With the decline of command economies in eastern europe china and elsewhere the systemic issue of the feasability of combining the market mechanism with some form of public or collective ownership or control over the distribution of surplus has assumed topical importance the essays in this book aim at advancing the old debate on this issue to a new analytical stage questions of incentive . Market socialism the current debate pranab k bardhan john e roemer with the decline of command economies in eastern europe china and elsewhere the systemic issue of the feasability of combining the market mechanism with some form of public or collective ownership or control over the distribution of surplus has assumed topical importance. With the decline of command economies in eastern europe china and elsewhere the systemic issue of the feasability of combining the market mechanism with some form of public or collective ownership or control over the distribution of surplus has assumed topical importance the essays in this book aim at advancing the old debate on this issue to a new analytical stage questions of incentive . Joseph stiglitz argues that market socialist models are based on arrow debreu models of the market economy and thus share the latters informational defects while janos kornai uses the post communism experience of eastern europe the soviet union and china to argue that the political centralization required for socialist control of the market sector inevitably clashes with the economic decentralization required for markets to coordinate economic activity the third chapter by