INTRODUCTION

I undertake three tasks in this exploratory essay. First, I examine some of the lessons of recent history concerning the relation between socialism, markets, and liberal democracy. Second, I lay out the basic theoretical building–blocks of an alternative to both socialism and laissez–faire that I call “mutualism.” Finally, I draw some conclusions for public policy and practice, in the form of what I call a “progressive market strategy.” A brief conclusion ponders the question, What's left of socialism?

For the purposes of this essay, the discussion proceeds within a normative political framework that I will not question—namely, the superiority of liberal democracy, all things considered, to any alternative mode of political organization that is realistically possible under modern circumstances. (By “liberal democracy” I mean a form of political organization in which individual and associational rights limit the scope of legitimate governmental authority and the powers of democratic majorities.) From this standpoint, that a particular institution or practice weakens or is incompatible with liberal democracy constitutes a decisive argument against it. Conversely, the moral and practical propositions I advance are intended as ways of understanding and improving liberal democracy, not of replacing it.

SOCIALISM, MARKETS, AND LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

Clearly we live in a postsocialist age. I do not mean to suggest that libertarianism, or even what Europeans call “neoliberalism,” has triumphed; social democracy and the welfare state are alive (if not altogether well) throughout advanced industrialized society.