Abstract
The failure of the statist models of socialism poses a challenge to socialists in conceiving a feasible non-statist model. In taking up the challenge, guided by Marx’s ideas that (i) socialism will be the outcome of the struggles of the working classes in response to their capitalist conditions of existence; and (ii) its two pillars are “social property” and “conscious social regulation,” which ensure its superiority over capitalism, the defining feature of the contemporary financial capitalism (the separation between ownership and operation of working conditions) together with Marx’s two concepts underlying the two pillars (“the republican association of free and equal producers” and “the equal right”) are taken into consideration, and a framework of socializing economic activities grounding a non-statist model of socialism is suggested, whose ontological foundation (the Marxian associations) and operational logic, guided by socialist norms and regulated by the Marxian associations, are different from that of capitalism.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, the notion of non-alienation is understood broadly: objectively, it means no exploitation, no dominance, self-governing, freedom, equality, justice; subjectively, communal solidarity, creativity, etc. For a critical review of the debate on the centrality of the no-alienation principle in the conception of socialism and other issues related with marketsocialism between Gerald Allan Cohen and David Miller, see David Miller, “Our Unfinished Debate About Market Socialism,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 13, no. 2 (2014): 119–39. This chapter intends to indirectly address their concerns from an institutional rather than individualistic-moral-psychological perspective.
- 2.
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha’s Program, in MECW (New York: International Publishers, 1989), 24: 75–99.
- 3.
Karl Marx, “Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council,” in which Marx used the phrase of “the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers,” in MECW (New York: International Publishers, 1985), 20: 190.
- 4.
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha’s Program, in MECW (New York: International Publishers, 1989), 24: 86.
- 5.
Ibid., 87.
- 6.
Ibid., 86.
- 7.
Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, in MECW (New York: International Publishers, 1998), 37: 397–439.
- 8.
Ibid., 439.
- 9.
Marx, Critique of the Gotha’s Program, 85–6.
- 10.
Ibid., 86.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
The analysis and understanding of value, market and socialism underlying this chapter is mainly taken from the late Chinese Marxist economist Zili Lin, On the Socialist Economy: China’s Economic Reform (Beijing: Economic Science Publisher, vol. 1, 1985; vol. 2, 1986; vol. 3, 1994), passim. His most important theoretical works were selected and translated into English, Zili Lin, “Going towards the Market,” special issue, Chinese Economic Studies 27 (1994): 27.
- 13.
Zili Lin, “New Theory of Value—Renewal of Classical Theory of Value” in “Going towards the Market,” special issue, Chinese Economic Studies 27 (1994): 58.
- 14.
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, “Notes of an Economist (the Beginning of the New Economic Year),” Economy and Society 8, no. 4 (1979).
- 15.
Lin, On the Socialist Economy and “Going towards the Market,” passim.
- 16.
Marx, Capital, Vol. III, 434, 436. On page 434, Marx said: “The capital, which in itself rests on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and labour power, is here directly endowed with the form of social capital (capital of directly associated individuals) as distinct from private capital, and its undertakings assume the form of social undertakings as distinct from private undertakings. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of the capitalist mode of production itself.” On page 436, Marx said: “This is the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-dissolving contradiction, which prima facie represents a mere phase of transition to a new form of production.”
- 17.
Lin, On the Socialist Economy: China’s Economic Reform and “Going towards the Market.”
- 18.
For a brief description and discussion of a few, so far, real-life examples of the new kind of market players (an ideal type), which did not have all the defining features of the ideal type and were already in the process of corrupting, see Tian Yu Cao, “Land Ownership and Market Socialism in China,” in The Land Question—Socialism, Capitalism, and the Market, ed. Mahmood Mamdani (Makerere Institute of Social Research Book Series, 2015).
- 19.
Quoted from Ernesto Che Guevara, “Socialism and man in Cuba,” The Che Reader, ed. David Deutschmann (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2005), 212–30.
- 20.
Cao, “Land Ownership and Market Socialism in China.”
Bibliography
Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich. “Notes of an Economist (The Beginning of the New Economic Year).” Economy and Society 8, no. 4 (1979): 473–500.
Cao, Tian Yu. “Land Ownership and Market Socialism in China.” In The Land Question—Socialism, Capitalism, and the Market, edited by Mahmood Mamdani, 77–94. Makerere Institute of Social Research Book Series, 2015.
Guevara, Ernesto Che. “Socialism and Man in Cuba.” In The Che Reader, edited by David Deutschmann, 212–30. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2005.
Lin, Zili. On the Socialist Economy: China’s Economic Reform. Vol. 3. Beijing: Economic Science Publisher, 1985–1994.
Lin, Zili. “Going Towards the Market.” Special issue, Chinese Economic Studies 27 (1994): 1–208.
Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha’s Program. In MECW. Vol. 24, 81–99. New York: International Publishers, 1989.
Marx, Karl. Capital. Vol. III. In MECW. Vol. 37. New York: International Publishers, 1998.
Miller, David. “Our Unfinished Debate about Market Socialism.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 13, no. 2 (2014): 119–39.
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Cao, T.Y. (2019). Marx’s Ideas and Conceptions of Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. In: Gupta, S., Musto, M., Amini, B. (eds) Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24815-4_13
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