Economics for Democratic Socialism

1. Economics for Democratic Socialism Drexel University Spring Quarter 2009

2. Why This Course? The economic crisis of 2008 seems to be the most serious reversal for capitalism since 1929-33. It is possible that capitalism will not survive. Even it it does, the recurrence of crises of this magnitude calls for a consideration of the costs and benefits of capitalism visavis alternative systems. Both of these possibilities urge a reconsideration of democratic socialism as an alternative.

3. Fair Warning This course is an experiment. There are no social conventions to define the content of the course. Unavoidably, in many cases, you are going to get my ideas, for whatever they are worth. I�m not sure how much confidence I have in some of them! I am not qualified as a philosopher, political theorist or historian, but will have to digress on all these fields. In any experiment, things can go wrong.

4. Economic and Political Systems The use of the term �democratic socialism� suggests that economic and political systems can be taken under separate headings, so that we have, in effect, four alternatives rather than two: socialism with or without democracy, and capitalism with or without democracy. Orthodox Marxist-Leninists would deny that (with some basis in Marx� ideas) and so will I, for different reasons -- but this interpretation will do, for now, as an organizing principle.

5. Democracy 1 As a minimum Democratic Socialist would demand a political system that incorporates the democratic liberties: Freedom of speech, advocacy, assembly and petition Openly contested elections Freedom of organization, including the freedom to organize political parties to contest elections.

6. Democracy 2 In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter considers two interpretations of democracy: Popular sovereignty, that is, that the government should enact the will of the people Competitive leadership, that is, the leader is determined by competition for the free vote of the population. Schumpeter rejects the first of these. He makes several criticisms. The one that bites is: the �general will,� if it exists at all, might be best enacted by an autocrat. The formation of government by political competition does at least explain the importance and function of democratic liberty.

7. Democracy 3 Under the influence of anarchism (specifically Wolff, R. P, 1970, In Defense of Anarchism, New York: Harper) I would prefer a higher standard and would define democracy as follows: In a democratic system, any person who holds a position of authority is responsible to those over whom the authority is exercised. (Wolff goes much further). By this standard capitalism can never be democratic. Neither could centralized state-socialism. But I won�t insist on doing things my way.

8. Democracy 4 Marx-Leninists reject �democratic liberty� as �bourgeois liberty� on the following reasoning: Marx says that all political organization serves class interest. If the capitalist class has been done away with, the government is the instrument of working-class interest, regardless of �liberties.� If some vestiges of the bourgeoisie remain, then the government needs all the power it can obtain to advance working-class interests and repress the bourgeoisie.

9. Socialist Roots W. A Lewis was a Nobel laureate economist (1979) and a Fabian socialist. In 1949 he wrote that British socialism had two aims: democracy and a classless society. He added that government ownership is a means to those ends, and not in itself socialist. He traced these ideas to Robert Owen, among others.