In article <l03130310b503b2b94ad8@[130.244.216.248]>, Hugh Rodwell <m-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Not mine, Marx's!
>
>Why? Well, I wrote:
>
>>>Yes. With the rider that productivity will need to be higher than that
>>>attained by capitalism (at least with respect to the economy as a whole) in
>>>order for the setting of prices by planned labour input to supersede the
>>>pressures of the Law of Value working through the market. This was the big
>>>economic reality that made it so difficult to control prices and planning
>>>in the early Soviet Union and led to the excesses of kulakism etc.
Marx did write that productivity will need to be higher post-capitalism
(to meet human need) and of course there will be a role for planning.
But there is no suggestion that he thought "the setting of prices" to
supersede the law of value was practicable or desirable.
>Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme makes this very clear with biting
>polemics against utopians who think there will be no intermediate,
>transitional stage between capitalism and full-blown communism.
As Hugh knows quite well, Marx said the transitional stage is a lower
form of *communism*.
>>Either that, or come clean and start talking market socialism a la Nove and
>>Schweikart.
>
>
>Market socialism is a cowardly utopian cop-out. Anything to avoid the
>life-and-death confrontation with the bourgeoisie that creating the
>preconditions for real socialism will involve.
Hugh may want his life and death confrontation with the bourgeoisie but
the resulting *society* would look suspiciously like "market socialism",
even if only transitionally.
--
Lew
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