INTRODUCTION

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that socialism is over. (It looks to me as if this is very much open for debate. In some respects, the collapse of the Soviet Union has given Marxist socialism a new lease on life. It is no longer stuck with the heritage of “actually existing socialism,” and can, instead, develop its more plausible, critical side and tell stories of the revolution betrayed.) Be that as it may, it is now widely accepted that socialism, understood as involving the social ownership of the means of production and the abolition of markets, faces real and perhaps insuperable difficulties. For without both markets and individual ownership, it is difficult to see how problems of individual motivation and information transmission are to be tackled—to say nothing of Ludwig von Mises's underlying concern with how to make economic (as opposed to purely technical) decisions about the utilization of resources within an economy.

Now, there is obviously a sense in which, if this point is granted, socialism could still be very much alive. For one might think of socialism as involving two interrelated themes: first, an espousal of equality and radical forms of democracy, and second, the limitation of power differentials, and the theory that these concerns should be addressed through social ownership of the means of production and the abolition of markets.