--- P.J.Wells at open.ac.uk wrote: > Cian O'Connor
wrote:
>
> >Do people think that competitive markets, where
> people
> >had equal access to capital, would necessarily be a
> >bad thing?
>
> I do. Markets obscure the social connection between
> producers: 'a market
> economy means never having to say "sorry"', as you
> might say.
I realise that. However what alternatives are there for more sophisticated forms of production such as electronics, transportation, or even something relatively unsophisticated like publishing? How do I make the social connection between the readers of my book, and the paper mills, printers, authors, editors, etc? How does one deal with limited resources? Who controls them, who gets them?
> It's not just about access to capital (by which I
> take it you mean the
> material means of production: tools and the
> knowledge to use them) --
> capital in the sense of money already presupposes
> capitalism.
Sure, money's just an abstraction that brings all these things together. But is it possible to use capital efficiently without that? I'm asking because I can't think of a way and if there are alternatives I'd like to know about them. Preferably alternatives which allow some non-hierarchical form of society. I don't think that doing away with money and replacing it with something which relies on central planning is an improvement.
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