The economic system as an end or as a means and the future of socialism: an evolutionary viewpoint

Alberto, Chilosi (2012): The economic system as an end or as a means and the future of socialism: an evolutionary viewpoint.

Abstract

After the demise of “real” socialism and the decline of “western” socialism, socialism can be salvaged as a social preference system oriented towards equality and social justice, to be implemented without systemic constraints in the organizational and institutional sense. At the same time there is a case for maintaining an institutional framework allowing different forms of economic organization,capitalist and non-capitalist,to compete on equal footing, in an evolutionary perspective, thus allowing the second to develop if proven efficient. Another way for a spontaneous extension of the domain of socialism could derive from the socialization of consumption, if the consumption of public goods continues to make up a growing component of real consumption.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Socialism, Capitalism, Socialization of Consumption
• Subjects: P - Economic Systems > P5 - Comparative Economic Systems > P50 - General

References

Anderberg, Dan, Fredrik Andersson, Alessandro Balestrino, “Time, Self-Selection and User Charges for Public Goods”, FinanzArchiv, vol. 57 (2000), pp. 137-154

Atkinson, Antony, and John Micklewright, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income, Cambridge, Cambridge Un. Press, 1992

Bergson, Abram, “Comparative Productivity: The USSR, Eastern Europe and the West”, American Economic Review, vol. 77, no. 3, (June 1987), pp. 342-357

Bergson, Abram, “Communist Economic Efficiency Revisited”, American Economic Review, Vol. 82 no. 2 (May 1992), pp. 27-31

Berliner, Joseph S., The Economics of the Good Society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999

Bowles, Samuel, “Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and other Economic Institutions”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XXXVI (March 1998), pp. 75–111

Brus Wlodimierz and Tadeusz Kowalik, “Socialism and Development”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 7 (1983), 243-255

Chilosi, Alberto, "Socialist and Communist Income Distribution in Marxian and Soviet Marxist Thought", Il Politico, 43 (1978), 4, pp. 698-710

Chilosi, Alberto, "Privatisation through Competition", Jahrbuch der Wirtschaft Osteuropas, vol. 14, n. 2, 1990a, pp. 182-184

Chilosi, Alberto, “Distributional and Redistributional Processes in Soviet-type Economies and the Distributional Impact of Institutional Change", in: Camilo Dagum, Mario Zenga (ed.), Income and Wealth Distribution, Inequality and Poverty, Berlin, Springer Verlag 1990b, pp. 389-403

Chilosi, Alberto, “Comparisons of Income Distribution East and West, Before and After Transition: Some Methodological Issues”, Statistics in Transition, vol. 1, n. 5, Sept. 1994, pp. 641-653

Corneo, Giacomo, “Work and Television”, Iza Discussion Paper No. 376, October 2001, http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=287317

Gomulka, Stanislaw and Jacek Rostowski, “An International Comparison of Material Intensity”, Journal of Comparative Economics, 12, 4, Dec. 1988, pp. 475-501

Gordon,R. J. (2000), “Does the ‘New Economy’ Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?”, in Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 14, n. 4, pp. 49-74

Kowalik, Tadeusz, “Why the Social Democratic Option Failed: Poland’s Experience of Systemic Change”, in Andrew Glyn (ed.), Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times: The Left and Economic Policy since 1989. Oxford: OUP, 2001, pp. 223-252

Kowalik, Tadeusz, “Systemic Variety under the Conditions of Globalization and Integration”, in: Grzegorz W. Kolodko (ed), Emerging Market Economies: Globalization and Development. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, pp. 205-220

Krug, Barbara, “Ties That Bind: The Emergence of Entrepreneurs in China”, ERIM Report Series reference number ERS-2000-44-ORG, November 2000a, p. 12, http://www.eur.nl/WebDOC/doc/erim/erimrs20001201150211.pdf

Krug, Barbara, “The Interdependence Between Political and Economic Entrepreneurship”. Erasmus Research Institute of Management, November 2000b. ERIM Report Series reference number ERS-2000-43-ORG, http://www.eur.nl/WebDOC/doc/erim/erimrs200102091410-37.pdf

Lange, Oscar, “Istota socjalizmu” [“The Essence of Socialism”], in: Lange (1973),. pp. 130-136; originally published in 1938

Oscar Lange, Dziela [Works], vol. 2, Socjalizm. Warsaw, PWE, 1973.

Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), www.archive\marx\works\1870\gotha\ch01.htm

Megginson, William and Jeffry Netter, “From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XXXIX (June 2001), pp. 321-389

Oxford Analytica, “Battered and Cherished: The Private Sector in China”, Transition Newsletter, vol. 11, n. 6, January 2001, pp. 13-14

Roland, Gérard, Transition and Economics. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 2000.

Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976 [1942]

Shrcke, Marc, “Preferences for Inequality: East vs. West”. Innocenti Working Papers, No. 89, October 2001

Stiglitz, Joseph E., Wither Socialism. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 1994

Sun, Laixiang, “Fading out of Local Government Ownership: Recent Ownership Reform in China’s Township and Village Enterprises”, Economic Systems, vol. 26, 2002, n.3, pp. 249–269

The Economist, ‘Special Report on State Capitalism’, The Economist, 22 January 2012