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HM Online 2020: 21st Century Socialism

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Panel with Oisín Gilmore, Marie Moran and Paula Rauhala

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An Equality Framework for 21st Century Socialism - Marie Moran

The inequalities of class, race and gender already characterising and destabilising capitalist societies in the 21st century have been highlighted, amplified, and aggravated by the Covid-19 crisis. While the recent renewal of a socialist discourse and politics in the UK and the US mainstreamed an egalitarian vision of society within a critique of neoliberal capitalism, their recent (at least partially successful) suppression means the movement for equality faces new challenges. But the relationship of socialism to equality has never been straightforward, and the need for revitalised forms of ‘democratic socialism’ to mobilise a conception of equality that can account for the full range of prominent equality issues has, in the aftermath of Covid-19 and the upsurge of anti-racist activism in the US, become even more pressing.

The aim of this paper, therefore, is, first, to briefly provide some clarity on the nature of the relationship between equality and socialism; and second, to articulate a model of equality that is fit for the renewal of a socialist politics in contemporary, turbulent times. The paper argues that substantial equality can only be realised as part of the structural, materialist project of socialism; but also that a socialism without a robust, multi-dimensional and pluralist conception of equality will fail to appeal or deliver to groups suffering multiple and complex inequalities. It sketches a five-part equality framework that includes i) distributive inequalities, ii) relational inequalities, iii) categorical inequalities, iv) spatial inequalities and v) sectoral inequalities within its normative and analytical vision, and seeks to nestle this within a broader argument for transformative, materialist social change.

The Death of Anarchism and the Rebirth of Democratic Socialism - Oisín Gilmore

Perhaps today, during the coronavirus lockdown, we are seeing the passing of a certain moment in the socialist movement where hopes briefly turned towards electoralism. The record of "left populism" over the last ten years is largely one of failure, in Greece Syriza implemented austerity, in France Melenchon didn’t make it into the second round, in the Spanish state the hopes for Podemos, Barcelona En Comú and others has at least moderated, in the UK Corbyn is gone, and in the US Bernie didn’t get the nomination. Perhaps this “left populism” was just a fleeting moment, that has now been defeated. It will pass into history as a footnote, and socialists can return to the real work of building an autonomous labour movement. Alternatively, as this paper will argue, the turn to electoralism was a maturation of the post-1989 socialist movement. It was a logical development of the movement, which reflects a rejection of the unrealisable and undesirable, but widely held aspirations for the autonomous extra-parliamentary labour movement.

Is the Time Still not Ripe? Towards the Socialism of the Twenty-First Century with the Experiences of the Twentieth Century - Paula Rauhala

Allin Cottrell and Paul W. Cockshott, and Heinz Dieterich have proposed a model for socialism in the twenty-first century. This is a model of a moneyless planned economy based on labour time accounting and direct democracy.

When evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal, it is useful to revisit East German debates concerning the possibility to measure labour values directly in terms of labour time. In the early 1960s, East German economists Johannes Rudolph and Gerhard Wittich proposed a model for estimating the socially necessary labour times for various product groups. They argued that this information would help to save labour, to improve the rationality of the price-system, and to make decisions concerning exports and imports.

In the discussion that followed authors like Harry Nick rejected the possibility of estimating labour-values in terms of labour time. Nick's judgement was grounded on a conviction that the problem of the reduction of complicated labour into simple average labour would remain unresolved. Nick announced that the time was not ripe for labour time accounting. Instead, he promoted for a more coherent application of the monetary accounting and the market mechanism in improving transparency of the centrally planned economy of the GDR.

The approach of two leading scholars of the GDR, Harry Maier and Karl Bichtler was much more pragmatic. They found the controversy between Rudolph and Wittich on one side and Harry Nick on another side too principled to begin with.

Ultimately, however, all of the authors agreed that the applicability of labour-time accounting for centralized planning was dependent on the solution to the notorious reduction problem. The solutions proposed by all of these authors differed from each other. I will discuss the proposals suggested by various GDR economists. How does the proposal of Cockshott, Cottrell, and Dietrich look like in the light of these discussions? Is the time still not ripe for labour-time accounting in the twenty-first century socialism?

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