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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

(He wrote a number of worthy papers as well as this book, for which he is most famous.)

As far as the market socialist scheme you describe, it sounds to me inferior to most market socialist schemes, for the reasons brought up here. But I hope people are capable of seeing how these problems could in fact be remedied by changing the specifics, rather than just look for “fatal flaws.”

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You don’t mention the history of China since Mao’s death, which may be the most striking example of capitalism under the banner of socialism so far. I recommend the book How China Became Capitalist by Ronald Coase and Ning Wang. I may be biased, since I have some claim to having predicted the process in a book published while Mao was still alive.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Machinery_3d_Edition/Creeping_Capitalism.htm

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In the book, The Unincorporated Man, we are shown a future where every person is incorporated. At birth, each person issues some number of shares of stock which can be owned by others. By law, the government owns 5% of every corporation and cannot sell those shares or buy additional shares. The parents own 25% of a newborn’s stock, and the remainder belongs to the individual. (I haven’t asked the author, but I assume all corporations would be required to give 5% of their shares to the government.)

People can then sell stock to pay for stuff. An education or other vocational training is a typical investment, although medical care would be a possibility. An irresponsible person might trade shares for a sports car. A person who loses majority loses a lot of control over his or her life, as the owners of his stock can then compel him to take various actions.

As owners (always presuming the owners are rational), they have an incentive to increase the value of the stock they hold, so they might compel their person to sell that sports car and buy training in some vocation.

Stocks frequently issue dividends, and someone who owns stock in a CEO would derive a nice income from those dividends. (And the government would receive 5% of the dividends every corporation issues, in lieu of taxes.)

At the time the story is set, the system is starting to show strain because people have been gaming the system and lobbying for changes that put people in serious risk. (Lowering the minimum percentage of his own shares an individual is required to hold on to, for example, makes it more likely people will literally sell themselves into slavery.)

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My more radical idea, not fully committed to, is simply a wealth cap. Somewhere between $20 million and $400 million (200 times the lifetime earnings of the average American), I figure you don’t need to own any more, and the societal cost of such concentration of wealth outweighs the incentive benefits from being able to accumulate it. Get more wealth? Give it away or consume it fast.

Yeah, I don’t have a fully detailed plan of how to implement it with evaluation of varying-price assets and such. Wealth tax or very high income tax bracket might be simpler. I still feel we don’t need or want people worth more than 100,000 other people, i.e. deka-billionaires.

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