ABSTRACT
It is my contention that Marx had little to say about the economics of socialism, and that the little he did say was either irrelevant or directly misleading. The word ‘feasible’ is in the title of this book as a kind of flank guard against utopian definitions. One can, if one chooses (and, as I shall show, many have so chosen), define socialism in such a way that economic problems as we know them would not, indeed could not, exist. If one assumes ‘abundance’, this excludes opportunity-cost, since there would be no mutually exclusive choices to make. If one assumes that the ‘new man’, unacquisitive, ‘brilliant, highly rational, socialised, humane’, will require no incentives, problems of discipline and motivation vanish. If it is assumed that all will identify with the clearly visible general good, then the conflict between general and partial interest, and the complex issues of centralisation/decentralisation, can be assumed out of existence. If human beings in society can see ex ante what needs to be produced and the correct way of producing and utilising all products, then there is no need for ex post verification; the indirect and imperfect link between use-value and exchange-value, via exchange relations and the market, can be replaced by direct conscious human decisions on production for use. Division of labour will have been overcome, by ‘brilliant’ multipurpose human beings. ‘While not everyone may be able to paint as well as Raphael, everyone will be able to paint exceedingly well.’ Everyone will govern, there will not be any governed. Since all competing interests will have disappeared, there will be no need to claim rights of any sort, no need for restrictive rules, laws, judges, or a legislature. Of course, there will be no state, no nation-states (and so no foreign trade, or any trade). The wages system will have gone, as well as money.
