Socialist Strategies of Development

The previous chapters have been concerned with economic development essentially within a capitalist framework. All of the strategies analysed so far rely on the market mechanism and competitive processes to allocate resources, i.e., to determine what is produced, how it is produced and for whom it is produced. Market forces may be tempered by government regulation or intervention, by controls, taxes and subsidies, but however dirigiste some of the strategies may seem, all have as their point of departure a commitment to a market economy. Similarly, private property and specifically the private ownership of the means of production, i.e., of productive assets, is seen as an integral part of a market economy. Economic actors are free to save and invest, to buy and sell financial and physical assets, to innovate, take risks and earn high rewards when the risks pay off. Specific property rights may be extinguished occasionally when the wider public interest requires it, as during a redistributive land reform, but the principle of private property is not brought into question by any of the strategies previously considered.