Market Socialism: The Impossible Socialism

Abstract

The idea of combining some form of social equality with markets goes back to the very origins of socialist tradition and also underlies most of the proposals currently being presented as “alternatives” to the capitalist social order. However, taking as its axis the organic relationship between commodity circulation and capital, as revealed by Marx, it is possible to offer a critique of market socialism (choosing David Schweickart's version of Economic Democracy as a generic textual reference) to demonstrate its inconsistency as a project for social emancipation alternative to the capitalist mode of production. And this for reasons of: i) economy: due to market inefficiency in allocation, and its tendency toward social polarization; ii) politics: because markets prevent citizen self-government and block the free development of human capacities; and iii) ecology: the market is incompatible with a social metabolism that is sustainable with nature. The conclusion is that a market-based production structure is incompatible with the conscious, rational, and democratic regulation of the economy.