Harry Magdoff on market socialism

A letter from Harry Magdoff to Frank Roosevelt and David Belkin, the editors of "Why Market Socialism", appears in the May 1995 Monthly Review. In explaining why Monthly Review chose not to review the new book, the MR editors state in a preface to Magdoff's letter that the perspective on the issues raised in the book were so different from Monthly Review's that "a proper treatment of the subject would require the type of major essay we are not able to undertake at the present time."

Some paragraphs from Magdoff's letter:

"The underlying assumption of the essays in 'Why Market Socialism' is that central planning inevitably requires bureaucratic control over every detail of production and distribution. This, I believe, is an unwarranted assumption abstracted from the history of past socialist countries. Moshe Lewin speaks about the disappearance of planning within the plan from its earliest days in the Soviet Union. Detailed centralized control is not a necessary feature of central planning, but the result of politics, class interests, arbitrary command decision- making--all of which wreaked havoc with attempts at consistent planning. Furthermore, there is no necessary contradiction between central planning and the use of the market for the distribution of consumer goods and a variety of intermediate production goods. Nor does central planning necessarily exclude 'businesses' run by cooperatives, communities, family farms, or private small firms. What matters is whether the market is relied on as the guide for the allocation of resources, and/or is permitted to sabotage the socialist transition.

"My impression of the essays in the book is that by and large, despite protestations to the contrary, the visions the authors have in mind is a nice, humane, regulated capitalism. Heilbroner sums it up nicely in his foreword: 'Socialisms therefore constitute a kind of ongoing experiment to discover what sorts of arrangements might repair the damage wrought by the existing social order.' The essays by and large are concerned with issues which are germane to a capitalist society: how to get improved growth, start new enterprises, improve efficiency, encourage innovation and competition. Do the people of the United States need faster growth, except for the fact that it is the only way to create jobs in a capitalist society? Are more profit-making enterprise needed? To do what--produce more cars, ferrous metals, plastics, paper; provide services of lawyers, bill collectors, real estate operators, and brokers? Why do we need improved efficiency? Efficiency for what, and by what standards? Why not less efficiency--shorter workdays, shorter work weeks, longer vacations, relaxation time during dull work routines? We are a rich country with enormous potential for improving the quality of life for all the people as long as the ideal standard of life is not taken as that of the upper middle class. The innovations needed are not more gadgets or information highways, but the enrichment of education, medical care, room for the creative urges to flourish--alas, not grist for viable ventures in the marketplace."