production, workers must largely submit, on pain of starvation or severe poverty, to the terms capitalists offer them. The second concerns interactions in the workplace.

Capitalists and their managers rule the activities of workers by unilaterally deciding what and how the latter produce. Workers effectively spend many of their waking hours doing what others dictate them to do.

Third, and finally, capitalists have a disproportionate impact on the legal and political process shaping the institutional structure of the society in which they exploit workers, with capitalist interests dominating the political processes which in turn set the contours of property and labor law.

Even if workers manage to obtain the legal right to vote and create their own trade unions and parties which labor movements achieved in some countries after much struggle , capitalists exert disproportionate influence via greater access to mass media, the funding of political parties, the threat of disinvestment and capital flight if governments reduce their profit margin, and the past and prospective recruitment of state officials in lucrative jobs in their firms and lobbying agencies Wright 81—4.

At the spheres of exchange, production, and in the broader political process, workers and capitalist have asymmetric structural power. Consequently, the former are significantly subject to the will of the latter in the shaping of the terms on which they work see further Wright [].

The third point about domination mentioned above is also deployed by socialists to say that capitalism conflicts with democracy Wright 81—4; Arnold n. Democracy requires that people have roughly equal power to affect the political process that structures their social life—or at least that inequalities do not reflect morally irrelevant features such as race, gender, and class.

Socialists have made three points regarding the conflict between capitalism and democracy. The first concerns political democracy of the kind that is familiar today. Even in the presence of multi-party electoral systems, members of the capitalist class—despite being a minority of the population—have significantly more influence than members of the working class.

Governments have a tendency to adapt their agendas to the wishes of capitalists because they depend on their investment decisions to raise the taxes to fund public policies, as well as for the variety of other reasons outlined above. Even if socialist parties win elections, as long as they do not change the fundamentals of the economic system, they must be congenial to the wishes of capitalists.

Thus, socialists have argued that deep changes in the economic structure of society are needed to make electoral democracy fulfill its promise. Political power cannot be insulated from economic power.

They also, secondly, think that such changes may be directly significant. Therefore, most democratic socialists call for a solution to the problem of the conflict between democracy and capitalism by extending democratic principles into the economy Fleurbaey Exploring the parallel between the political and economic systems, socialists have argued that democratic principles should apply in the economic arena as they do in the political domain, as economic decisions, like political decisions, have dramatic consequences for the freedom and well-being of people.

A third strand of argument, finally, has explored the importance of socialist reforms for fulfilling the ideal of a deliberative democracy in which people participate as free and equal reasoners seeking to make decisions that actually cater for the common good of all J. As mentioned above, socialists have included, in their affirmation of individual freedom, a specific concern with real or effective freedom to lead flourishing lives.

Nor need one specify in great detail what one wants to consume. Of course, critics may find new grounds for concern here. If people do not request specific items, then many desired items will be in short supply, and consumer satisfaction will be low. Second reply to the infeasibility worry: we must remember that other economic systems require paperwork and planning, too. Under market socialism and capitalism consumers must make budgets, do their taxes, pay bills, go shopping, and so on.

Enterprises must decide what they will make and in what quantities. They must also make various personnel decisions, deciding who will work with whom, for how long, on which projects, and so on. Added up over the course of the year, the amount of time spent on such activities is far from trivial. Indeed, one might argue that total planning time will be roughly constant across market- and participatory-planning-based systems.

Finally, suppose that parecon does require a substantial amount of time and energy, or perhaps, more time and energy than alternative systems. Still, these costs must be judged against the potential benefits. Parecon promises a more equal, fraternal, just, democratic society. Is it even remotely reasonable to reject such a society on the grounds that it requires too much paperwork? Suppose one rejects central planning, but also doubts the feasibility or perhaps even the desirability of parecon-style participatory planning.

Must one therefore reject socialism? On the traditional view, socialists must, by definition, be opposed not simply to private property, but also to markets. Market socialists disagree. On their view, socialism requires only a certain form of ownership, namely, social rather than private ownership. About markets, socialists should be open-minded. Markets are just tools for communicating information and motivating economic activity.

Like any tool, they should be evaluated instrumentally. Do they work better than alternatives? If so, then socialists should embrace them. And indeed, market socialists characteristically argue that markets do work better than the alternatives: just look at the economic record. Market regulations are integral to the market socialist vision. Market socialists are no kind of market fundamentalists. Rather, they view themselves as pragmatists. They see the evils of capitalism, but they also see the problems with planning-based socialist alternatives.

The way forward, they argue, is to take the good parts of capitalism and combine them with the good parts of socialism. This will displease fundamentalists on both sides, but what alternative is there? Capitalism is a moral disaster. Central planning was worse. Participatory planning is a pipe dream. There is no other way. Or so market socialists argue. For other important developments of market socialism, see Roemer , Miller , and Carens Boiled down to essentials, ED has three main features: worker self-management, the market, and social control of investment.

Workers together decide all aspects of production: what to make, how to make it, workplace policies, compensation, and so on. This does not preclude the use of managers or experts. In large firms especially, some delegation of authority will almost certainly prove necessary. The market. In stark contrast with planning-based forms of socialism, ED solves the problem of allocation using market competition between profit-seeking enterprises.

They use this money to buy productive inputs on the market, which they transform into commodities. Prices are determined mainly by market forces of supply and demand, although price regulations may sometimes be appropriate: again, Schweickart is no market fundamentalist.

Indeed, turning a profit is the immediate aim of production in ED : enterprises produce to make money, not primarily to satisfy human needs.

This may sound rather close to capitalism, but in fact there is an important difference here. Under capitalism, profits go to owners, not workers, who receive wages. In theory they could split it equally. But given the need to outcompete other enterprises—hence, to attract and retain skilled labor—some degree of inequality is likely to be chosen.

More productive workers, or workers with skills in higher demand, will almost certainly earn more than their fellows. Empirical evidence suggests that self-managed firms like those in the Mondragon cooperative in Spain opt for a 4 or ratio between the incomes of the highest- and lowest-paid employees: quite a dramatic difference from the spread typical in large capitalist corporations. Social control over investment. In an ED, the means of production belong to all members of society, not to the enterprises that happen to deploy them.

To reflect this social rather than sectional or private ownership, all enterprises must pay a capital assets tax. Revenues from this tax constitute the national investment fund, which is the sole source of investment money in ED. By tweaking the tax rate, society can determine the size of the national investment fund—hence, the amount of money available for investment, and thus the overall level of economic growth and development.

Note the contrast with capitalism: under capitalism, most investment comes from private rather than public sources. Both the amount and direction of economic development therefore depend on the whims and abilities of private investors. This leads to the boom and bust cycle discussed in section 3, as well as other pathologies such as excessive growth, ecological devastation, underdeveloped regions alongside overdeveloped ones, unemployment, poverty, and all the rest.

Under ED, by contrast, investment is democratically controlled by all members of society. How, specifically, should social control over investment be institutionalized? There are many options. For example, the planning board might decide to prioritize renewable energy, or consumer goods, or whatever.

At the other extreme, society might prefer a laissez-faire model in which funds are channeled through public banks to enterprises using essentially the same criteria that capitalist banks use: namely, profitability. In this version of ED, market forces would largely determine the pattern of investment.

Schweickart himself proposes something in the middle of these two options. Funds should go to regions for example, Texas and communities for example, Fort Worth on a per capita basis. If the Fort Worth region has the same population as Silicon Valley, then it will receive the same amount of investment. In ED, then, there will be no economic backwaters, no regions or communities left behind.

Once distributed to regions and communities on a per capita basis, investment funds are channeled to regional and community enterprises by public banks. Enterprises in need of investment say, to expand production apply to area banks for funds. Banks assess applications on the basis of a profitability, b job creation, and c any other democratically chosen criteria, such as ecological impact. This mixed standard implies that while profitability matters, it is not all that matters.

Projects that further socially chosen goals may be chosen over more profitable, but less socially desirable alternatives. We get markets and profit-seeking enterprises, but also workplace democracy and social control over investment.

The result, Schweickart argues, is an economy that outperforms all rivals—whether socialist or capitalist—in terms of values dear to socialist hearts, such as equality, economic stability, human development, democracy, and environmentalism. Perhaps it would really work, but would it be socialism? That his proposal would work—that it is feasible—seems relatively uncontroversial. Markets work. Self-managed enterprises work, as illustrated by decades of empirical evidence.

Granted, neoclassical economists will complain that because ED regulates and interferes with markets in various ways, it sacrifices efficiency. Better to sacrifice some efficiency, Schweickart would argue, for gains in employment, more equitable development across regions, greater democratic empowerment at work, and so on. So all things considered, market socialism seems eminently feasible.

This is perhaps its greatest selling point. But is it desirable? Critics right and left will argue that it is not. Those on the right will complain that ED limits basic economic freedoms, such as the formal freedom to own the means of production, to hire wage labor, and to run a business in a un-democratic fashion.

Market socialists will reply that not all formal freedoms are worth protecting. They will further suggest that ED will enhance effective economic freedom for the vast majority, even if this means diminishing economic freedom, both formal and effective, for those elites who would, absent ED, enjoy greater workplace control and authority.

Under capitalism, most workers control no productive property and enjoy no real say over their work. Economic power is monopolized by a tiny class of owners. Under ED, by contrast, economic hierarchies are flattened. Economic power within the enterprise is distributed equally to all workers on a one worker, one vote basis. Consequently, everyone has the effective freedom to shape workplace decisions. Seen from this angle, ED enhances rather than reduces economic freedom. Market socialism attracts critical fire from the left as well as the right.

It is a strange form of socialism indeed, leftist critics will argue, that features anarchic market production for profit rather than planned production for use. With markets and profits come competition, greed, fear, and the diminution of community; with markets and profits come consumerism, ever-expanding hours of work, and the ecologically insane desire for never-ending economic growth. Schweickart replies that these worries are overblown. Yes, ED features competition; yes, there will be advertising and some degree of consumerism; yes, enterprises may, under certain circumstances, seek to grow.

But the details make a difference. Competition, consumerism, and economic growth are all held in check in ED by countervailing forces. Social control over investment means that we can democratically determine the overall rate and direction of economic growth. We can prioritize environmental aims, for instance, over the rapacious quest, so characteristic of capitalism, for additional output at whatever cost. Workplace democracy means that we can choose shorter working hours in exchange for reduced consumption opportunities.

Moreover, because democratic firms seek to maximize profit per-worker rather than total profit, as do capitalist firms , they will not expand as aggressively as their capitalist counterparts. But reduced expansion means less output that needs to be sold, which, in turn, reduces demand for advertising and marketing.

In short, for all of these reasons ED is absolutely compatible with the socialist vision of a less-consumerist, more leisurely, ecologically sane world, or so defenders of market socialism would argue. Indeed, market socialists would draw a more general lesson here.

From the fact that markets in a capitalist context lead to undesirable effects X, Y, or Z, we cannot automatically infer that they would lead to X, Y, or Z in the dramatically different political-economic framework of market socialism.

The only way to tell, insist market socialists, is to work carefully through the details. Samuel Arnold Email: s. Socialism Socialism is both an economic system and an ideology in the non-pejorative sense of that term. Communism in Marxist Thought Why Socialism? Economic Considerations Why Socialism? Democracy Scope Influence Why Socialism? Community and Equality Why Produce?

Communal vs. Socialism and Capitalism: Basic Institutional Contrasts Considered as an economic system, socialism is best understood in contrast with capitalism.

Capitalism designates an economic system with all of the following features: The means of production are, for the most part, privately owned; People own their labor power, and are legally free to sell it to or withhold it from others; Production is generally oriented towards profit rather than use: firms produce not in the first instance to satisfy human needs, but rather to make money; and Markets play a major role in allocating inputs to commodity production and determining the amount and direction of investment.

Private, State, and Social Ownership To understand socialism, one must distinguish between three forms of ownership. The core idea here is well expressed by Michael Harrington: Socialization means the democratization of decision making in the everyday economy, of micro as well as macro choices. But if this is what genuine socialization requires, then socialism is not a formula or a specific legal mode of ownership, but a principle of empowering people at the base, which can animate a whole range of measures, some of which we do not yet even imagine Harrington, Economic Systems as Hybrids In principle, an economy could be wholly capitalist, statist, or socialist.

Socialism vs. Communism in Marxist Thought Although this article focuses on socialism rather than Marxism per se , there is an important distinction within Marxist thought that warrants mention here.

Like capitalism, socialism does not overcome scarcity. Under socialism, the social surplus increases, but it is not yet sufficiently large to cover all competing claims. The state. Socialism transforms the state but does not do away with it.

Since workers make up the vast majority, this is less authoritarian than it sounds. Workers must seize the state and use it to implement, deepen, and secure the socialist transformation of society. The division of labor. Socialism, like capitalism, will feature occupational specialization.

Having developed under capitalist educational and cultural institutions, most people were socialized to fit narrow, undemanding productive roles. Accordingly, socialism must feature a broadly inegalitarian occupational structure. Finally, under socialism many people will retain certain capitalist attitudes about production and distribution.

For example, they expect compensation to vary with contribution. Since contributions will differ, so too will rewards, leading to unequal standards of living. They work, in short, to get paid, rather than to develop and apply their capacities or to benefit their comrades. Or, as Engels famously puts this point in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific , State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.

Why Socialism? Economic Considerations Is socialism worthy of allegiance, and if so, why? Democracy The article turns now to the normative case against capitalism and in favor of socialism, starting with democracy. Scope To see this argument, consider first the scope dimension of democracy, which concerns the question: where should the boundary between public and private, between politics and civil society, be drawn?

Many socialists endorse something like the following principle: All Affected Principle: People affected by a decision should enjoy a say over that decision, proportional to the degree to which they are affected. Eliminating Exploitation How exactly is socialism supposed to eliminate exploitation?

Freedom and Human Development Many socialists point to considerations of freedom, broadly understood, to support socialism over capitalism. Formal Freedom It is sometimes suggested that socialism fares poorly with respect to formal freedom.

Socialists score this particular fight a draw. Effective Freedom Whereas socialists tend to play defense regarding formal freedom, they go on offense when discussing effective freedom. Community and Equality Capitalism is competitive and cut-throat; socialism is cooperative and harmonious. Why Produce? Justice, Inequality, Community This article has not said very much about equality as a socialist ideal.

Institutional Models of Socialism for the 21st Century What, in practice, would a socialist society actually look like? Proposals 2, 3, and 5 require more extensive discussion. Allocation in Parecon: Economic Coordination Through Councils This brings us to feature 5: economic coordination through councils. Evaluating Parecon This is, to be sure, an incredibly complex procedure, indeed, much more complex than this brief sketch indicates.

And this, notice, without markets or central planning : There is no center or top. But would it work? Some commentators are skeptical.

Erik Olin Wright writes: The information complexity of the iterated planning process described in Parecon might in the end simply overwhelm the planning process.

Market Socialism Suppose one rejects central planning, but also doubts the feasibility or perhaps even the desirability of parecon-style participatory planning. Evaluating Economic Democracy Perhaps it would really work, but would it be socialism? References and Further Reading Albert, Michael.

Parecon: Life After Capitalism. London: Verso, Albert, Michael, and Robin Hahnel. South End Press, Arneson, Richard. Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward. Dover, []. A utopian novel, widely acclaimed in its day, depicting political, economic and social arrangements in socialist Boston, some years after a successful revolution. Braverman, Harry. New York: Monthly Review Press, []. Important Marxist analysis of work, according to which the imperatives of profit-maximization force capitalists to simplify and routinize labor processes, thereby degrading work.

Brennan, Jason. Why Not Capitalism? New York: Routledge, A sharp parody of and rejoinder to G. Carens, Joseph. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Describes a market socialist economic system that—unlike capitalist and non-market socialist alternatives—fully realizes the values of equality, freedom, and economic efficiency. Cohen, G. Argues that workers are individually free since they are not forced to work for capitalists but not collectively free since few workers can escape proletarian status at any given time.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, Important statement of luck egalitarianism. Expanded edition. Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press, Argues that—bracketing issues of feasibility—socialism is morally desirable, but concedes that socialists do not know whether socialism is feasible. Analyzes freedom under capitalism, arguing that private property restricts formal freedom in underappreciated ways.

Devine, Pat. Democracy and Economic Planning. Cambridge: Polity Press, Rich, detailed, economically sophisticated statement of a democratic alternative to central planning, with especially interesting ideas about the division of labor. Elster, Jon. An Introduction to Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An often-critical reconstruction of central Marxist themes by one of the central figures in the Analytical Marxism movement. Social Philosophy and Policy , Vol.

Analytically crisp discussion of self-realization and the prospects for achieving it under capitalism and socialism.

Engels, Frederick. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Pathfinder Press, []. Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gilabert, Pablo. Harrington, Michael. Socialism: Past and Future. Hayek, Friedrich. Holmstrom, Nancy. Communism existed in the Soviet Union until its fall in Today, communism and socialism exist in China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam—although in reality, a purely communist state has never existed.

Such countries can be classified as communist because in all of them, the central government controls all aspects of the economic and political system. But none of them have achieved the elimination of personal property, money or class systems that the communist ideology requires.

Likewise, no country in history has achieved a state of pure socialism. Even countries that are considered by some people to be socialist states, like Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have successful capitalist sectors and follow policies that are largely aligned with social democracy.

Many European and Latin American countries have adopted socialist programs such as free college tuition, universal health care and subsidized child care and even elected socialist leaders, with varying levels of success. In the United States, socialism has not historically enjoyed as much success as a political movement. Its peak came in , when Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs won 6 percent of the vote. But at the same time, U.