--- Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at dodo.com.au> wrote:
> At 12:13 PM -0800 29/12/04, andie nachgeborenen
> wrote:
>
> > > I donÌt know why anybody would argue
> > > for such a society, but so be it.
> >
> >Because markets are the only sensible means we know
> to
> >arrange the production of consumer and production
> >goods. I oppose markets in labor and capital.
>
> Distribution of goods and services according to
> need is another sensible means we know of.
Only you have to find out what people need and what resources you have to meet those needs and what production and distribution processes are the most effective ones to do that . . . and lo! Hayek looms.
>
> > > Justin simply believes that markets are an
> >> efficient means of distribution, he doesn't
> grasp
> >> that markets nurture exploitation and are
> >> inextricably linked to production for profit.
> >
> >Of course they are linked to production for profit.
> I
> >not only grasp the point, I insist on it. That's
> what
> >markets go, give people incentives in the form of
> >profits to satisfy the needs of others. And I am
> >highly aware that markets pose the threat of
> nuturing
> >exploitation. Your charming arrogance in assuming
> what
> >I am aware of and not is amusing.
>
> Oh well, at least its charming.
But humility would be more plesant.
> >You don't grasp that
> >I have written extensively on precisely this topic
> --
> >never published on it. Got canned before I did.
> >
> >But I do have a line on the risk of exploitation in
> a
> >market socialist economy. >
> Great, thanks, send it to me.
Will do, have to locate it.
> > He
> >> thinks there is some way to separate markets
> from
> >> these bad apples.
> >
> >Right. The "way" is called ;abolition of porivate
> >property," what Marx described as the theory of the
> >communists summed up in a single expression (The
> >Manifesto).
>
> I'm just not sure what the "incentive" is in this
> market then, if income inequalities are limited
> and the opportunity to accumulate property is not
> there. What's the point of making a profit?
Because you have more money than you did before? Btw there is a lot of empirical evidence that what motivates entrepreneurial activity is after tax income. And countries like Japan where the income andwealth differentials are way flatter than here seem to do just fine if not better.
My
> tentative reaction is that this would be a very
> bad basis for a market and likely an inefficient
> market as a result. That is to say, it wouldn't
> work. But maybe your short paper will satisfy
> that concern, I look forward to finding out how.
The short paper would not address that concern, but you shouldn't buy the propaganda that the only markrets tahtw ork are neoliberal ones with no ceilings or gains or floors on losses. Social democracies don't do badly. Mind you, I advocate more than SD -- I want to abolish private property.
Also, you have to lok ath the alternative. We knwo for damn sure that totally centrally planed economies don't wirk either.
>
> > Oh, and of course Justin's
> >> thinking is something of a prisoner of the
> >> protestant work ethic, he fears that without
> some
> >> system of coercing people to do productive work,
> >> that nothing will be produced at all and we will
> >> all starve.
> >
> >I don't know how many times I have to explain that
> >this is not and has never been a rationale I have
> >advanced in favor markets. I suppose with people
> who
> >listen as carefully as you do this will not be the
> >last time.
>
> I read between the lines, done it all my life, I
> can't seem to help it.
Ah, so you attribute to me something I don't believe and have expressly rejected and call this reading between the lines?
>
> >I am a Hayekian. Hayek's idea was that markets are
> >information systems, not straw-bosses. The point is
> >that people cannot know enough if they have to plan
> >how many buttons and how much broccoli they will
> need
> >-- but mnarkets give people who are interested in
> >making profits spedcial incentives to find out
> without
> >central coordination.
>
> It doesn't work that way. For a start, producers
> neither know nor care what the needs are, only
> what people will pay for something.
But they have to find out what people will pay for, so they have an incentive to investiate their needs and how to meet them.
That doesn't
> address the question of need, it only addresses
> the question of what people can pay for.
If the probalem is, some people;'s meed won't be met of they lack money, I do advocate a minimum guaranteed income.
However,
> markets can't work unless there is some degree of
> shortage, because if goods and services are in
> abundance, the market will send a message to stop
> producing.
Right, markets are a response to shortage. That is the human condition. Abdundance, the Great Roick Candy Mountain, the Land of Cockaigne, is a fantasy. We have to make choices about how to use our resources.
So markets wouldn't be of any help in
> an economy where there was enough of things to go
> around.
True. And if men were angels were wouldn't need laws either.
>
> For example, in health care, how would markets be
> useful?
I oppose markets in health care.
> > No planning board can do as well
> >outside certain areas where supply and demand is
> >highly predictable.
>
> Look, its quite simple. Manufacturers manufacture
> to order. Distributors order according to demand.
> That's the mechanics of how it works now and it
> could work just as well without a market.
It;s so simple . . so very simple. Bill, this is childish. Childs=ish! The smartest minds in Eastern Europea nd the USSt wrestled with these "simple" problems for decades. You really owe it to yourself to at least acquait yourself with some of their work before you start talking like this. I was a Sovietologist. It's hard to even know where to start in explaining why it's not simple. If I recommend a short book, would you read it?
>
> I understand what you are saying. You don't
> accept that this is your premise. I accept that
> this isn't a conscious premise of your
> philosophy. However, your belief that people need
> a financial incentive to do things seems to lead
> back to that.
No, the incentive is not to work harder, it's to find things out. And thre Hayekian incentive is mostly positive -- learn what people want and how to give it to them cheap and you will make money! There is of corse the threat of bankruptcy if you guess wrong, but the driving force is the carrot, not the stick. It's not the straw boos with the lash, "You're fired," etc.
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