ABSTRACT
Twentieth-century critics of capitalism promised that eliminating private ownership of the means of production and replacing markets with rational economic planning would give people control over their economic lives, eliminate economic injustice, and improve economic efficiency. To say critics of capitalism failed to live up to our promises would be a gross understatement. People today have every right to be skeptical when those who criticize capitalism claim they know how to organize an economy of equitable cooperation. In this chapter, I answer as best I can criticisms that have been raised over the past dozen years to the kind of participatory economy described in the last chapter. In some cases I am convinced critics have little reason to worry and have been overly influenced by conservative dogma. In other cases I worry as well, even though I think there is a reasonable chance of success. In all cases I think a skeptical attitude is fully justified, provided this does not turn into pretending that capitalism, or market socialism for that matter, is better than it is or can be. In any case, if we finally succeed in organizing an economy that deserves to be called a system of “equitable cooperation,” it will be partly because we thought through how to do so much more clearly and concretely than we have in the past, and this will not happen unless critics vigorously challenge proposals like participatory economics.
