WHAT IS SOCIALISM TODAY? CONCEPTIONS OF A COOPERATIVE ECONOMY

Socialism is back on the political agenda in the United States. I propose several variants of socialism, characterized by different kinds of property relation in the ownership of firms. In addition to property relations, a conception of socialism should include a specification of the cooperative ethos, in place of the individualistic ethos of capitalist society. Individualistic economic agents will optimize in the manner of John Nash, whereas cooperative ones do so in the manner of Immanuel Kant. I argue that Kantian optimization decentralizes resource allocation in ways that separate issues of equity (income distribution) from efficiency. I offer tentative thoughts concerning how we should conceive of socialism today.