Market Socialism

thank you, Genosse

There is no such thing as "market socialism", since socialism implies the abolition of market imperatives and of the social relation based upon it. What you're thinking about is effectively self-managed capitalism, which is arguably preferable to conventional capitalism in certain cases but is really just that — capitalism.

socialism = collective ownership of the means of the production
capitalism = private ownership of the means of the production

central planning = central planning
market = decentral planning

with central planning comes *single point of failure*

it's like two dimensions independent from another, like there's also capitalism with central planning (argued to have been the case in nazi germany by some economists)

in market socialism, as practiced in yugoslavia, workers DIRECTLY and 100%ly benefited from the outcome of their work (as was NOT the case in either eastern-bloc countries or (needless to say) in capitalism)

market socialism is very good suited for being able to participate in trading with countries with other economic systems.

That is correct, but also insufficient. Socialism also implies abolishing market imperatives; otherwise you've just democratized the workplace — which again can be a good thing, but certainly does not point beyond capitalism.
That is entirely wrong though. Markets are by definition not planning since they allow their own immanent imperatives to set the agenda. Decentralized planning needs not involve markets.

im a serb:

basically its exactly all the same as capitalism BUT THE WORKERS ARENT EVEN ALLOWED TO PROTEST ANYMORE
that is tito's communism, its exactly the same as capitalism BUT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PROTEST OR MAKE UNIONS BECAUSE
YOU HAVE TO MANDATORILY BELONG TO A STATE PROVIDED ONE ITS ILLEGAL TO PROTEST IN IT OR MAKE YOUR OWN

tito basically just borrowed tons of money, and planned to die of old age instead of paying any back
MASSIVE FUCKING POVERTY AND DEBT INCOMING

GOOD FUCKING JOB RETARDS IT WORKS LETS DO IT AGAIN AYY LMAO MY DUDES
and yeah senile old fucks did have a fun time with the loans but there isnt even any cold war tension for the loans to be given anymore so i dont fucking get why would anyone want it again

the argument against "socialism" (as practiced in the eastern bloc) I heard most often is, that workers had no incentive to put effort in their work because it made no difference for them (which is laughably all the more true in capitalism). in yugoslavia, when you and your collegues put more effort in and improve the way the company works you will certainly and directly have benefits from it.

also markets are good for innovation lol

lol thats not true, companies in capitalism have something very similar to 5-year-plans

thats totally untrue there were unions and there were MANY strikes, in some years 100s-1000s (and it was NOT forbidden), do some research

there was even a mass protest of students where Tito came to say like yea our system is not perfect etc, show me a similar thing in history

Post-war France under De Gaulle saw the introduction of profit-sharing schemes in major companies to incentivize worker commitment and class collaboration. That's not socialism.
The idea that markets are the only possible way to incentivize innovation is bourgeois shibboleth.

Of course they organize their production goals, but they do so in accordance with market forces. That's what Marx means when he says "anarchy of production".

nigger i live here, sorry to break your 'distant land perfection' fantasy, you cant project your ideal wishful thinking on me because i walk the same streets tito did

quite literally ALL were controlled op, look up what zizek said about student newspapers, everything basically had to approved by the oppressive dictatorship and those who couldnt be handled away peacefully, were bagged over their heads in the night and taken away

google "голи оток" or "goli otok"
it was total oppressive dictatorship, with political prisoners and jails and all that crap, and capitalists just called each other 'comrade'

I don't give a shit about zizek and his hipster fanboys

cry

zizek worked for tito's communist student newspaper

only that in yugoslavia there WAS NO PROFIT, it wasn't needed to share because all of the outcome was either invested or paid out as income for the worker. thereby no exploitation as it is inherent in capitalism

but it is kind of true

correction, no it is in no way the only way to incentivise innovation but it is a very effective one.

BTW i see both pros and cons for decentral and central planning

What do you think the money used for investment came from? Profit, that's what.

damn owned libtards

maybe we have a different deffinitions of profit, the one I know is

profit = revenue - cost

(cost kind of including investments, workers compensation etc)

thus profit beeing the thing usually going to the shareholders and you know, "non-profits" also do investments

with profit sharing yeah something of that goes to the worker but look around how common is that and what percentages go to the workers…

You're doing God's work, keep it up.

Legit curious, tho: what are some better incentives? Because while I subscribe to the anarchist vision of "people innovate because it's fun", that vision take for innovation as inventing cool shit, and not boring shit like "hey, if we plaster motivational posters in the locker room the workers become 10% more productive.".

Another meme for dumb red liberals.

Yes, I forgot that socialism was invented by Marx

Markets are not some kind of immaterial magic forces that dictate what people do, markets are shaped by individuals who plan their economic activities.

Zizek was an anti-Titoist liberal-democratic dissident

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with red liberalism

ye i wonder why

tito was a basic dictator who exploited cold war tension to obtain loans from both blocks
and after he died both blocks descended to collect and country had to split to avoid paying back the interest

No, I agree that Tito was a horrible dictator who commited plenty of atrocities and I think that the state had too much control over the economy in Yugoslavia. But he was still relatively benign compared to most of the other Marxist-Leninist dictators (this is, of course, a very low bar).

What sort of socialism are you referring to then? Christian communalism? Utopian socialism? Saint-Simonianism? Blanquism?

Yes, but these activities are shaped by conditions to which they respond. Ultimately market imperatives are what dictate the behavior of discrete agents acting as capitalists.

That’s not true. In capitalist countries, most prices are administered prices which are not set by market forces: socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.ru/2014/02/mark-up-pricing-in-12-nations-empirical.html?m=1

Interesting rebuttal. I'll look into it.

I used to describe himself as a "market socialist." I started learning about socialism with Proudhon, and so my starting point was his definition of property (or "private property," if you like):
My views have changed a lot, but I still think Proudhon's critique of property is useful. Anyway, I took this idea and came to the conclusion that most people would: production without property (in Proudhon's sense of the term) would be preferable. The only real way that this kind of production could manifest would be an economy of worker cooperatives: independent businesses in which every worker-member is an equal part-owner, and the business sells its products in a market, removing workplace hierarchy.
Over the years, I became slowly aware of many of Marx's ideas, mostly from discussions and occasionally skimming articles or essays. I eventually decided to actually read Marx, and found his analysis of the value-form extremely insightful. I think Engels is right that the value-form is the embryo of capitalism. The conclusion, then, is that markets are not compatible with socialism.
These days I'm a libertarian Marxist. While I still think that "market socialism" (i.e., worker cooperatives) would be an improvement compared to what we have now, I don't think it's a viable path to socialism, and could only ever be a temporary aberration. I think the only rational way to organize production is through the abolition of the value-form and democratic economic planning.
He literally does not know what "value" or "capital" are. He's just a poorly read ☭TANKIE☭. Don't waste your time with him. If you hate reading and only get your political theory from YouTube videos, start with Brendan McCooney's series on the law of value, here: youtube.com/watch?v=dGT-hygPqUM&list=PL3F695D99C91FC6F7
Also, I'm not sure how much you'll get out of it without reading more of his work, but Critique of the Gotha Programme is a decent read for this sort of subject.
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/

TL;DR: Market socialism is a meme.
t. former market socialist

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Addendum: I feel obligated to mention that I don't consider the Soviet Union to have ever been socialist, nor China. If you have wage labor and money, you have capitalism, even if it's draped in a red flag.
Polite sage for double-post.

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USSR didn't have wage labour

Piece wages are still wages, fam.
Also,
Point being: the value-form does not exist under socialism.

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That's the accounting definition. It's not usually what socialists mean when they use the term.
marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#profit

The incentive to innovate in socialism is that it improves your life and the lives of everyone else. If you invent a better light bulb or whatever, then you and everyone you know benefit from it.

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Can you explain except just saying "duh I read Marx"?

I read some marx too where he specifically talked about planned economies but also I think he is no kind of god or prophet I'd like to hear some actual arguments

Most people innovate god I hate that word because they want to, not solely because they are getting paid. Innovation that is done solely for profit is usually for the sake of shafting consumers without them knowing.

Its state capitalism.

Sure. Markets imply exchange, and exchange implies the existence of the value-form (because value regulates exchange). But the value-form leads inevitably to money (due to the tension between the relative and equivalent forms of value), which thus inevitably leads also to capital (money circulated for the purpose of accumulating more money), and everything that comes along with it: wage labor, surplus value, crises, strikes, imperialism, etc.
I agree. I just think his analysis of value is accurate. And if you accept that, then the logical conclusion is that markets are incompatible with socialism.

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god I wanna lick Tito

Marx didn’t think that markets are incompatible with socialism.

specifically corporatist

Wait, I thought that value-form doesn’t exist under communism but it does exist under socialism, no?

China is a socialist market economy

developmentalist social democracy more like

It isn't a social democracy. Social democracy isn't when there is State stuff and private stuff.

The key trades of social democracy is the dicatorship of the Bourgeoisie, exploitation of the Working class and (especially) of the third world. All these things do not apply to china

Got anything to back that up?

The words were interchangeable for Marx; he didn't distinguish between the two. He occasionally talked about "lower phase" and "higher phase" communism or socialism. In Critique of the Gotha Program, for example, he discusses labor vouchers as a likely feature of "lower phase" socialism. He wasn't advocating labor vouchers per se, just using them as an example of a likely characteristic of early socialism that was still "stamped with its birthmarks" from capitalism. Labor vouchers represent abstract labor expended, but unlike money they don't circulate–you can only redeem them for the means of life (i.e., basic goods and services)–and so they don't possess value in the strict sense.

It's state capitalism. They have a stock exchange and everything.

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all warsaw-pact countries had money and partook in trade, no? didn't think there are ppl calling themselves communists would want to abolish money, as it is way beside the point. even if money would be abolished, automatically and instantly some other thing would be used for exchange of goods and it wouldn't make a difference at all (beside substitutes for money maybe being less practical).

no, just no. even if marx would've defined it that way (which afaik he doesn't, as "money" is only a small part of what constitutes "capital") that was neither the case in the warsaw pact countries nor in yugoslavia.

as written in there was no such thing as exploitation in self-managed yugoslav companies, dunno if the terms "wage labor" and "surplus value" are suitable then

there you are correct, those things occur in market economies but one could argue those things happened in warsaw-pact countries too

and as also already statet, with central planning comes single point of failure. in a market economy, if a company makes bad decisions and fails, others will fill the void, while when a central planning commission fails, you know, there are no self-healing mechanisms.

where I DO agree tho, is that market economies have a huge overhead (e.g. all the marketing that makes ppl buy shit they don't want) and there is an incentive to have no regards for sustainability in terms of ressources and the environment - thats why I sad I see both pros and cons for decentral and central planning in an older post

Read Capital, since you clearly haven't.

marx was wrong then. wanting to abolish money is primitivistic and dumb

It's about abolishing the value-form, of which money is simply an inevitable development. Seriously just read at least the first chapter of Capital.
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm

No the Market is heavily regulated by the CPCh
It isn't like anything Capitalist countries have.
China follows five year plans that Private companies need to follow. In addition to that any company over 100 Workers have Cells of the CPCh in it the company Each multinational company that wishes to engage with China – and so many do – must have a communist cell within it.

China also controls the Bourgeoisie in their country. China let inequality grow but stopped at the tipping point to unfairness in the 21st centrury, unlike in capitalist countries. The Income of China's workers raise steadily, even faster than the GDP of the country. All that doesn't happen in Capitalist Countries. China's goals are lifting their people out of Poverty (Wich they are doing very succsessful with 22.9 Million per year that are lifted out of poverty and 700 Million in the last 30 Years), investing in Renewable energy, restoring peace. China is in the primary stage to socialism and not a state capitalist country.

That's what makes it state capitalism. If you have value, you have capitalism, end of story.
When did Zig Forums become such a cesspit?

again, instead of pointing to some marx said you could've tried to bring up straight-forward points refuting mine as I'm not into treating ideology as some kind of religion where everything marx said is automatically right

The CPC leadership do not represent the proletariat, the profit motive still exists. The working class is exploited, wage labor still exists in a capitalist form, and they also exploit resources from Africa. China is further from socialism than the USSR ever was, and further than even the DPRK. China is fucking capitalism but with a hammer and sickle here and there.

China is led by workers and they control the market and the Bourgeoisie a state capitalist country would act against the interests of the Bourgeoisie. A Capitalist Country wouldn't even have a Communist party with democratic Centralism. So really, ask yourself whether a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie would:

Mandate re-education courses in Marxism for all government officials?
Order all journalists and students of journalism to take courses in Marxism?
Step up the ideology drive on college campuses and introduce Mao Zedong thought classes in 2,600 universities?
Would a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, deliberately ensure that average manufacturing wages have been rising consistently by ~11% per year at the expense of corporate profits, compared to other “developing” countries like India where wages have stayed repressed for decades?
Would a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie roll out comprehensive social programmes in the middle of a neoliberal wave of austerity in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis?
Would a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, in a situation where workers beat a steel executive to death due to privatization plans, step in, prevent workers from being prosecuted, and then reverse the privatization?
Let me respond in advance to three objections. First — no, you cannot excuse the predominance of ‘worker-friendly’ (to say the least) policies by saying that the PRC is a social democracy. Social democracies existed within specific social conditions (from the 1940s to the 1970s) within specific geographical areas (Europe and the settler-colonies of North America, Australia, and New Zealand), and often existed only for the settler/labour-aristocratic/petit-bourgeois classes. It was the displacement of exploitation from the First World to the Third — it was imperialism, plain and simple. Social democracy never represented a distinct articulation of capital, and has never, ever been a phenomenon in periphery countries. It’s funny because these are the same people who claim the PRC is a brutal hell-hole of rabid exploitation where workers have no power, and then do a rapid about-face and say that the Chinese government is just compromising with workers and doing all of this shit because reasons (i.e because they don’t know what social democracy actually is and they don’t understand how social democracy is financed by imperialist value-transfer).

Second — if you still think that when the cameras switch off, every one of the 88.76 million members of the CPC dons a black top hat, hi-fives their neighbour, and says ‘gee we sure fooled those folks into thinking we were dedicated Marxist-Leninists’ then you’re being silly. It’s an orientalist fantasy that the CPC gives enough of a shit about what Western leftists think of them, that they went to the effort of mandating courses in Marxism for every university student in the country just for show.if you think that the PRC was, at any point, a dictatorship of the proletariat, then you can’t claim that it’s now a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. To those people, if I asked you whether communists could simply get elected into power and turn the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie into an organ of proletarian class power, then you would say no. But then you have people going around and saying that a dictatorship of the proletariat can be reformed into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, when those same people know that in order for the bourgeoisie become the ruling-class, a sharp rupture is required in which the proletarian state is overthrown and supplanted by a bourgeois state. There has been no such rupture in China. There was a rupture in the USSR, a rupture in Yugoslavia, in Albania, and across eastern Europe — but no rupture in China.

Unlike anarcho-communists like Bakunin, Marx didn’t want to abolish money outright. His idea was that technological advancements will eventually increase productivity so much that there will be a superabundance of goods and scarcity would be more or less overcome, and if there is no scarcity, there is no need for money or any other medium of exchange.

When I was young I thought it just meant we traded with countries other communist didn't. At least it allowed me to gawk at busty Western women when I went to the beach. It seemed successful to me, though I feel it's a bit centrist and liberal now. Comrade Tito would have been on to something if not for his optimism.

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