Which is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the capital-labor polarity or the contrast between socialized production and private appropriation? Those looking on the capital-labor polarity as the main contradiction will argue that socialism arises when the passage from a system...

An analysis of Marx’s alienation theory is the starting point for establishing if alienation would actually be cancelled in a system of self-managed firms. As Marx held that alienation comes at various degrees and is strongest in capitalistic systems with hired labor, the author argues...

The paper deals with and intends to demonstrate three central ideas: Marx’s analysis is based on the concept of "totality" and is radically different from the orthodox analyses, Marx’s analysis is scientific, because it accepts the non-contraddiction principle, the two ideas of capitalism...

The author’s point is that the greatest advantage of a democratic firm system is a major impulse to political democracy. The idea that economic democracy furthers political democracy will sound fairly obvious not only to students of historical materialism, but also to anyone believing that...

According to Antonio Gramsci, workers' councils were transitional institutions expected to carry on business in a market economy and thereby prepare the ground for the revolution. However, upon seizing power, workers were expected to establish a centrally planned system and, hence, to renounce...

Two main subjects are dealt with in this paper: the democratic road to socialism in Marx and Engels’s works and, more generally, a feasible transition to a new social order. Starting out from the Marxian definition of revolution as the transition from one production mode to another, the author...

The paper argues that the limited company can be looked upon as a transitional corporate form in-between the capitalistic mode of production and a new mode of production, as a springboard for the creation of a – fully socialist – system of cooperative firms. An additional aim of this paper...

The paper considers four definitions of socialism. The definition of socialism as the public ownership of production means appears acceptable, notwithstanding the Ellerman’s critiques and other defects. Acceptable is also the definition of socialism as the overturn of the capital-labour...