However, critics have argued that the model faces serious feasibility hurdles Corneo ch. It is very hard for a central authority to gather the relevant information from producers and consumers. Second, even if it could gather enough information, the computation of an optimal plan would require enormously complex calculations which may be beyond the capacity of planners even with access to the most sophisticated technological assistance.
Finally, there may be significant incentive deficits. For example, firms might tend to exaggerate the resources they need to produce and mislead about how much they can produce. Without facing strong sticks and carrots such as the prospects for either bankruptcy and profit offered by a competitive market , firms might well display low levels of innovation. As a result, a planned economy would likely lag behind surrounding capitalist economies, and their members would tend to lose faith in it.
High levels of cooperation and willingness to innovate could still exist if sufficiently many individuals in this society possessed a strong sense of duty. Actual experiments in centrally planned economies have only partially approximated the best version of it. Thus, in addition to the problems mentioned above which affect even that best version , they have displayed additional defects.
For example, the system introduced in the Soviet Union featured intense concentration of political and economic power in the hands of an elite controlling a single party which, in turn, controlled a non-democratic state apparatus. Despite its successes in industrializing the country making it capable of mobilizing in a war effort to defeat Nazi Germany , the model failed to generate sufficient technical innovation and intensive growth to deliver differentiated consumer goods of the kind available within advanced capitalist economies.
Furthermore, it trampled upon civil and political liberties that many socialists would themselves hold dear. Responding to such widespread disempowerment, a second model for socialist planning has recommended that planning be done in a different, more democratic way. First, the means of production would be socially owned. Second, production would take place in firms controlled by workers thus fostering democracy within the workplace.
Fourth, in a solidaristic fashion, remuneration of workers would track their effort, sacrifice, and special needs and not their relative power or output—which would likely reflect differences in native abilities for which they are not morally responsible. Finally, and crucially, economic coordination would be based on comprehensive participatory planning. This would involve a complex system of nested worker councils, consumer councils, and an Iteration Facilitation Board. Various rounds of deliberation within, and between, worker and consumer councils, facilitated by this board, would be undertaken until matches between supply and demands schedules are found—with recourse to voting procedures only when no full agreement exists but several promising arrangements arise.
This would turn the economy into an arena of deliberative democracy. This proposal seems to cater for the full palette of socialist values stated in section 4. Importantly, it overcomes the deficits regarding freedom displayed by central planning. Critics have warned, however, that Parecon faces serious feasibility obstacles.
In particular, the iterative planning constituting the fifth institutional dimension of the Parecon proposal would require immense information complexity Wright —5. A defense of Parecon would retort that beyond initial stages, the process of economic decision-making would not be too cumbersome.
Furthermore, it might turn out to involve no more paperwork and time devoted to planning and to assessment behind computer terminals than is found in existing capitalist societies with their myriad individual and corporate budgeting exercises, and their various accounting and legal epicycles. And, in any case, even if it is more cumbersome and less efficient in terms of productivity, Parecon might still be preferable overall as an economic system, given its superior performance regarding the values of freedom, equality, self-realization, solidarity, and democracy Arnold n.
Some of the above-mentioned problems of central planning, regarding inefficiency and concentration of power, have motivated some socialists to explore alternative economic systems in which markets are given a central role. Markets generate problems of their own especially when they involve monopolies, negative externalities, and asymmetric information. Market socialism affirms the traditional socialist desideratum of preventing a division of society between a class of capitalists who do not need to work to make a living and a class of laborers having to work for them, but it retains from capitalism the utilization of markets to guide production.
There has been a lively debate on this approach, with several specific systems being proposed. One version is the economic democracy model Schweickart [], [OIR]. It has three basic features. First, production is undertaken in firms managed by workers. Worker self-managed enterprises would gain temporary control of some means of production which would be leased out by the state.
Workers determine what gets produced and how it is produced, and determine compensation schemes. Second, there is a market for goods and services. The profit motive persists and some inequalities within and between firms are possible, but likely much smaller than in capitalism as there would be no separate capitalist class, and workers will not democratically select income schemes that involve significant inequality within their firms.
Finally, investment flows are socially controlled through democratically accountable public investment banks, which determine funding for enterprises on the basis of socially relevant criteria. The revenues for these banks come from a capital assets tax. This system would through its second feature mobilize the efficiency of markets while also through its other features attending to socialist ideals of self-determination, self-realization, and equal opportunity. To address some potential difficulties, the model has been extended to include further features, such as a commitment of the government as an employer of last resort, the creation of socialist savings and loans associations, the accommodation of an entrepreneurial-capitalist sector for particularly innovative small firms, and some forms of protectionism regarding foreign trade.
But it has also been criticized on five counts Corneo ch. First, it would generate unfair distributions, as workers doing the same work in different enterprises would end up with unequal income if the enterprises are not equally successful in the market.
Second, workers would face high levels of financial risk, as their resources would be concentrated in their firm rather than spread more widely. Third, it could generate inefficient responses to market prices, as self-managed enterprises reduce hiring if prices for their products are high—so that members keep more of the profit—and hire more if the prices are low—to cover for fixed costs of production. Given the previous point, the system could also generate high unemployment.
Having the government require firms to hire more would lead to lower productivity. However, the further features in the model discussed above might address this problem by allowing for small private enterprises to be formed, and by having in the background the government play a role as an employer of last resort although this might also limit overall productivity. Finally, although some of the problems of efficiency could be handled through the banks controlling investment, it is not clear that the enormous power of such banks could be made sufficiently accountable to a democratic process so as to avoid the potential problem of cooptation by elites.
See, however, Malleson on democratic control of investment. Another market socialist model, proposed by Carens , , does not impose worker self-management. The Carensian model mirrors the current capitalist system in most respects while introducing two key innovative features. First, there would be direct governmental provision regarding certain individually differentiated needs via a public health care system, for example.
Second, to access other consumption goods, everyone working full time would get the same post tax income. Pre-tax salaries would vary, signaling levels of demand in the market. People would choose jobs not only on the basis of their self-regarding preferences, but also out of a sense of social duty to use their capacities to support others in society.
If it worked, this model would recruit the efficiency of markets, but it would not involve the selfish motives and inegalitarian outcomes typically linked to them in capitalism. One worry about the Carensian model is that it might be unrealistic to expect an economic system to work well when it relies so heavily on a sense of duty to motivate people to make cooperative contributions.
Two other worries are the following Gilabert First, the model makes no explicit provision regarding real opportunities for work in self-managed firms. To cater more fully for ideals of self-determination and self-realization, a requirement could be added that the government promote such opportunities for those willing to take them.
Second, the model is not sufficiently sensitive to different individual preferences regarding leisure and consumption requiring simply that everyone work full time and wind up with the same consumption and leisure bundles.
More flexible schedules could be introduced so that people who want to consume more could work longer hours and have higher salaries, while people who want to enjoy more free time could work fewer hours and have lower salaries. Considerations of reciprocity and equality could still be honored by equalizing the incomes of those working the same number of hours.
Many forms of market socialism allow for some hierarchy at the point of production. These managerial forms are usually defended on grounds of greater efficiency. But they face the question of how to incentivize managers to behave in ways that foster innovation and productivity.
One way to do this is to set up a stock market that would help to measure the performance of the firms they manage and to push them to make optimal decisions. An example of this approach there are others—Corneo ch. Dollars are used to purchase commodities for consumption and production, and coupons are used in a stock market to purchase shares in corporations.
The two kinds of money are not convertible with an exception to be outlined below. Each person, when reaching adulthood, is provided with an equal set of coupons. They can use them in a state-regulated stock market directly or through mutual investment funds to purchase shares in corporations at market price. They receive the dividends from their investments in dollars, but they cannot cash the coupons themselves.
Thus, there is no separate class of capital owners in this economy. Coupons can however be converted into dollars by corporations; they can cash their shares to pay for capital investments. The exchange is regulated by a public central bank. Further, public banks or public investment funds, operating with relative independence from the government, would steer enterprises receiving coupons so that they maximize profit in the competitive markets for the goods and services they produce so that they maximize the returns on the coupons invested.
Part of that profit is also taxed for direct welfare provisions by the state. This model caters for ideals of equality of opportunity given equal distribution of coupons and democracy given the elimination of capitalist dynasties that have the ability to transform massive economic power into political influence.
It also gives people freedom to choose how to use their resources and includes solidaristic schemes of public provision to meet needs regarding education and health care.
Via the competitive markets in consumption goods and shares, it also promises high levels of innovation and productivity. In some versions of the model this is enhanced by allowing limited forms of private ownership of firms to facilitate the input of highly innovative entrepreneurial individuals—Corneo —7.
The model departs from traditional forms of socialism by not exactly instituting social property in means of production but rather the equal dispersal of coupons across individuals in each generation.
But defenders of this model say that socialists should not fetishize any property scheme; they should instead see such schemes instrumentally in terms of how well they fare in the implementation of core normative principles such as equality of opportunity Roemer a: 23—4, —5.
Critics have worries, however, that the model does not go far enough in honoring socialist principles. For example, they have argued that a managerial by contrast to a self-management form of market socialism is deficient in terms of self-determination and self-realization at the workplace Satz , and that the levels of inequalities in income, and the competitive attitudes in the market that it would generate, violate ideals of community G.
In response, a defender of coupon market socialism can emphasize that the model is meant to be applied in the short-term, and that further institutional and cultural arrangements more fully in line with socialist principles can be introduced later on, as they become more feasible Roemer a: 25—7, A worry, however, is that the model may entrench institutional and cultural configurations which may diminish rather than enhance the prospects for deeper changes in the future Brighouse ; Gilabert Socialists have also explored piecemeal reforms that stop short of that structural change.
An important historical example is the combination of a market economy and the welfare state. In this model, although property in the means of production remains private, and markets allocate most inputs and outputs of production, a robust governmental framework is put in place to limit the power of capitalists over workers and to improve the life-prospects of the latter.
Thus, social insurance addresses the risks associated with illness, unemployment, disability, and old age. Tax-funded, state provision of many of those goods that markets typically fail to deliver for all is introduced such as high-quality education, public transportation, and health care.
This welfare state model was developed with great success during the three decades after World War II, especially in Northern Europe, but also, in weaker but significant forms, in other countries including some in the Global South.
However, since the s, this model has been in significant retreat, or even in crisis. The financial sector has become extremely powerful and able largely to escape governmental regulation as globalization allows capital to flow across borders.
Some socialists have seen this crisis as a reason to abandon the welfare state and pursue more comprehensive changes of the kind discussed above. Others, however, have argued that the model should be defended given that it has been proven to work quite well while the alternatives have uncertain prospects. One example of the approach of extending or retrenching the mixed economy and welfare state proposes a combination of two moves Corneo ch.
The first move is to revamp the welfare state by introducing mechanisms of greater accountability of politicians to citizens such as regulation of the dealings of politicians with private companies, and more instances of direct democracy in order to empower citizens , an improvement of the quality of public services delivered by the welfare state introducing exacting audits and evaluations and fostering the training and recruitment of excellent civil servants , and international coordination of tax policies to prevent tax competition and tax evasion.
The second move in this proposal is to run controlled experiments of market socialism to present it as a credible threat to the powerful actors seeking to undermine the welfare state. This threat would help stabilize the welfare state as the menace of communist revolution did after Specifically, welfare states could create new institutions that would be relatively independent from governments and be run by highly competent and democratically accountable civil servants.
The objective would be to show that these enterprises which would include significant participation of workers in their management, and ethical guidelines regarding environmental impacts and other concerns maximize profits and thus offer a desirable and feasible alternative to the standard capitalist enterprise.
Effectively, this strategy would run controlled experiments of shareholder market socialism. The working population would learn about the feasibility of market socialism, and capitalist opponents of welfare entitlements would be disciplined by fear of the generalization of such experiments to settle again for the welfare state.
Another strategy is to introduce various experiments seeking to expand the impact of social power as different from state and economic power within society as defined in sect.
See survey in Wright chs. A set of mechanisms would target the deepening of democracy. The quality of representative democracy can be enhanced and its subservience to the power of capitalists decreased by introducing egalitarian funding of electoral campaigns e. Finally, forms of associational democracy can be introduced that feature deliberation or bargaining between government, labor, business, and civil society groups when devising national economic policies or when introducing regional or local e.
A second set of mechanisms would foster social empowerment more directly in the economy. Examples are the promotion of the social economy sector featuring economic activity involving self-management and production oriented to use value as displayed, e. None of these mechanisms on its own would make a society socialist rather than capitalist. An increase in the incidence of social empowerment may significantly extend the socialist aspects of a society, and even eventually make them dominant a point to which we return in the next section.
A final point worth mentioning as we close our discussion of dimension DII of socialism concerns the growing interest in addressing not only the economic arena, but also the political and personal-private ones.
Thus, recent socialist work has increasingly explored how to extend socialist principles to the organization of relatively autonomous governmental institutions and practices and to the shaping of intimate relationships among family members, friends, and lovers, as well as to the relations between these diverse social arenas see also Fraser , ; Albert There is, of course, also a long-standing tradition of feminist socialism that has pushed for a wide scope in the application of socialist ideals and a broader understanding of labor that covers productive and reproductive activities beyond the formal workplace see, e.
We turn now to the last dimension of socialism DIII , which concerns the transformation of capitalist societies into socialist ones. The discussion on this dimension is difficult in at least two respects which call for philosophical exploration Gilabert a: —23, — The first issue concerns feasibility. The question is whether socialist systems are accessible from where we are now—whether there is a path from here to there.
But what does feasibility mean here? It cannot just mean logical or physical possibility, as these would rule out very few social systems. The relevant feasibility parameters seem instead to involve matters of technical development, economic organization, political mobilization, and moral culture.
For some discussion on these parameters see Wright ch. When something is not feasible to do right now, we could have dynamic duties to make it feasible to do later by developing our relevant capacities in the meantime. The feasibility judgments must then be scalar rather than binary and allow for diachronic variation. These features make them somewhat murky, and not straightforwardly amenable to the hard-edged use of impossibility claims to debunk normative requirements via contraposition on the principle that ought implies can.
A second difficulty concerns the articulation of all things considered appropriate strategies that combine feasibility considerations with the normative desiderata provided by socialist principles. The question here is: what is the most reasonable path of transformation to pursue for socialists given their understanding of the principles animating their political project, viewed against the background of what seems more or less feasible to achieve at different moments, and within different historical contexts?
Complex judgments have to be formed about the precise social systems at which it would be right to aim at different stages of the sequence of transformation, and about the specific modes of political action to deploy in such processes.
These judgments would combine feasibility and desirability to assess short-term and long-term goals, their intrinsic costs and benefits, and the promise of the former to enhance the achievement of the latter. The difficulty of forming such judgments is compounded by the uncertainty about the prospects of large societal changes but also about the long-term consequences of settling for the status quo. Marx here envisioned the process of socialist transformation as including two phases.
But he did not take that scenario to be immediately accessible. An intermediate step should be pursued, in which the economy would be ruled by a Contribution Principle requiring that after some provisions are put aside to fulfill basic needs regarding health care, education, and support for those unable to work people gain access to consumption goods in proportion to how much they contribute.
This lower phase of socialist transformation would be reasonable because it would enhance the prospects of transitioning away from capitalism and of generating the conditions for the full realization of socialism. The implementation of the Contribution Principle would fulfill the promise systematically broken by capitalism that people would benefit according to their labor input as in capitalism capitalists get much more, and workers much less, than they give.
It would also incentivize people to increase production to the level necessary for the introduction of socialism proper. This sequential picture of transformation features diachronic judgments about changes in feasibility parameters such as the expansion of technical capacity and a change in patterns of motivation.
History has not moved smoothly in the direction many socialists predicted. It has not been obvious that the following steps in the expected pattern materialized or are likely to do so: capitalism generating a large, destitute, and homogeneous working class; this class responding to some of the cyclical crises capitalism is prone to by creating a coherent and powerful political movement; this movement gaining control of government and resolutely and successfully implementing a socialist economic system G.
Cohen b: ch. Given the fact that this process did not materialize, and seems unlikely to do so, it turns out that it would be both self-defeating and irresponsible to fail to address difficult questions about the relative feasibility and moral desirability of different strategies of potential socialist transformation.
For example, if the process of transformation involves two or more stages be they the two mentioned above, or some sequence going, say, from the welfare state to shareholder or coupon market socialism and then to the Carensian model , it might be asked who is to evaluate and decide upon what is to be done at each stage of the process, on what grounds can it be expected that earlier stages will enhance the likelihood of the success of later stages rather than undermine them e.
Such questions do not want for difficulty. Addressing questions such as these dilemmas of transitional strategy, socialists have envisaged different approaches to social and political transformation.
Four significant examples extensively discussed in Wright Part III, b, —which we follow here are articulated by considering two dimensions of analysis regarding a the primary goal of the strategy either i transcending the structures of capitalism, or ii neutralizing the worst harms of it and b the primary target of the strategy either i the state and other institutions at the macro-level of the system, or ii the economic activities of individuals, organizations, and communities.
The first strategy, smashing capitalism , picks out the combination of possibilities a. A political organization e. This is the strategy favored by revolutionary socialists and many Marxists, and pursued in the twentieth century in countries such as Russia and China.
If we look at the historical evidence, we see that although this strategy succeeded in some cases in transitioning out of previously existing capitalist or proto-capitalist economic systems, it failed in terms of building socialism.
It led instead to a form of authoritarian statism. There is debate about the causes of these failures. A second strategy, picking out the combination of possibilities a. It mobilizes the population sometimes in sharp political struggles to elect governments and implement policies that respond to the worst harms generated by capitalism, with the aim of neutralizing them.
New policies include social insurance responding to risks faced by the population e. However, progress was halted and partly rolled back since the retreat of social democracy and the introduction of neoliberalism in the s. Possible explanatory factors are the financialization of capitalism, and the effects of globalization, as discussed above in section 4.
There is a debate as to whether capitalism is really tamable—it may be that the Golden Age was only a historical anomaly, borne out of a very particular set of political and economic circumstances. The third strategy, escaping capitalism , picks out the combination of possibilities a.
Capitalism might be too strong to destroy. But people could avoid its worst harms by insulating themselves from its dynamics. However, this strategy seems available mostly to relatively well-off people who can fund their escape with wealth they have amassed or received from capitalist activities.
The working poor may not be so lucky. The final strategy, eroding capitalism , picks out the combination of a. Economic systems are here seen as hybrids. People can introduce new, socialist forms of collective activity such as worker cooperatives and progressively expand them, eventually turning them from marginal to dominant. Wright b, suggests the analogy of a lake ecosystem, with the introduction of a new species of fish that at first thrives in one location, and then spreads out, eventually becoming a dominant species.
Historically, the transformation from feudalism to capitalism in some parts of Europe has come about in this way, with pockets of commercial, financial, and manufacturing activity taking place in cities and expanding over time.
Some anarchists seem to hold a version of this strategy today. It offers hope for change even when the state seems uncongenial, and likely to remain so. But critics find it far-fetched, as it seems unlikely to go sufficiently far given the enormous economic and political power of large capitalist corporations and the tendency of the state to repress serious threats to its rules.
To go further, the power of the state has to be at least partially recruited. The fourth strategy then, according to Wright, is only plausible when combined with the second. First, it would address some important, problematic junctures to expand state action in ways that even capitalists would have to accept. And second, the solutions to the crises introduced by state action would be selected in such a way that they would enhance long-term prospects for socialist change.
Responding to its effects would require massive generation of state-provided public goods, which could remove neoliberal compunctions about state activism. A second critical juncture concerns the large levels of long-term unemployment, precariousness, and marginalization generated by new trends in automation and information technology. This involves threats to social peace, and insufficient demand for the products corporations need to sell on the consumption market.
Such threats could be averted by introducing an unconditional basic income policy Van Parijs and Vanderborght , or by the significant expansion of public services, or by some other mechanism that secures for everybody a minimally dignified economic condition independent of their position within the labor market.
Now, these state policies could foster the growth of social power and the prospects for socialist change in the future. Workers would have more power in the labor market when they came to be less reliant upon it. They could also be more successful in forming cooperatives. The social economy sector could flourish under such conditions. People could also devote more time to political activism.
Together, these trends from below, combined with state activism from above, could expand knowledge about the workability of egalitarian, democratic, and solidaristic forms of economic activity, and strengthen the motivation to extend their scope.
For specific worries about the political feasibility of a robust universal basic income policy as a precursor to rather than as a result of socialism, see Gourevitch and Stanczyk Other significant issues regarding dimension DIII of socialism are the identification of appropriate political agents of change and their prospects of success in the context of contemporary globalization.
Some argue that the primary addressee of socialist politics should not be any specific class or movement, but the more inclusive, and politically equal group of citizens of a democratic community. For example, Honneth [ ch. IV] , following in part John Dewey and Juergen Habermas, argues that the primary addressee and agent of change for socialism should be the citizens assembled in the democratic public sphere.
Although normatively appealing, this proposal may face serious feasibility difficulties, as existing democratic arenas are intensely contaminated and disabled by the inequalities socialists criticize and seek to overcome. The second issue is also relevant here. There is a traditional question whether socialism is to be pursued in one country or internationally.
The tendency to embrace an internationalist horizon of political change is characteristic among socialists as they typically see their ideals of freedom, equality, and solidarity as having global scope, while they also note that, as a matter of feasibility, the increasing porousness of borders for capitalist economic activity make it the case that socialist politics may not go very far in any country without reshaping the broader international context.
In addressing these difficulties, action and research on socialist justice must interact with ongoing work in the related areas of gender, race, democracy, human rights, and global justice. Socialism First published Mon Jul 15, Socialism and Capitalism 2. Three Dimensions of Socialist Views 3.
Socialism and Capitalism Socialism is best defined in contrast with capitalism, as socialism has arisen both as a critical challenge to capitalism, and as a proposal for overcoming and replacing it. Capitalism displays the following constitutive features: i The bulk of the means of production is privately owned and controlled. Here capitalism differs from slavery and feudalism, under which systems some individuals are entitled to control, whether completely or partially, the labor power of others.
An additional feature that is typically present wherever i — iii hold, is that: iv There is a class division between capitalists and workers, involving specific relations e. Another feature that is also typically seen as arising where i — iii hold is this: v Production is primarily oriented to capital accumulation i. Cohen a; Roemer Three Dimensions of Socialist Views When characterizing socialist views, it is useful to distinguish between three dimensions of a conception of a social justice Gilabert a.
We identify these three dimensions as: DI the core ideals and principles animating that conception of justice; DII the social institutions and practices implementing the ideals specified at DI; DIII the processes of transformation leading agents and their society from where they are currently, to the social outcome specified in DII. Socialist Critiques of Capitalism and their Grounds Dimension DI Socialists have condemned capitalism by alleging that it typically features exploitation, domination, alienation, and inefficiency.
Cohen Workers could and would be coercively interfered with if they tried to use means of production possessed by capitalists, to walk away with the products of their labor in capitalist firms, or to access consumption goods they do not have enough money to buy. Marx [ , ] Because of the deep background inequality of power resulting from their structural position within a capitalist economy, workers accept a pattern of economic transaction in which they submit to the direction of capitalists during the activities of production, and surrender to those same capitalists a disproportional share of the fruits of their labor.
When alienated, labor is external to the worker, i. Marx [a: 74] Recent scholarship has developed these ideas further. New York: Routledge. Carens, Joseph H. Cohen, G. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cole, G. Edmundson, William A. Reprinted with a new introduction in Jacobin , Reprinted in , Monthly Review , 61 1 : 55— Elster, Jon and Karl Ove Moene eds. Fanon, Frantz, , Peau noire, masques blancs , Paris: Seuil. Gould, Carol C. Versuch einer Aktualisierung , Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.
James, C. Resources include State and local examples. Key Lessons for Implementing a Family-Centered Approach PDF - 3, KB Children and Family Futures Highlights the Prevention and Family Recovery initiative, which strives to build the capacity of family drug courts and their partner agencies to provide a more comprehensive, family-centered approach grounded in cross-systems collaboration and evidence-based practices that strengthen the parent-child relationship and improve family well-being.
What Is Family Centered Practice? National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice Explains the concept of family-centered practice, which is based on the belief that the best way to meet a person's needs is within their families and that the most effective way to ensure safety, permanency, and well-being is to provide services that engage, involve, strengthen, and support families.
The presentation provides an overview of the components and characteristics of a quality contact, three phases of a contact, the impact of increasing quality of contacts with families, and more.
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