Letter – Thomas Piketty
Dear Editors
I have read Socialism as a Practical Alternative, this is very interesting, although I would like it to know more about voting rights and other decision making processes in the political sphere and in the economic sphere, in particular regarding the rights to use capital assets, both for housing and for equipment in small production units vs large production units, etc. I make some practical proposals on my Brief History of Equality (see eg, tinyurl.com/5xbapcn5 ), but of course they are highly imperfect and the only way to make progress is to compare with other proposals and learn from them!
THOMAS PIKETTY
Reply:
At this stage, when there are so few who want a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control of the means to produce what society needs to survive, it is premature to draw up detailed plans as to how things will be arranged in such a society. That is something for those around at the time to decide when capitalism is about to be replaced by socialism; in other words, when a majority of the population want socialism. All we can do is to come up with some suggestions and even then not going into the detail that your proposals do. But we don’t doubt that when that time comes detailed plans will be drawn up.
We are approaching the question from a different position from yours. You see a different kind of society coming about gradually through a serious of reform measures, to be implemented now under capitalism. Hence the need to come up with a detailed proposal. We don’t see that a gradual transition to socialism is possible as, in the end, what decides what happens is the operation of the uncontrollable economic laws of capitalist society which impose that the priority must be profit-making and the accumulation of capital. They rule out detailed reform measures working as planned. Our view is that, before anything constructive and lasting can be done, the basis of society needs to be changed root and branch from class ownership of the means of life to their common ownership and democratic control by society as a whole.
So while you are proposing measures to be implemented now under capitalism, we are envisaging possible measures to be implemented after capitalism has been replaced by socialism.
Nevertheless, to try to answer your specific questions. By ‘the rights to use capital assets’, by which we assume you mean the physical means to produce wealth. These won’t belong to anyone; they will simply be there to be used in accordance with democratically decided rules. We imagine that the day-to-day operation of them will be in the hands of those who operate them, through some democratically chosen management committee. This could be chosen by any number of different voting systems or even by lot (now called ‘sortition’). And there is no reason why this needs to be the same everywhere and in every workplace.
Housing: houses and flats won’t belong to anyone either. They wouldn’t be privately owned, not even by individuals; but this wouldn’t rule out people having the right to use a house or flat for a prolonged period. One possible arrangement would for their allocation to be in the hands of a local council in accordance with some democratically agreed criteria. These would have to be fairly complicated, allowing for appeals and settlement of disputes, but we can’t say much more today about them other than that they would have to exist and that it will be up to those living in socialism to decide the details which, once again, need not be the same everywhere.
EDITORS