Mixed economies

Socialism

Mixed economies understood as a mixture of socially owned and private enterprises have been predicted and advocated by various socialists as a necessary transitional form between capitalism and socialism. Additionally, several proposals for socialist systems call for a mixture of different forms of enterprise ownership including a role for private enterprise. For example, Alexander Nove's conception of feasible socialism outlines an economic system based on a combination of state enterprises for large industries, worker and consumer cooperatives, private enterprises for small-scale operations, and individually owned enterprises. The social democratic theorist Eduard Bernstein advocated a form of a mixed economy, believing that a mixed system of state-owned enterprises, cooperatives, and private enterprises would be necessary for a long period before capitalism would evolve of its own accord into socialism.