Michael Perelman wrote:
>My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does
>nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in
>a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people
>can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate
>market society. I
>may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism.
That is exactly what the Soviet elite eventually concluded and the
reason they opted for capitalism. The Soviet elite were not blind to
the problems of the Soviet economy (for instance, "after 1975 Soviet
growth slowed dramatically," according to David Kotz & Fred Weir).
The proposed solution was to try to introduce "incentives" of a
competitive market mechanism. How is market competition supposed to
motivate enterprises to act efficiently? Mainly by giving incentives
to "improve" labor discipline: "Gorbachev also suggested that the way
to improve labor discipline was to ensure that pay was based on
productivity. He criticized 'the tendency of leveling [of wages]'
which 'negatively influenced the quality and quantity of work.'
Instead, 'the incomes of working people should be linked to their
performance on the job.'" (Kotz & Weir, _Revolution from Above: The
Demise of the Soviet System_, p. 57). If labor discipline is the key
to "market efficiency," it is no wonder that the Soviet elite
eventually decided that capitalism was superior to market socialism.
Yoshie
