Looking at critics of Venezuela makes me feel like intelligent religious believers when confronted with some new atheists: they’re attacking nothing I believe in. The shortcomings of the Chavez-Maduro government in no way whatsoever undermine my conception of socialism.

What is my conception? You might think I’m going to set out my blueprint of a socialist Utopia. You’d be missing the point. Capitalism was not the conscious design of a single mind, but rather it evolved. The same should be true for socialism.

For me, socialism is a system which fulfils, as far as possible, three principles.

One is real freedom. Oliver Kamm praises a liberal order as one in which – in contradistinction to state socialism - “embraces value pluralism, in which citizens are free to pursue the goals that matter to them.” I share this ideal, but I fear that capitalism does not sufficiently achieve it. Under capitalism, millions of us are compelled to work in often oppressive and coercive conditions. Our goals are thwarted. Perhaps Marx’s biggest gripe with capitalism was not its injustice but its alienation; the fact it prevents us from pursuing our goals.

In this context, a basic income is crucial. It would enable people to pursue their own lives. It would empower Cory Doctorow’s walkaways.

A second desiderata is voice. As Phil says, “socialism involves a deeper, more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life.” At the political level, this requires institutions of deliberative (pdf) democracy – not simply imbecile “speak your branes” referenda. At the economic level, it requires worker democracy.

One reason for this is that procedural utility matters: happiness requires not just good outcomes, but ways of reaching them that give people a say.

A second reason is that Hayek had a point: knowledge is inherently dispersed and fragmentary and unavailable to a single mind. Centralized control is often inferior to decentralized aggregation methods. (As I’ve said, it is bosses who believe in central planning, not Marxists like me). It doesn’t follow from this that we need an unfettered free market – but it does follow that we should consider mechanisms for deploying the wisdom of crowds. Proper democracy is one such.

The third value is equality. I don’t mean here any particular Gini coefficient. Instead, what matters are two things.

One is how inequalities arise. I’ve no problem with some people getting rich if people freely reward them for good service – Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain argument has no force for me – although luck egalitarianism justifies them paying some extra tax. For me, a socialist economy would be one in which inequalities due to exploitation, rent-seeking and rigged markets would be minimized. Actually-existing capitalism does not do this (pdf).

The other is their effects. Inequalities of income spill over into inequalities of respect and political power. To me, this is unacceptable. My socialism would accept Michael Walzer’s blocked exchanges (pdf) – ways of preventing inequalities in one sphere from spreading to others. Also, it’s plausible that current inequalities (of power, not just income) are a barrier to economic growth. An acceptable socialism would sweep these away.

What role would the state play in this?

I suspect it wouldn’t be a large one. We Marxists are wary of the state simply because it is often used for reactionary and repressive ends. A big state can be (and is) captured by capitalists. Nationalization, for example, cannot be sufficient for socialism simply because it can be reversed. Marxism is in some respects very different from social democracy.

Instead, a big role for the state is to facilitate the transition to socialism, by encouraging socialistic institutions. Some call this accelerationism, others interstitial (pdf) transformation. Again, a basic income is crucial here: it enables people to walk away from oppressive capitalism (if they choose) and into cooperative ventures or self-employment. Also, the state could help spread coops by encouraging public sector mutuals and using procurement policies to favour them and penalize hierarchical firms. Massive housebuilding also has a role: cutting the cost of housing would free people from the debt and rent bondage that compels them to submit to capitalism.

The general principle here is to empower people to reject exploitative capitalism (if they want). This would so squeeze profits that capitalists would have to transform into more egalitarian forms or die. (The state is, of course, needed to smooth this process).

As for the place of markets in all this, it should be what it is now - a narrow technical matter: does this particular market work and if not can we make it do so? It’s perfectly possible – I think desireable – to have freeish markets without (pdf) capitalism.

Personally, my socialism would have a perhaps big role for entrepreneurship – just not the sort that rips people off.

It should be obvious to everyone that this vision of socialism is massively different from that of a centrally planned dictatorship.

Of course, this vision of socialism differs from many others’, though it should be compatible with many of them: I’d hope there’s a parallel between it and Robert Nozick’s framework for utopia.

What all this is definitely not, of course, is statism, nor the illiberalism of Maduro’s government. Maybe the tragedy of Venezuela brings Jeremy Corbyn’s judgment into question. But it tells us nothing about my sort of socialism.