We should not think of market socialism as an oxymoron, nor as an unstable hybrid. The appropriate framework for thinking about current versions of market socialism is a model of an optimally viable, desirable, democratic socialism. This paper proposes such a model, one that incorporates workplace democracy, a modified free market and democratic control of investment. It elaborates at some length the latter feature, defends the model against criticisms deriving from the Yugoslav experience, then employs the model to elucidate the issue of productive asset ownership under socialism.
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