From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Tue Apr 24 2007 - 14:45:36 EDT
Dear AA, What does it mean if I have a lack of methodological pluralism ? I believe there is not one socialism, but many different socialisms. I was not referring to a lack of mathematical reasoning, but to conceptualisations which to my way of thinking are not very adequate. I am not too fussed about the mathematics of it. Mathematics is important in showing the quantitative implications of concepts and theories, but it cannot substitute for conceptual development. Stalinist-type socialism involved wiping out markets and substituting central planning and countertrade, based on a communist monopoly of power. This socialism, though effective for some time, failed. Why did it fail? One possibility is that it failed, because the rush to de-marketise everything had very bad effects. Another possibility is that lack of popular democracy and bureaucratization got in the way of healthy motivations among economic actors. Another possibility is that forced labour and lack of choice demotivated the producers. Social democracy (mixed economy or state capitalism) was very effective for many decades. However, social democracy caved in to neoliberalism. Why? Among other things, because subsidisation and dirigisme no longer necessarily generate any social solidarity, and because state bureaucracies and regulation are often an inefficient constraint. Social democracy is an ideology of government managers, but if the populace is no longer interested much in governmental politics, then the social democratic party has a representational problem. The socialist economic policy of the Dutch Socialist Party is fairly simple: 1) defence of a wellfunctioning public sector against marketisation and privatisation, 2) promotion of a more egalitarian distribution of income and wealth. These were traditionally social democratic policies, but the social democrats gave up on those policies. Yet, there exists a very strong public demand for a party with those policies, hence the Dutch Socialist Party continues to grow in size and influence. Jurriaan
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