The way forward from Guild Socialism: a comment on Hodgson

This note starts from Hodgson's (2023) thorough review and critique of Guild Socialism and argues that his proposed way forward-a decentralised producer cooperative sector embedded in a competitive market economy-is likely to be a political impossibility. A political economy model of a system of labour-managed firms is outlined which shows that laissez-faire on investment decisions is likely to be outvoted by a capital tax/subsidy scheme that redistributes income from rich coops to poor coops.

Automated summary

This note summarizes Hodgson's review and critique, arguing that his proposed decentralized producer cooperative sector may be politically impossible. It presents a political economy model of a labor-managed enterprise system, which demonstrates that laissez-faire investment decisions may be outvoted by a capital tax/subsidy scheme that redistributes wealth from rich cooperatives to poor ones.