C. Kelley,
The short answer is that your company needs more money. Since I have been on these lists - and even years before that - I have thought and said that until socialists answer the question "Where is the money going to come from?" the revolution cannot go forward. Socialists tend to see the world of money as outside their ken, which is why folks like Doug Henwood are so important to us. Capitalism, as I see it, is a perpetual money crisis where would-be producers have to go through insane antics to get the capital for reasonable ideas (if they get it at all) while those connected to the rich can get money for any fool concept (deepening the capital shortage). Even in the wealthiest capitalist country in the world, the population of net savers is astonishingly small, creating the very distorted market for productions schemes we see presently. I don't see the crisis as one of simple redistribution, either. I think societies have to create more money.
In an adequately moneyed society, production becomes a question of selling production schemes to savers then selling products to consumers who pay workers who become savers and the virtuous cycle continues. Lower the barriers to entry in business generally and the focus changes from preserving monopoly power (it isn't possible) to competing on total product quality and efficiency of distribution.
com. boddi
> To the extent that capitalists expend effort not to serve our needs but
>to alter them, that is the typical capitalist response to a market: try to
>subvert that market by exerting monopoly power. The capitalist is always
>trying to steer the market economy towards his monopoly power.
so, how are you going to make them stop doing this? what changes in the current social institution otherwise known as a capitalist market economy are required to bring about a market economy where people are only ever "incented" (heh) to make what people need? what stops them from trying to remake needs to their advantage? the lowest cost to you is usually going to occur when the maker of a product can make a _lot_ because there is a big demand.
i'm currently working on a product for the company i work for. if I make it and sell it to the very small market we have the infrastructure to actually reach (we're a small company), the cost to the consumer will be incredibly high. so, the plan would be to eat it for awhile. in turn, we'll invest in marketing efforts, pretty darn unsophisticated ones comparatively. eventually, we should get enough customers and we can start making profits built on volume production. But, even then, after we hit a certain volume, there will be added costs to managing the distribution of the product to the consumer (costs we didn't have when we were smaller), and that will eat into our profits. unless of course we can get even more customers, effectively moving us past that threshold where an even greater volume of sales makes production profitable again.
Kelley
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