Dear Se,
>I have set that assumption (that I support the development of a MS type >economy) in a particular context. I would be happy to see things go further >but just can't see that around the corner given the state of the left >across the world. Ah. Well, I guess I am principled supporter of MS; I am impressed with Hayek-type arguments that a wholly nonmarket economy would not be propserous enough to support socialism of a sort we'd like. > >Schweichart: SchweicKart he looked to the Jugoslavian model as one for >replication, n'est pas? Not exactly. For inspiration, yes. For the idea of worker control, among other things. He was also inspired, perhaps more than by Yugo, by Mondragon. I think that he failed to look at the model >within the context of Jugoslavia's preferential position within the world >economy -it's relationship to imperialism (for example). Well, all of us fans of worker self-management have to look hard at the factors that contributed to the Yugo model's failure--just as the fans of planned socialism have to look harder at the factors that contributed to the failure of the Soviet model. I have just acquired Susan Woodward's book Socialist Unemployment, which (on a superficial skim) attributes the problem sto the model's failure to deal with the problem of unemployment. (I was on a panel with Woodward once; she's very smart.) Other theories: Yugo got in hoc to the IMF and the World Bank, which screwed things up with their austerity programs; Tugo failed to systemnatically implement self-management (Lydell's view); Yugo lacked a real hard budgetr constraint tjat would shut down failing firms; and finally, Yugo ran into some problems for some combination of reasons, but, in the context of the collapse of the rest of socialism, was hijacked by ambitious politicians like Milosovec. > >That said, there is much to be learnt from their system. My prefered model >is a mixture of state intervention and a non-profit distributing service >sector. Schweickart's model has planned (new) investment, and lots of regulation. What's your "service distribution sector"? >The utilisation of non-profit distributing service enterprises will gain >the efficiency benefits of the market yet they will not be redistributed in >the form of profits, rather more investments. I feel that Governments have >a role in supporting this sector (otherwise known as the social economy) >and that this sector can have a dual role of reducing dependency on FDI and >of increasing popular involvement in the economic development process. > >Anyway, enough on that. >Sé (I am using my wife's account). > jks _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
