.0
>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>>Depends on the kind of socialism. Under some people's conception of
>>planned socialism, there are no disincentives, because that's negative,
>>and negative is bad. Maybe social disapproval. Nasty e-mails saying, your
>>shoes suck.
>
>Why these caricatures?
After recent and many former discussions, why do you deny that my comments are caricatures of views some socialists actually hold?
Why is it so hard to imagine an institutional
>structure where producers do market research, and if people don't like the
>stuff they stop making it?
Because I don't believe that people will act in any particular way without institutional incentives and disincentives to encourage the behavior in question. That's because I am such an individualist. It is complete and irresponsible idealism to suggest that we strive towards organizing a sysatem around no institutional incentives at all. I was discussiong a particular sort--targets in planning--that prpduces perverse incentives to keep on making bad stuff that no one wants even when you know that it's bad and no one wants it. If you have an alternative, don't keep it a secret.
In the run-up to utopia,
>incentives and disincentives are just fine with me.
Meaning?
>
>How badly do senior execs suffer the consequences of bad decisions under
>American capitalism, anyway? It's mostly the workers who take the hits.
.
Well, their firms lose money and sometimes go out of business. They do tend
to make sure they don't take hard falls. To them that has, shall be given.
But, Doug, I would have hoped that you at least would not take me to be a
defender of corporate capitalism, whatever my job may be as legal
representative of corporate capitalists.
jks
_________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx