One of my biggest problems with "mkt socialists" is they have apparently given up on the *PROJECT* of socialism. I have no problem with acknowledging that conscious social choice is not a "solved problem" i.e. that there may be many cases where we may not be able to devise in a particular society at a particualr point in time a "social choice" mechnaism that will function "better" than markets by some generally agreed upon criteria which may even include equity as well as innovation etc. But isn't this precisely our job? - to recognize that markets when applied to social choice (I think that for individual choice their fine - what resturant to go to , what color shoes etc.) will ultimately simply cater to the most powerful market players (in many ways which people on this list have pointed out) and that they cannot ultimately serve as a central social choice allocation mechnaism for a democratic society if socilist ideals - of the kind that Hahnel and Albert, Pat Devine, etc. have expressed very clearly - are to be obtained. What I'm suggesting here is that we not think of this as a utopian scheme to be implemented now, but as a project which may include versions of mkt socialism as intermediate steps but not as a final goal i.e. we may start with financial and investment planning a la Schweickart or Pollin, but we shouldn't think that we have to start or stop with this and leave all else to markets. We, in my view, should be also pushing on other fronts, like direct labor mket planning and wage setting (the "living wage"), and push for more social pricing of important infrastructure, social technological choice where these have braod impact (as in microsoft and intel for example). All the while is seems to me our political message should not be confused - we (I) ultimately would like to see markets only as subordinate mechanisms to coordinate individual choice - wihtin a braod framework of consciously and democratically determined social choice parameters. Otherwise it seems to me we will ultimately have barbarism either of an ecological or social variety. Social Democracy did go quite a way (as the NYT article on Norway shows I think) but is now im most cases in retrenchment, mostly I think due to the ascendency of WORLD captialism. It seems to me our task is to reverse this and to build on Social Democracy toward democratic socialism. In so doing, "market socialist" models may over intermediate kinds of compromise positions to push for which would in most cases be an important step forward - but they can't be seen as ultimate forms, or the last best hope of socialism! So we're going to, inevitably, have historical "path dependency", but we should keep our goal straight and our goal is NOT market socialism, unless one calls market socialism, a socialism with completely democratically planned social choices and only "individual choices" left to circumscribed and regulated markets. Hasta La Victoria! Ron Baiman Roosevelt U., Chicago
