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Randy Groves wrote:
"Markets are quite good at pricing goods. If one central authority
has
to price all the goods to be sold they will find themselves overwhelmed by the task. The same goes for production decisions. How in the world do we decide how many size 10, brown wing-tip shoes to produce and then how much do we charge for them? Ok, now how many size 9's? And now keep going until you cover all the goods sold." ------------
Am I the only one on WSN that thinks this is a little bit oversimplified?
What about the overcapacity of auto production in the world, thanks to "free
competition" which will result in destabilizing layoffs throughout the
industrial world in the future? The destruction of thousands of tons of food
every year, while people are starving, to keep prices high? The development of
technologies to HOLD BACK PROGRESS, such as Monsanto's infertile grain
seeds, or computers deliberately built to be obsolete in a few years? The
closing of hospitals in poor neighborhoods while those in wealthy areas
are begging, advertising on the radio for people (with money) to come in
for cosmetic surgery? The destruction of good housing in Flint, Gary,
Detroit while shabby, but profitable housing is built in suburbs?
Capitalism maintains itself with an ideology that is a faint shadow of
the reality that "effort" brings "rewards" or "rewards" are the result of
"effort" as a mode of social behavior. That's true in many situations, of
course, but that is different from saying that "profits" are the result of the
most socially useful "efforts." It leaves out capitalism's drive
for short run profits above all else, as well as the euphemistically described
"business cycle" (which Marx called the "crisis of overproduction").
The drive for short run profits utterly undermines the myth that production
is simply the result of a democratic kind of "voting", where people "vote"
with their "dollars" and the needs of people are accurately expressed by the
corporations. And some people think Marxists are naive?
How else to explain that some of the most profitable industries in the
world are: pornography, illegal drugs, gambling, and
banking/insurance/speculation (another form of gambling), while producing things
people NEED is not as profitable? How else to explain massive hunger in
countries where food is exported for profit? How else to explain trade wars and
shooting wars over trade?
Marxist utopianism is often criticized as unprovable. But capitalist
utopianism? -- the record is already in on that one, and the utopianism it
promises is hell for hundreds of millions of people now, billions later.
Alan Spector
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