Jerusalem Not Yet Built: A Reply to Lessnoff on Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
| Published date | 01 December 1980 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1980.tb01261.x |
| Date | 01 December 1980 |
| Author | David Miller |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JERUSALEM NOT YET BUILT: A
REPLY
TO
LESSNOFF
ON
CAPITALISM,
SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY
DAVID
MILLER
Nujjkld
College,
Oxford
MICHAEL
LESSNOFF has advanced, with the force and clarity which we have
come to expect from him, a thesis which to many readers must have seemed
paradoxical in the extreme.' His thesis is that capitalism and socialism, far
from being incompatible forms of social organization, are in fact perfectly
compatible; for socialism refers to an aspect of the political system which may
co-exist with
a
capitalist mode of production. Specifically, capitalism refers to
an economy based on the private ownership of capital, socialism to the exercise
of democratic control over the economy, by which is meant the presence of a
democratic state that is not hindered by entrenched constitutional clauses
from altering the economic system
if
its citizens wish.
A
socialist society,
in
other words, may or may not be capitalist, depending on the people's choice.
The extent to which a society is socialist depends upon the extent to which
it
possesses a democratic political structure (at least in those areas of decision-
making that impinge upon the economy), from which
it
follows that 'Such
states as Britain and the
USA
are undoubtedly more socialist than the
USSR
or the People's Republic of China'
(p.
601).
Faced with such a claim, with its apparently bizarre implication that
socialism is no longer
a
goal
to
be striven for since
it
has (to all intents and
purposes) already arrived, would-be socialists may be tempted
to
respond
in
ways that misconstrue the force of Lessnoff's argument.
A
possible reply is
that capitalism and socialism in Lessnoff's sense cannot co-exist, since
it
is a
well-established empirical fact that capitalists will use their economic ad-
vantages to influence political decision-making
so
that the democratic structure
of the state becomes merely a facade. Lessnoff deals quite effectively with
arguments of this kind (pp. 600-1). but they are anyway tangential to his main
point, which is that ifa society is (genuinely) democratic, then
it
is socialist.
A
second possible error is to suppose that Lessnoff is arguing (as did many, both
friends and enemies of socialism, in the nineteenth century) that empirically
speaking political democracy leads inescapably to the advent of socialism at
the economic level; and then
to
reply that this argument assumes, falsely, that
the majority of the population already have socialist convictions.
These replies are inept because for Lessnoff the connection between
democracy and socialism is conceptual, not empirical. Socialism
niearis
M.
Lessnoff, 'Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy',
Polirrcul
Sludic.s,
27
(
1979).
594602.
Page references
are
to
this article.
Political
Sudies,
Vol.
XXVIII.
No.
4
(584-589)
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