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by padobson
3194 days ago
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I suppose it's reasonable to suggest that if all of the variables in an economy could be identified and quantified, then it could be fed into central planning software. But that's a very big if. Furthermore, I'd suggest "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies here. We already know markets are good at organizing production, we should use them to do that. Any social ills that result because or alongside of markets should be addressed directly. |
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Although not broken (if we're talking in terms of commodity production excluding what is necessary to cure social ills) then it could be greatly improved, though I'm not sure how, or rather, I haven't decided on an answer.
At the moment several firms repeat the same research over and over again in order to research new product development in secret to stay competitive; this is clearly an inefficient use of resources, and this is seen by the fact that there are two government-granted monopolies created in order to sustain this system: copyright and patents, which have come under criticism and scrutiny even from libertarian (Rothbard not Proudhon) authors.
There are also problems relating to how volatile the market is, held to the whim of mostly speculators, with the strong ability to throw out scores of workers onto the streets, depriving them of what they need to survive if not for the chrity of the State.
There is also the problem of nurturing genuine science and the advancement of culture which is hard to commodify; even State-sponsored research projects have their funding pulled if they go off track or try to find results the government doesn't like. This applies doubly for companies. Likewise the artist is controlled not by his own will but by the will of the market, having to restrict himself in materials and creativity in such a way to please rather than to advance culture and indviduality.
There are problems relating to the psychological effect of the market economy on its participants, both workers and capitalists both of which must make it their top priority in life to rack up sufficient money to stay afloat in their respective spheres, compounded with the worker's alienation, that he does not see himself in the products he makes beacuse of the excessive direction of the capitalist.
There is the problem of education in which students must become indebted to the State or a loan organisation unless already having enough capital on their parent's side in order to pursue education which in many cases is necessary to land a job, some of whose wages go back to repaying that debt; a student thus finds it is in his interest to optimise for a degree which will land him a job, regardless of his passions and interests - if this does not crush individuality, what does?
Then there is the effect on our human nature, the system which encourages greed at almost any cost in order to rack up capital, forcing our nature to see people as means to an end rather than people in themselves, I will relate this to the idea of commodity fetishism which proposes that rather than seeing the distinctive labour content of commodities, people only see the commodities themselves, focusing on the exchange value rather than the utility. People must search for social connection through commodities while ignoring the massive wastage and environmental damage that their production takes.
Relations between people are swapped by relations between commodities, although we see that capitalism has very greatly increased standards of living, its effect on quality of life is often ignored at the expense of the freedom to buy whatever goods one pleases, this freedom is taken to be the only important element of a society but close investigation reveals that it is a very hollow freedom.
I have avoided talking about sweatshops for they are an unfortunately contentious issue, but I hope that can be included in my analysis.
I probably haven't explained this very well, so here is a short list of books, mostly be Marxist or neo-Marxist authors who, rathear than focusing on Marx's primary mode of attack (exploitation via extraction of surplus value) they look at other elements of capitalist society:
- Guy Debord - Society of the Spectacle (philosophy-economics): https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.ht...
- Herbert Marcuse - One Dimensional Man (sociology): https://libcom.org/files/Marcuse,%20H%20-%20One-Dimensional%...
- Erich Fromm - Escape From Freedom (social psychology): https://libcom.org/library/escape-freedom
- Habermas - The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (sociology-history) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structural_Transformation_...
- Peter Kropotkin - The Conquest of Bread - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...