On the takeover mechanism in market socialism

Abstract

In the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the notion of socialism has been swept into almost total disrepute. The more recent economic literature, however, has shown a resurgence of interest in the concept of socialism, albeit on very different theoretical grounds than in the past. This article investigates the reasons for the socialist movement’s historical distrust of the development of “well-defined” economic projects. This attitude seems to have disappeared in contemporary “socialist projects”. The article also discusses the Shareholder Socialism proposal developed by economist Corneo (Is capitalism obsolete? A journey through alternative economic systems. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2017, Ann Public Coop Econ 89(1):11–24, 2018, Rev Soc Econ 77(1):35–55, 2019) and proposes a different mathematical formulation of the mechanism through which the takeover of private industries by the public sector should be conducted.