MARKET SOCIALISM

To Pat:
Yours was a very welcome and long overdue posting, since this group always
had an abundance of well reasoned criticisms of present day neoliberal
capitalism, while those who praised a more democratic and fair version of
Socialism, did not to find it necessary to explain it in some detail. Some
others continued defending Soviet style MARXISM, trying to explain away the
fact, that it was abandoned, because it was unable to satisfy their
citizens and retain their loyalty. 

You also made the correct choice of concentrating on the concept of MARKET
SOCIALISM, which seems to have a reasonable chance to be adopted sometimes
within the foreseeable future. GLOBAL DEMOCRACY, desirable though it might
be, is more of a dream, even if the authors consider that the 2 must come
together. 

In my opinion the great advantage of M.S. is the fact, that it could and
should be tried out not only in a single country, but maybe even in a
single locality. Such experiments would serve to confirm its intrinsic
value and to iron out small shortcomings and defects, before trying to
apply it on a really massive scale.

Another welcome point was the detailed explanation of the Soviets lack of
incentives for competitiveness and innovation. While the principle of:
FROM EVERYONE ACCORDING TO HIS CAPACITY, TO EVERYONE ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS
sounds very convincing in theory, with human beings as they really are, a
society must offer ECONOMIC INCENTIVES for the special efforts or the
creative spirit needed to achieve a lifestyle, people seem to expect in our
times and world.

Whether or not the coupon system would be sufficient to serve as such
incentives and whether coupon owners would be willing and able to take an
active and effective part in the process of guiding and supervising great
industries remains to be seen, but it seems to be worth while trying. It
would certainly be a more equitable system of distributing wealth.

Congratulations         Paul Riesz