Abstract

Is there a viable economic system for socialism? Economic theory is a powerful tool to assess whether some blueprint is a rational model of a socialist economic system. This essay summarizes the main insights delivered by economic theory into the coherence of three major blueprints: central planning, self-management, and shareholder socialism. While the first two suffer from a number of severe internal contradictions, shareholder socialism exhibits a high degree of internal consistency. It is thus a promising candidate for an incarnation of socialism that could beat capitalism in terms of equity, liberty, and efficiency.