Towards a New Socialism [Paperback]

W. Paul Cockshott (Author), Allin F. Cottrell (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Coronet Books Inc. (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851245455
• ISBN-13: 978-0851245454
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,050,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars True to its title, December 10, 2006

By 

Joshua Malle (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Towards a New Socialism (Paperback)

One hundred years after the death of Marx, Jon Elster's survey article, "What is Living and What is Dead in Marxism?" placed the labor theory of value unambiguously in the "dead" column. By 1991 world events and the trend among left-leaning economists toward "market socialism" signaled that the idea of centralized economic planning was moribund as well.

In this context it is surprising that in 1993 a serious book advocating both economic planning and the substitution of time and labor vouchers for prices and money could have appeared at all. But Towards a New Socialism, which was co-written by an economist and a computer scientist, contains many novel arguments that together constitute an original and serious contribution towards the solution of the economic calculation problem.

The core of Cockshott and Cottrell's argument runs as follows:

a) That it is possible to accurately calculate the amount of labor time it takes to produce goods and services (pp. 52-54 and 40-47)

b) That measurement in labor time can accurately reflect relative scarcities of inputs (raw materials, intermediate goods, etc.), eliminating the need for factor markets (pp. 48-53, 124-125 and 132-134), and

c) That it is now possible to use a combination of computers and modern mathematical techniques to work backwards from demand for consumer goods to a detailed central plan for the allocation of factors of production (pp. 55-60, 84-101 and 127-136).

In effect they argue that the "economic calculation" problem became tractable by the mid-1980s (explicitly on pp. 58 and 90).

In response to the old and obvious objection that the value of a thing is how much people want it and are willing to pay for it, not how much time you spent making it, they propose an ingenious system of selling consumer goods at market clearing "prices" (measured in state issued labor-time vouchers) and then using the ratio of the selling price to the cost of production (measured in labor-time) as a guide to whether to increase or decrease production (pp.118-126).

The rest of the book is an attempt to flesh out their main argument with a picture of how such an economy would work: how it would handle long-term macroeconomic planning, saving and investment, taxation, foreign trade, property rights, democratic participation, etc. The chapters on foreign trade and property rights are especially clever.

Though by and large an intellectually honest effort, C & C sometimes treat crucial, difficult issues in a perfunctory and overly optimistic manner. E.g.:

Pre-occupied as they are with the flow of economic information, they are comparatively uninterested in and dismissive of problems associated with the absence of incentives in a non-market, egalitarian society (explicitly so on pp. 134-136).

They also seem to not apprehend any great difficulties relating to innovation or entrepreneurship in a planned economy, despite historical precedent, and do not devote a chapter to it, though they do treat it tangentially on pp. 71-72 and 200-206.

They are similarly sanguine about the prospects for democracy in a planned economy. Though they acknowledge that, "Utopian experiments are strongly associated in the public mind with brutal dictatorships and suppression of civil liberties," (p.177), they do not address the possibility that economic centralization and political centralization go hand in hand. They seem to consider it a simple matter for planners to be kept responsible to the public through regular referendums on national economic policy (p. 186) and for bureaucracies to be held accountable by randomly selected oversight committees (188-190).

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Socialism or barbarism, December 16, 2003

By 

Mattias Borjesson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Towards a New Socialism (Paperback)

We are many who critizies capitalism, but what is the altewrnative? If socialism failed in the USSR why even try it? These are the questions answered by Cockshott/Cotrell. Their theory is not without flaws, but it certainly is something like this that we are all envision. Else, if capitalism rules another century we will all perish.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Novel Presentation of New Socialist Thought, February 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Towards a New Socialism (Paperback)

Cockshott and Cottrell's book, Towards a New Socialism, presents excellent analysis of the current problems associated with socialism and a socialist state, while simultaneously providing readers with a number of ideas on how to implement reforms or create a socialist state.