Market Socialism

Many ML (Marxist-Leninist) socialist state experiments that formed around the world tried to keep firm on their abolition of private property; the overthrow of it was a core point of Marxist theory in general, but even the government of the USSR chose to allow some private ownership during the first few years after its founding for a limited time, but why? The answer lies within one of the other core points of Marxist theory, that socialism must be scientific to be successful.

In various self-described Marxist-Leninist countries, there are times when allowing a “free market” (one where profit-driven business is allowed and can be owned and run by individuals instead of collectives) has been seen as a scientifically based strategy to keep the system alive (and its subjective ideological goals for the state preserved along with it).

In the case of the USSR, when the NEP (New Economic Policy) was in effect from 1921 to 1928, although private business was allowed, people who engaged in these private businesses, and their economic interests, were not allowed to be represented in the government.

For other countries, like China, economic reforms that allowed a private economic sector eventually led to capitalists being allowed to be represented in the People’s Congress, becoming acknowledged as a part of the population that needs to work with the other classes, under the directive of the elected members of the communist party, for the collective benefit of all the people in the country as a whole.

Sanctions and other forms of economic and political pressure were systematically placed on countries that created Marxist-Leninist governments by the capitalist world powers (the US and other European countries), which made it difficult for the complete abolition of private property to be sustainable for the material needs of the population. The reason is that over the 1900s, the economies of countries around the world became increasingly interconnected and interdependent.

To be able to maintain a modern standard of living, trade with other countries became increasingly necessary, and, understanding this, the US and allied nations strategically isolated these Marxist-Leninist nations from the global trade system that most of the rest of the world took part in, and in doing so achieved their aims of getting capital to penetrate these nations (by that economic pressure influencing these nations to change their policy to meet the demands of the imperialist powers, which would then allow them to participate in the global trade economy set up by these imperialist powers).

Economic pressure would also be exerted by withholding aid, for example, the World Bank, which was an international organization created by these capitalist nations with a self-described purpose of giving loans to countries in economic need, set a list of conditions that the government of Vietnam had to agree to implement in their policy to receive these loans.

These loans were necessary because of the wars of defense from these capitalist nations who wanted political control over the nation’s resources, which, even after these wars were won by the Vietnamese people, left sanctions, economic isolation, and a country destroyed by bombings.

These loans came with conditions that private property accumulation would be made legal, which then made it so the capitalists of these nations could use their wealth to come over to the country and buy the land and resources for their own profit, not to benefit the people of Vietnam, but their own private wealth. The reforms made to receive these vital loans are called the “Doi Moi” reforms in Vietnam.

Countries like China, Cuba, and Vietnam have all been able to keep their identity as socialist nations (run by communist parties) and have had varying ratios of the power of the private sector (businesses owned by private individuals or corporations) and the public sector (businesses or public services owned and run by the government for the intended collective benefit of the whole population) because, even with these reforms, the state retains power and usually retains ownership of many key industries and service-based organizations. These nations’ economies are contemporarily described as market socialist.