What is Market Socialism by Adam Johnston
When looking at the word socialism, the word conjures up many terms and visions.
For example, according to the Microsoft Encarta Dictionary, the term Socialism, is defined as “A political system of communal ownership”. Socialism can also be defined as shared or community form of ownership.
Socialism has various forms, including state socialism and welfare capitalism. But perhaps the most interesting version of this political view is market socialism.
Such left wing economists as Oskar Lange, who were reacting to the abysmal attempt of state socialism, promoted the theory of market socialism.
The idea of market socialism is to democratize units of production, making sure that no private monopolies exist while using the efficiencies of the marketplace.
Items in a market socialist world that would be exempt from the market place would include essentials like health care and education.
There are differences from market socialism, the state version and welfare capitalism. Market socialism believes in breaking the concentration of private ownership, while state socialism switches the concentration of ownership from private to state, while welfare capitalism focuses only on wealth redistribution from the rich to poor from higher taxation.
What is exciting about market socialism is that it addresses the real issue of socialism: The breaking up and redistribution of wealth.
So what would a market socialist economy look like?
Unlike other models of socialism, market socialism realies on the decentralization of economic concentration through many tactics including:
Ø Enforcement of anti-trust laws to prevent private monopolies and oligopolies in various sectors, including: the airline industry, banking and media
Ø The encouragement of credit unions, co-operatives, small to medium sized local businesses to grow and compete against large multinational corporations through restructuring of the taxation system that would allow these types of enterprises to flourish.
Ø Creation of alternative media companies through tax credits, promoting alternative media.
Ø Creation of a decentralized public broadcaster (i.e. PBS) to compliment government public broadcasters like the CBC
Ø Dynamic post-secondary institutions were students can access post-secondary education whether working full-time or going to school full time and using the skills gained, whether it is a degree from university, or a continuing education certificate from a community college to make a decent living.
This begs the question “Has market socialism been tried, and if so
where”
The answer to that is yes it has been tried before, with various degrees
of success.
Mondragon Spain is perhaps the best known to try this. While it is
famous for it's credit unions and worker co-operatives, some problems
do exist with the Mondragon model including hierarchy in some sectors.
Yugoslavia tried market socialism with limited success in the 1950’s
and 1960's but it was abandoned.
The most successful attempt of market socialism has been the northern
Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, where the city of Bologna Italy is
located.
The Democratic Party of the Left (DPL) in Bologna (formerly the Italian
Communist Party), abandoned the state socialist model. Instead the
DPL favored a decentralized, pro business, market economic plan,
while staying true to the principles of democratic socialism, by
promoting credit unions, co-ops, as well as
small to medium sized businesses. The results of the DPL are
astonishing. For example:
Ø Two-third of Bologna citizens belong to co-operatives
Ø Ninety percent of enterprises in the region employ less then fifty people
Ø One in Twelve people are either self employed or own a small business in the region
Ø Forty- Five percent of GDP in Bologna is provided by co-operatives
Ø The Emilia-Romagna region provides the highest GDP per capita in all of Italy and ranks among the top ten in all of Europe
Ø Eighty- Five percent of social services in Bologna are provided by co- operatives
Yet perhaps the most amazing thing about this story is that the Emilia
Romagna region is called the “Red Belt” of Italy because its citizens
continuously vote centre-left in this part of Italy.
While in North America, market socialism hasn’t been tried to the extent like our European counterparts have tried it, however, there has been some sprinklings including:
Ø The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, as well as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Saskatchewan Roughriders and Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League are all community owned, meaning it’s citizens own these teams.
Ø The Crocus Investment Fund of Manitoba, which is a Labour Sponsored Investment Fund, promotes worker ownership of small to medium sized businesses in the provinces of Manitoba.
Ø In the 1990’s, United Airlines in a labour dispute and in a fiscal crisis allowed its employees to buy out the airline through Employee Stock Ownership Plans.
So who are some advocates of market socialism within the NDP and
has there been any attempt to move the NDP to a market socialism
platform?
There are many within the New Democratic Party who believe in market socialism, including former Saskatchewan MP Lorne Nystrom, as well as current Atlantic MP’s Alexa McDonough and Peter Stoffer. Even former NDP leadership candidate Pierre Ducasse promoted “Pragmatic Radicalism”, meaning achieving socialist goals through the reality of the market.
Although a group in 2001 called NDProgress, a group of moderate New Democrats wanting to change the party to be a more moderate, no group or blueprint has tried in recent memory to advocate the federal NDP to push for market socialism.
However, that might change in the near future. Recently I published an article during the federal election called “The New Deal for Canada”, which suggests that the federal NDP change it’s economic platform to be pro market within a socialist context.
What has come out of that article has been a positive response to a lot of NDP members, of which I hope to take these ideas and form resolutions of which can be debated at the 2005 federal NDP convention.
Market socialism can achieve the best of both worlds: You can eat your cake and beat it too.
Adam Johnston works as a billing clerk in the City of Winnipeg. A part time Business and Administrative Studies student at Red River College: Continuing Education, Adam is also the Creator of this website. Adam will also be taking an H&R Block Income Tax Class this fall to have a wonderful understanding of the taxation system so he can promote the gospel of market socialism.
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