Proprietà, rappresentanza, socialismo

Ownership, Agency, Socialism

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

The failure of the socialist command economy directs attention to purported alternative mechanisms of resource allocation self-enforcing, simulating certain capitalistic processes and outcomes, yet preserving some socialist values. Tracing the effect of alternative types of ownership – severalty and commonalty – upon systemic behaviour, the paper argues that the principal-agent problem obstructs any efficient, self-enforcing solution unless severalty becomes the dominant form of property ownership. This, however, would be inconsistent with other essential socialist goals.