As socialism evolves through its dynamic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis it has come to accept markets, as neosocialism. This should not be a surprise since Marx critiqued markets as allocating resources to means of production. It was the ownership of those resources and means of production that he contested, not particularly the nature of markets.
This is a welcome development in the severe dialogue between capitalism and socialism. It brings into focus the central point of contention between them. It is the implied, and here stated, position of Classical Liberalism that markets allocate resources to talent and that means of production are just another resource. Personal ownership of resources by legal persons is essential to accountability in terms of public nuisance, the essential antisocial violation.
This argument is what Marx denied and what neosocialists now recognize in essentially leasing resources to individuals and letting markets set prices and allocate those resources. Neosocialists, however, are not yet ready to make the leap of faith to talent and venue defining social existence. That is too much of the individual for them at this point in their Hegelian journey.
The subject of property remains a wide gulf between capitalists and neosocialists. Ignoring cranks on both sides, the differences are actually comprehensible. All capitalist concepts of property are rooted in the ancient Greek idea of ownership by legitimate use, not so far from the lease arrangements of modern neosocialism but absolute ownership by the state beggars the imagination.
To own, as the concept of property has legally evolved, is to steward a defined piece of physical reality, to be responsible for it and subject to liability on its account. The state, in socialism, owns everything and is accountable only to itself. That is logical nonsense and I do not mean the tautology of Wittgenstein's true logical construct. I mean, by making the state the manifestation of the collective will which exalted station it can never achieve, that it is impossible of modeling and logic. It is the thing that is not. I do not know what to do with it. Maybe it's a personal failing.
To the point, both China and Russia, neosocialist states, are operationally to the right, the Classical Liberal side, of the rhetoric of major American Democratic figures. Marxism has evolved and is closer to, though still far from, Classical Liberalism. Evolve with it and someday, God willing, we'll have a meaningful conversation. Especially if Twitter does something with the trolls.
Do Well and Be Well.
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