Market capitalism vs big and small government socialism.
Marx never defines his ideal society: in 1844 manuscripts at one point he comes close to describing a lifestyle where a person labors in the daytime, writes poetry in the afternoon, and involves themselves in collective civic politics in the evening. But he never says that explicitly.
Libertarians, believers that markets can completely self govern all material aspects of the economy, without government playing a role, do have a picture of their ideal: no government at all. Public goods would be privatized, including streets, rivers, and the air we breath. Distributive justice and the welfare of the poor, the environment and future generations would be left to private charity and individual generosity, perhaps organized through religion or private charities, but in no case mandated by a governmental body supported by taxes and enforced by police and courts.
Utopian socialism, cooperative, or communitarian socialism, as espoused by Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, and Robert Owen, elevates the human dimension, aiming to empower workers at the shop level, maximally engaging them spiritually, building community, and minimizing alienation. Unlike communism, utopian socialism makes no mention of centralized authority. And unlike market capitalism, it doesn’t seek the highest return on investment capital or profit maximization, thereby leading to a less than maximally efficient allocation of capital and economic growth. In service of its spiritual objective to minimize alienation and maximize the spiritual vitality of workers, it relegates the advantages of market efficiencies and centralized government to the sidelines.
Scientific and Utopian Socialism?
There’s a polarity between autocratic and democratic poles that has been central to political philosophy since at least the ancient struggle Athens and Sparta. Like centripetal and centrifugal forces, hierarchy and decentralized institutions coexist in a balance, with some functions centralized and others decentralized. Oliver Williamson, in his “Markets and Hierarchies: Some Elementary Considerations” (American Economic Review, 1973,Vol 63, No. 2, pp.316-325) analyzed this balance in the context of whether or not a company should bring components of its supply chain in house via subsidiaries, i.e. embed them within its hierarchy, or alternatively accept having to repeatedly negotiate contracts with sources in the open marketplace. He framed the issue as a question of information economics and the transaction costs of contracting. The analysis turns on the extent to which information is fully reflected in the market or whether some information is proprietarily held by market participants. Even within a decentralized market economy the individual enterprises are structured hierarchically, and hierarchies contain competition within their ranks. Thus corporate hierarchies and marketplaces interpenetrate and coexist in a balance analyzable with information economics. Perhaps the polarity between democracy and autocracy on the world stage can be analyzed similarly.