---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gil Skillman <gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:21:26 -0500 Subject: Re: [OPE-L:4775] redistribution of DOSPA: empirical evidence? Hi, Jerry. In response to this passage from my [OPE-L:4774], > >> No, I'm saying something much more specific: that if it's legitimate to >> read Marx as indicating that DOSPA (differential ownership of scarce >> productive assets) is a necessary condition for capitalist exploitation--a >> point still being discussed--then it follows that sufficient redistribtion >> of productive assets would eliminate capitalist exploitation. The issue >> here is what *Marx* argues is the systemic basis of capitalist >> exploitation, and what inferences might be drawn from that argument. you write >In Sweden they might say "Been there, tried that" in reference to the >Meidner Plan. [...] >Doesn't the Swedish experience re the Meidner Plan suggest some practical >problems with redistribution of "DOSPA" and the modern version of >"evolutionary socialism"? Two responses: first, the issue in question is theoretical in nature, not empirical. Regardless of what Sweden has tried, the question is what Marx argued as a theoretical necessary condition for the existence of capitalist exploitation, and what the valid implications of that theoretical argument are. But second, I don't see your example as particularly relevant. Sweden has had a welfare state involving substantial income redistribution, true, but in spite of this it is and has been recognizably a capitalist economy in which the means of production are decidely *not* collectively owned by workers, either in the form of employee ownership or Roemer-style market socialism. It would be much more plausible to say that the downfall of the Soviet Union says "been there, done that" to the possibility of centrally planned socialism. And since I don't find the latter claim especially compelling... >Among other issues, you haven't considered (yet) the *control* of "DOSPA" >(in addition to ownership) and the nature of class rule vis-a-vis the state. Well, what do you want me to consider about it? I do address some aspects of the meaning of "control" in the exchange with Andrew. What's your issue? Gil
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