Towards a New Socialism by Cockshott, W. Paul -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Page About this book Introduction

Why is social democracy inadequate? In what sense was the USSR socialist? What can be learnt from the failure of Soviet socialism? What is the theoretical basis for a new socialism? Synopsis of the book

1. Inequality

Sources of inequality

Exploitation

Table 1.1: Calculating the rate of exploitation, 1982 Further breakdown of banking and financial services:

Unemployment Infirmity and old age Women’s economic subordination

Summary

2. Eliminating inequalities

Benefits of income redistribution

How much would one hour’s labour produce?

Table 2.1: Value created by an hour’s labour in 1987 Figure 2.1: Actual earnings versus egalitarian pay, 1987

Equality more effective than growth

Inequalities of labour

Differential payment for education/skill? Specific labour shortages Differential payment for ‘personal qualities’ ?

Skilled labour as a ‘produced input’ Comparison with historically existing socialism Appendix: Illustrative calculation of skilled labour multiplier

3. Work, Time and Computers

Economies of time

Table 3.1: Two ways of digging a ditch

Objective social accounting Defining labour content

Table 3.2: A simple input–output system

The problem of scale

The idea of complexity Simplifying the labour value problem

High tech and intermediate tech solutions

4. Basic Concepts of Planning

Planning and control

Figure 4.1: Crude controller Figure 4.2: Intelligent controller

Capitalist goals second order What would be first-order goals? Levels of planning

5. Strategic Planning

Planning the industrial structure The environment and natural resources The time dimension of production

Figure 5.1: Effects of discounting at 9% on costs of two power schemes millions of hours

Market and non-market distribution

Rights of citizenship Freedom of choice Coping with scarcity Costs of metering

Agriculture

6. Detailed Planning

Figure 6.1: Control mechanism Figure 6.2: Structure of planning Table 6.1: portion of an input–output table Planning in the USSR Detail planning and stock constraints A new plan-balancing algorithm

The harmony function

Figure 6.3: Stylised neural net Figure 6.4: Harmony function

Stages of the algorithm

Economic cybernetics in Chile

7. Macroeconomic Planning and Budgetary Policy

Macro accounting in labour-time Household saving and credit

Interest on savings?

Tax policy

Ground rent Excise tax Taxation and Accumulation

8. The Marketing of Consumer Goods

Market-clearing prices

Table 8.1: Market prices and rationing

Consumer goods and the macro plan Comparison with capitalist markets Conclusion

conc1

9. Planning and Information

Information and property Requirements of a statistical service

Product coding Unified stock control Standardised message formats Obtaining technical coefficients

Information: social problems

Information, performance measures and incentives Evaluating the performance of enterprises Statistical assessment for producer goods enterprises Against monopoly

Rewards and sanctions?

10. Foreign Trade

Figure 10.1: International production possibilities Technology and trade patterns Low wage and high wage economies Advantages of trade deficits International trade in context of socialism

State demand for foreign currency Alternatives to foreign exchange

Table 10.1: Labour-time balance of payments

Exchange rates, tourism and black markets

Figure 10.2: Exchange rate and revenue

Policy instruments

Unsold Exports Improved terms of trade

11. Trade Between Socialist Countries

Trade and property Less developed countries What we advocate Significance of national sovereignty

12. The Commune

The activities of urban communes

Housing Food preparation Childcare Some leisure activities Helping senior citizens

Basic rationale in terms of efficiency Systems of payment and external trade

Table 12.1: Illustrative set of commune accounts

Distribution of tasks The legal status of communes Public policy

13. On Democracy

Democracy and parliamentarism Direct democracy or soviet democracy?

Institutions of classical democracy ‘Democratic centralism’—a dead end

Is democracy possible today? Democracy and planning The acephalous state

14. Property Relations

Who owns what?

Encoding property rights

Table 14.1: Exhaustive enumeration of possible property rights

What can be owned?

Pure capitalism and mixed capitalism The Soviet model

Table 14.3: Property rights in the Soviet system

The enterprise as focus of contradictions

The proposed communalist model

Individual property rights Rights of Planning and economic projects Self-employment Property in land

Digression on the Ricardian theory of rent

Table 14.4: Soils of different productivities Table 14.5: Rents with grade 3 land in cultivation Ownership of natural resources Separation of control from benefit

15. Some Contrary Views Considered

Distribution, values and prices Market socialism?

Diane Elson: the socialised market? Aganbegyan: administrative and economic methods

Bibliography

← Prev
Back
Next →

← Prev
Back
Next →