Is Socialism Possible?

The strongest argument against socialism, understood as entailing central planning, comes from Enrico Barone. Von Mises popularized this argument. Maybe he was subjectively original. I think von Mises did not have a good understanding of duality theory and shadow prices. Anyways, his argument is supposed to be an argument in principle, an impossibility argument. Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, and Fred Taylor, for example, provided answers. Hayek proposed a revision emphasizing practicality and distributed tacit knowledge. The argument still needs to be remade, since marginalist price theory has been shown half a century ago to be, at best, wrong.

But socialists need to have no opinion on the possibility of central economic planning in a democracy. One can advocate a plethora of policies and institutions in the here and now which give the vast majority of the population more control over their lives, more participation in their society, and more opportunities to develop their potentials. Achieving these goals requires a much less extreme inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. Some examples of policies and institutions are:

• The creation of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
• Universal Basic Income.
• Co-determination. Corporate charters are a creature of the state, often Delaware in the United States. Laws can mandate workers have representatives on the board of directors and other goverance practices be put in place.
• Government ownership, at various levels, of utilities, railrods, port facilities, telecommunications infrastructure and so, keeping in mind the principle of subsidiarity.
• Extensive re-creation of infrastructure and industry to diminish the threat of global warming.
• The support for loans or subsidies for the formation of co-operatives.
• Simplifing the organization of labor unions. Card check is a current possibility in the United States. (Is Labor Notes a worthwhile site?)
• Legalizing union contracts in which a contract clause mandates that all workers at certain tiers in an unionized firm pay union dues. (The prohibition of such contracts is dishonestly called 'the right to work'.)
• Legalizing sympathy strikes.
• More generous funding on education, basic research, and so.
• A generous social safety net
• Universal health care, disconnected from employment.
• Higher taxes on the wealthy, especially on property income.

I have banged on like this before. I think for all of the above to be possible in the United States necessitates a much different political climate than currently prevailing. When such a country is achieved is time enough to argue about (other) varieties of socialism.

References

• Tiago Camarinha Lopes. 2021. Technical or political? The socialist calculation debate. Cambridge Journal of Economics 45(4): 787-810.