Throughout the twentieth century, socialism came to be associated with both central planning and shortages. But could democratic ownership of the economy work alongside market competition?On the latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber examines different models of socialism that might be viable in the twenty-first century.Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.Cale BrooksWe’ve talked in previous episodes about how our conception of socialism is something called market socialism. I want to expand on that today, both in regard to why you believe market socialism is a desirable system and also how you think it might actually work.Why move away from the traditional conception of socialism to this other concept of market socialism?Vivek ChibberWe should start by asking what the traditional understanding of socialism was. Karl Marx and his followers in the first, say, thirty to forty years after his death thought of socialism as the abolition of private property and the abolition of the market.What do we mean by private property? We don’t mean things like owning cars, shoes, or televisions. It’s property that is a productive asset, the control of which allows you to have control over other people, because they now have to come to you to make their own living.The reason socialists objected to that was it gave capitalists enormous power over other people, their workers, and enormous power over society as a whole because they control the wealth and the investable surplus of society. That was fundamentally an undemocratic outcome. And they saw that capitalists use this to their own benefit and to the detriment of everyone else. So any humane society would have to do away with private property.The second thing was abolition of the…
