2025, Vol. 8, Issue 2

author(s)
Hasan Islatince

abstract
This study examines classical market socialism by focusing on Oskar Lange’s model, which aims to reconcile central planning with market mechanisms, and Jaroslav Vanek’s approach to market socialism based on workers’ self-management. Market socialism is a hybrid economic model seeking to combine socialist ownership of the means of production with the efficiency advantages of market competition. The issues of information scarcity, inadequate incentives, and inefficiency observed in classical planned economies brought the debate on market socialism to the forefront beginning in the mid-20th century. While Lange’s model proposes determining prices under public ownership through a “trial-and-error” adjustment process, Vanek’s model envisions a form of market socialism in which worker cooperatives are democratically managed and the role of the central authority is minimal. These two approaches offer different levels of response to the coordination problems of socialism. The study comparatively analyzes the theoretical frameworks, historical contexts, and implementation outcomes of these two models.