Doug Henwood wrote:
> This sort of analysis always ignores the immense waste in a "market"
> system - advertising, management, market research, vast markups
> thanks to brand fetishism, search costs, financiers' take, etc.
One also needs to add all the immense social costs of environmental damage, the health cost of deliberate flaunting of the already pitifully inadequate OSHA regulations, the immense pile of luxury goods, the immense wealth put into various forms of bribery to protect narcotics, gambling, prostitution, etc. The cost of the military budget -- even assuming a continuing need for high military expenditures, there would not exist that part of the military budget which is of no military use -- probably a large proportion of it. The guarantee of work and income regardless of efficiency and competence would more than pay for itself probably by reduced health costs.
All the talent in advertising and finance could be put to work (with much lower incomes [no operating of airconditioning in a convertible with the top open]) in an enormous polling system to see what people wanted.
But in general, forbodings about a future socialist order are every bit as silly as daydreans about the wonders of such a system. Utopiaism has two branches -- one daydreams heaven, one daydreams hell. Both are out of touch with reality -- e.g., neither even tries to factor into its view of the future the process by means of which we get from here to there, and that process will cancel out all the conditions which now exist and provide the basis for these opposing daydreams and nightmares.
Carrol