It's a pretty contentious concept among the left. The fact that leftists in this post are arguing about it and will probably argue with my interpretation is proof of that.
Market Socialism (at least from my understanding as a Marxist) is a branch off or revision of Orthodox Marxism that has been historically practiced by Marxist leaders/ states; Tito's Yugoslavia is the best case example but arguably China, Vietnam and Cuba all do as well today. Some Marxists even think Lenin briefly did it with the NEP.
That being said, a lot of Marxists are very much opposed to the idea of 'markets' ever being compatible with Socialism, and any attempt to introduce markets into a Socialist system is an attempt at introducing bourgeois elements or straight up Capitalism back into society. And this is not entirely false. Yugoslavia eventually collapsed, not just because of Western pressure but also due to contradictions in their own system, and China and Vietnam do have pretty rich Capitalists that severely exploit their workers.
Anarchists are entirely opposed to it as far as I know (any Anarchists here can elaborate if needed).
I'm an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism, so I'm not sure how much my opinion counts, but I'll try to do an analysis from an anarchist perspective. I don't think you can have a market economy without private property and we all now how Bakunin felt about private property. Additionally, as it's been mentioned previously, markets assign value, which creates hierarchical relationships, something we also really don't like. I can't imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism but I'd be open to other perspectives.
I’m an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism
There's a lot to unpack here lol
I can’t imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism
Proudhon, De Cleyre, Lloyd Garrison, and others historically. There's also a strand in the modern-day trying to uphold this line of thinking through blogs and think-tanks, but on the ground they're pretty much eclipsed by syndicalist and insurrectionist practice.
It could, but it doesn't have to. I think Graeber made this point really well in History of Everything (and less well in his other books) where he pointed out that goods have and do move around through mechanisms other than markets or planned economies.
He gives the following examples on pg. 23-24:
Dreams and Vision Quests: Pre-colonial Iroquoians would travel for days to get items they had seen in dreams, moving them from town to town over the years. In plains societies, the vision quest served a similar role.
Traveling healers: They would develop entourages of people they had cured who would divide their possessions among the troupe, allowing goods to travel across huge swaths of the American SE without markets.
Women's gambling: Gambling with shells, according to archaeologist Warren DeBoer, moved shells and other adornments halfway across the continent, again, without markets.
In Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, he argues that many "currencies" were enmeshed in social relationships that extended beyond the transactional nature of the market. Wampum, for example, was never just money (until the colonial era) and the transfer of wampum could also create kinship ties or end feuds. Even markets weren't always markets.
To move past history and into the speculative, anarchist have laid out plans for centrally planned economies which are accountable to their memberships and also partable. Parecon is one particular example. I'm not laying this out as an endorsment of parecon, but as a speculative counter-example to federated communes operating on market logic.
As a more open ended speculation, I'd like to ask: What might the Soviet economy have looked like if the Soviets had stayed democratic and if the workers had remained armed?
It's a pretty contentious concept among the left. The fact that leftists in this post are arguing about it and will probably argue with my interpretation is proof of that.
Market Socialism (at least from my understanding as a Marxist) is a branch off or revision of Orthodox Marxism that has been historically practiced by Marxist leaders/ states; Tito's Yugoslavia is the best case example but arguably China, Vietnam and Cuba all do as well today. Some Marxists even think Lenin briefly did it with the NEP.
That being said, a lot of Marxists are very much opposed to the idea of 'markets' ever being compatible with Socialism, and any attempt to introduce markets into a Socialist system is an attempt at introducing bourgeois elements or straight up Capitalism back into society. And this is not entirely false. Yugoslavia eventually collapsed, not just because of Western pressure but also due to contradictions in their own system, and China and Vietnam do have pretty rich Capitalists that severely exploit their workers.
Anarchists are entirely opposed to it as far as I know (any Anarchists here can elaborate if needed).
I'm an anarchist who has realized a state is necessary to overthrow capitalism, so I'm not sure how much my opinion counts, but I'll try to do an analysis from an anarchist perspective. I don't think you can have a market economy without private property and we all now how Bakunin felt about private property. Additionally, as it's been mentioned previously, markets assign value, which creates hierarchical relationships, something we also really don't like. I can't imagine any anarchists favoring market socialism but I'd be open to other perspectives.
There's a lot to unpack here lol
Proudhon, De Cleyre, Lloyd Garrison, and others historically. There's also a strand in the modern-day trying to uphold this line of thinking through blogs and think-tanks, but on the ground they're pretty much eclipsed by syndicalist and insurrectionist practice.
Not an anarchist but this mutualism/market anarchist thing is pretty en vogue on twitter, especially among the PNW scene.
Also wouldn't trade among decentralized communes essentially function as a market as there is no central authority to set price signals?
It could, but it doesn't have to. I think Graeber made this point really well in History of Everything (and less well in his other books) where he pointed out that goods have and do move around through mechanisms other than markets or planned economies.
He gives the following examples on pg. 23-24:
Dreams and Vision Quests: Pre-colonial Iroquoians would travel for days to get items they had seen in dreams, moving them from town to town over the years. In plains societies, the vision quest served a similar role.
Traveling healers: They would develop entourages of people they had cured who would divide their possessions among the troupe, allowing goods to travel across huge swaths of the American SE without markets.
Women's gambling: Gambling with shells, according to archaeologist Warren DeBoer, moved shells and other adornments halfway across the continent, again, without markets.
In Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, he argues that many "currencies" were enmeshed in social relationships that extended beyond the transactional nature of the market. Wampum, for example, was never just money (until the colonial era) and the transfer of wampum could also create kinship ties or end feuds. Even markets weren't always markets.
To move past history and into the speculative, anarchist have laid out plans for centrally planned economies which are accountable to their memberships and also partable. Parecon is one particular example. I'm not laying this out as an endorsment of parecon, but as a speculative counter-example to federated communes operating on market logic.
As a more open ended speculation, I'd like to ask: What might the Soviet economy have looked like if the Soviets had stayed democratic and if the workers had remained armed?