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Towards a New Socialism

Towards a New SocialismBy: Paul Cockshott

£14.95

Product Code: 9780851245454

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Brand:Paul Cockshott
Weight 0.544 kg
Dimensions 15 × 1.7 × 21 cm

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"Has socialism failed?" This question has been asked time and again since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the East European economics.  If it has, is the capitalist market the only successful form of economic organisation? Some socialists respond that the USSR was never socialist, some retreat into advocating forms of market socialism. These two authors, an economist and a computer scientist, seek to rescue socialism from its detractors. They argue that the Soviet Union was socialist, in the sense that resources were allocated by conscious decision and not by market forces dominated by owners of capital. But it was not democratic. Socialist planning, they believe, can be made to work democratically by creating a political constitution that encourages mass participation, and by using computerised labour time in place of money as the social unit of account. The Authors carry their argument through the whole range of planning processes - strategic and detailed - from factory inputs and outputs, through state budgets, to international trade. They provide a wealth of illustration, including some simple mathematical equations. As a time when doubts are returning about the efficiency, let alone the justice, of the capitalist market, this is a book that should have wide appeal for many years to come. W Paul Cockshott is at the Department of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde Allin Cottrell is at the Department of Economics, Wake Forest University, North Carolina

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