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The Socialist Community of Citizens an Institutional Design for Republican Socialism

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The Socialist Community of Citizens an Institutional Design for Republican Socialism the Socialist Community of Citizens an institutional design for republican socialism Author: Tim Platenkamp (ID:12499021) Supervisor: Dr. A. Freyberg-Inan Second reader: Dr. G.R. Arlen Master’s thesis in Political Science (Political Theory) University of Amsterdam (UvA) Nieuwegein (June 5, 2020) The Socialist Community of Citizens Abstract This thesis attempts to expand the normative dimension of the research programme of socialist republicanism, by investigating whether civic republicanism and socialism can be married to form a coherent, attractive, and feasible model of society that promises a qualitative break with capitalism. In this way, republicanism could aid in the revival of socialism as a political movement which challenges capitalism at a fundamental level. I attempt to accomplish this by designing a socialist institutional framework which can accommodate the core values of the republican tradition. The thesis finds that multilevel iterative planning—involving self-governing production associations, intermediate negotiation bodies, and a Central Planning Board—is the means to realise republicanism in the economy. To ensure its durability, a constitutional-republican order—in which citizen assemblies act as public forums and instruments for direct legislation, within a constitutional context, complemented by a bicameral legislature—is required. 2 An Institutional Design for Republican Socialism The Socialist Community of Citizens Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction.........................................................................................................................4 1.1 The Need for a Vision...............................................................................................................4 1.2 The Core Values of Civic Republicanism.................................................................................6 1.3 The Socialist Mode of Production in Theory and Practice.....................................................10 Chapter II: Public Administration in the Socialist Republic..............................................................17 2.1 The Social Contract and Socialist Constitutionalism.............................................................17 2.2 The Political Institutions and Practices of Self-Government.................................................22 Chapter III: Production and Consumption in the Socialist Republic.................................................30 3.1 Property Relations..................................................................................................................30 3.2 Self-Government in Production..............................................................................................32 3.3 Distribution as a Public Service..............................................................................................39 3.4 The Role of Material Incentives.............................................................................................43 Chapter IV: Planning and Allocation in the Socialist Republic.........................................................48 4.1 Information and Incentive Problems in Economic Planning..................................................48 4.2 Markets and Planning in Socialism........................................................................................52 4.3 Addressing anti-Innovation Bias............................................................................................60 Chapter V: Towards a Republican Socialism.....................................................................................65 5.1 Conclusions............................................................................................................................65 5.2 Limitations..............................................................................................................................66 5.3. Research proposals................................................................................................................67 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................69 3 An Institutional Design for Republican Socialism The Socialist Community of Citizens Chapter I: Introduction 1.1 The Need for a Vision “We aim in the domain of politics at Republicanism, in the domain of economics at Socialism […].” — August Bebel In the 1990s we witnessed a general rout of socialism. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and other Marxist-Leninist regimes across the globe caused socialists of all varieties to lose confidence, even in more moderate forms of socialism (Heywood, 2017, p. 22). The far-left in Europe, for instance, retreated from offensively advancing an alternative to capitalism to instead committing itself to defending expansive welfare state policies which were abandoned by the centre-left social-democratic parties (March, 2008, p. 9-10). When elected to office, European far-left parties hardly challenge the neo-liberal order—let alone capitalism (March, 2008, p. 14). Many socialist parties lack a coherent political vision or ideology and are consequently forced to fall back on populist or pragmatic reinventions of postbellum social-democracy (March, 2011). In order to restore the ability of socialism to offer fundamental opposition to the present state of affairs, a positive vision must be available that socialist theorists and strategists can draw on. The major extant socialist schools of thought that are available for adoption are anarchism, Marxist communism, and democratic socialism (Busky, 2000, p. 2). The latter barely qualifies as a vision per se since it lacks a coherent body of thought (March, 2011; Heywood, 2017, p. 114). Instead, democratic socialism may be regarded as a “set of ameliorative values and policies” that do not aim at a fundamental break with capitalism (Laibman, 2020a, p. 1-2). A revival of socialism hinges on restoring political confidence, which in turn requires the availability of a positive political vision. This vision will need to be ambitious (promise a substantive break with the existing state of affairs), attractive (guarantee a reasonable quality of life), coherent (be logically congruent), and feasible (have workable social and political institutions that can sustain a reasonable material standard of living). Republicanism may aid in the development of theoretical equipment for socialism that can be employed offensively. In recent years there has been a growing body of literature devoted to exploring a converging relationship between republicanism and socialism. Mostly, this literature is devoted to exegeses which seek to discover hidden or forgotten republican themes in the writings of historical figures or in social movements (Gourevitch, 2015; Leipold, 2017; Roberts, 2017; Lewis [ed.], 2019; Muldoon, 2019; Thompson, 2019; Leipold, Nabulsi, & White, 2020). This can be seen as a project of ‘socialist republicanism’, a less voluminous branch of what has been termed the “neorepublican research program” (Lovett & Pettit, 2009, p. 13). The normative aspect of this project is severely underdeveloped (which is understandable given that it is only now escaping its embryonic phase), although some basic normative theory is being introduced (Muldoon, 2019; O’Shea, 2019). In order to move this project forward, normative arguments and proposals need to be developed and fleshed out. 4 An Institutional Design for Republican Socialism The Socialist Community of Citizens Toward this purpose, I will draw from the conceptual repository of republicanism in order to define the parameters by which I will subsequently review diverse socialist proposals and attempt to piece together a normative institutional framework of ‘socialist republicanism’ or, if one prefers, ‘republican socialism’.1 This should give socialist political actors the sense of direction and confidence that is needed to restore offensive initiative. The republican conceptual repository lends itself to various interpretations, and has thus been employed in service of widely diverging political positions, from radical labourism to liberal republicanism (Gourevitch, 2015; Irving, 2017). Republicanism is not intrinsically wedded to any particular ideology and due to the limitations of this thesis I will not attempt to see if a form of socialism must logically and necessarily follow from republican premises—although I suspect it does not. The justification for investigating the possibility of a union between republicanism and socialism lies in the attempt to rehabilitate socialism. I proceed from the assumption that republicanism can potentially positively influence the attractiveness and viability of socialism, which I will seek to test by designing an institutional arrangement that reflects republican and socialist values. Herein I will not discriminate between neo-Roman and neo-Athenian concerns, but focus broadly on republican values, particularly a mixed constitution, civic virtue, republican liberty, and self-government. The aim of this thesis is not to add to the already abundant pile of critiques of capitalism but instead to discuss positive alternatives to capitalism. This may be regarded as putting the cart before the horse but we have good reasons to investigate the functional feasibility of a republican socialism before we flesh out normative arguments in favour of it. We cannot afford delegating the task of designing socialism to spontaneous historical processes alone.
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