Capitalism versus Pragmatic Market Socialism: A General Equilibrium Evaluation contains important contributions both to general economic theory and to the evaluation of potential market socialist economic systems. As a contribution to economic theory, the general equilibrium model utilized in the research introduces the concept of `capital management effort' as a third primary factor of production (in addition to labor and saving) provided by private households. Capital management effort represents such things as corporate supervision, investment analysis, entrepreneurship, and related activity by the household which is intended to increase the rate of return on its capital wealth. As a contribution to the evaluation of market socialism, this research sheds powerful illumination on the potential performance of a specific variant of market socialism known as `pragmatic market socialism'. Pragmatic market socialism is a plan of market socialism designed to work `almost exactly' like contemporary capitalism. The key differences would be the enforcement of a profit incentive on the publicly owned corporations by an agency designated the Bureau of Public Ownership, and the distribution of the preponderance of capital property return produced by the publicly owned corporations as a social dividend supplement to the household's wage and salary income. The analysis reported in this book shows precisely under what conditions pragmatic market socialism would perform better than capitalism, and under what conditions the opposite would be true. The fundamental implication forthcoming from the research is that the potential performance of pragmatic market socialism relative to capitalism is an empirical rather than a theoretical question.

This volume advocates pragmatic market socialism and offers a penetrating critique of the entire range of capitalist apologetics. As James A. Yunker envisions it, pragmatic market socialism would virtually duplicate the everyday economic functions of market capitalist economies, such as the United States' economy. However, public ownership of large, established corporations would enable profits to be distributed among the entire labor force rather than going largely to a class of inheriting rentiers. Pragmatic market socialism would be a means of enhancing economic justice and fairness without sacrificing the efficiency advantages of free enterprise and the market economy. Yunker presents both theoretical and empirical evidence countering various widely-accepted justifications for capitalism. He argues that much of what passes for anti-socialist thought does not actually address socialism at all but rather the various adverse historical correlates of socialism such as the Communist one-party state, Soviet-style central planning, and the Scandinavian welfare state. This book will be of great interest to economists specializing in comparative economic systems to political scientists with an interest in the evolution of political/economic systems.

This title was first published in 2001. Spanning a quarter of a century, this collection makes conveniently accessible 14 of Yunker’s thorough and highly illuminating contributions to the literature on market socialism.

This volume thoroughly examines the case for democratic market socialism in light of both the real-world and intellectual history of socialism. James Yunker provides a clear and jargon-free account of this highly controversial issue. Covering the history of the market socialist idea from the precursors of Oskar Lange to the present, Yunker examines the subject not only in terms of formal economic theory, but in the context of the actual history of communistic socialism as practiced in the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, the P.R.C., and elsewhere. The book's historical content and readability will make it of great interest not only to economists and historians of socialism, but to any reader seeking to learn more about the place of market socialism in history and its potential for future application.

N. Scott Arnold argues that the most defensible version of a market socialist economic system would be unable to realize widely held socialist ideals and values. In particular, it would be responsible for widespread and systematic exploitation. The charge of exploitation, which is really a charge of injustice, has typically been made against capitalist systems by socialists. This book argues that it is market socialism--the only remaining viable form of socialism--that is systematically exploitative.

This book blends real-world history, intellectual history, and personal history into a compelling case for a new way of thinking about such highly controversial—and highly misunderstood—concepts as market socialism, a Global Marshall Plan, and world government. It argues that, if properly designed according to clear and specific blueprints, all three of these possibilities would indeed greatly benefit humanity if they were fully implemented. The book puts a human face on these proposals by documenting their origin and development through a detailed account of the author’s professional efforts over a long and productive academic career. This story of steadfast determination in the face of steep odds will resonate deeply with every person who has nourished a vision that is commonly dismissed as excessively idealistic and unrealistic.

In this innovative book, David McNally develops a powerful critique of market socialism, by tracing it back to its roots in early political economy. He ranges from Adam Smith’s attempt to reconcile moral philosophy with market economics to Malthus’s reformulation of Smith’s political economy which made it possible to justify poverty as a moral necessity. Smith’s economic theory was also the source of an attempt to construct a critique of capitalism derived from his conception of free and equal exchange governed by natural price. This Smithian forerunner of today’s market socialism sought to reform the market without abolishing the social relations on which it was based. McNally explores this tradition sympathetically, but exposes its fatal flaws. The book concludes with an incisive consideration of efforts by writers such as Alec Nove to construct a “feasible” model of market socialism. McNally shows these efforts are still plagued by the failure of early Smithian socialism to come to grips with the social foundations of the market, the commodification of labor-power which is the key to market regulation of the economy. The results, he argues, are neither socialist nor workable.