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Sure, Marx was smart and all, but practically, what it comes down to, is a few options. - Capitalist markets - USSR style central planning - Anarchist-leanin
by baursak 9y ago
Sure, Marx was smart and all, but practically, what it comes down to, is a few options.
- Capitalist markets
- USSR style central planning
- Anarchist-leaning gift economy, not scaleable beyond n=1000 or so
- Market socialism strains like mutualism or ParEcon, both of which have major issues of their own
- Any mix of the above, e.g. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", which has been the best economic performer of the last 30 years or so.
In other words, at some point you need to come down from pie in the sky Marx quotes and make physical implementations, which is always more difficult than theory.
So if central planning is problematic, what do you choose then?
- kunimu 9y agoI think that framing the situation in terms of a set number of options is implicitly restrictive on further research in the field of how an production should be organised. I can't bring myself to support any of the options you mentioned; capitalist markets, gift exchange, market socialism, what China is doing (or even what its stated policy is) all maintain the law of value - that is, there is commodity production (the creation not only of useful things but also values, which manifest as exchange values). This was even true in the USSR in which the economy was partially planned; the worker was alienated from his labour and direction and even from other workers. I don't know if what you say is true, but for me to settle for anything less than what I described in the quote would be to ignore the fundamental critique of capitalism, that is, the production process of capital, and exchange - these things remaining untouched.