The little bits of paper are infinitely useful because they solve the problem of the double coincidence of wants. Without money, if I own a steel mill and want to a hamburger, I would have to find a hamburger restaurant willing to accept payment in steel beams.
I'm afraid the only thing all of the faults in your system tell me is that my system isn't broken. I didn't even address the issue of productivity and how goods would be allocated to their most efficient use; sure, everybody wants a car, but how would you know who's going to be able to produce one in 10 hours versus 100 hours? How would you know who's going to be able to produce one using 1,000 pounds of steel versus 2,000?
I don't think I'm "randomly naming problems," I'm stating very obvious and fatal flaws. If you want to offer solutions, that's fine, but you have to offer a solution first in order for me to
In the most general terms, I think that production-for-use is preferable to production-for-exchange. There's different models for how that could work, and, in all likelihood, we'd see multiple models sitting side-by-side, appropriate to different "levels" of social production. (There's no self-evident reason why the distribution of bread and the distribution of digital information should share a common logic, for example.) Something would require a degree of planning (as if planning is alien to capitalism!), others could take the form of a pseudo-market system using labour vouchers, others could simply be free access. Means to an end, like any of the variations of capitalism, so there's no need for a partisan attachment to any one model.
And?
Goods are distributed in such a fashion that people's material wants are satisfied- how else are we to define it?
Goods are distributed in such a fashion that people's material wants are satisfied- how else are we to define it?
Given that this hypothetical universe would appear to consist of nothing but yourself and the car, then I can't see who is going to object, exactly. After all, you're surely aware quite how impossible it would be to answer a question such as this without a workable degree of context, so we can just go ahead and assume that it be included in your comment, yes?
You're going to have to elaborate on that, because as it stands I don't really know what you're trying to communicate. What was that somebody said earlier about leaving things half-said?
Given that this hypothetical universe would appear to consist of nothing but yourself and the car, then I can't see who is going to object, exactly. After all, you're surely aware quite how impossible it would be to answer a question such as this without a workable degree of context, so we can just go ahead and assume that it be included in your comment, yes?
And since goods should be distributed in such a way that material wants are satisfied, I don't see why my car hasn't been delivered yet.
This all hinges on the supposition that capitalism is, in fact, the only way to meet "unlimited wants". In the most general sense, this is demonstrable nonsense, so I would presume that you mean in a society of our level of technological and organisational development. In which case, all I can ask is how you have reached that conclusion, because it is not self-evident. Von Mises and his cohorts may have proven that central planning is inefficient, and I'm sure he had a point; the problem is that "central planning" is just an administrative form, it doesn't say anything about the fundamental terms of social production. They have contributed nothing to the comparative analysis of for-exchange and for-use societies. Which is the issue you're actually going to have address.Not at all. In a fully staffed and fully functional universe, I want a new car.
Now I am being facetious, but I don't think I am being unclear.
The point is that economics can be defined as a study of how to satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources. There's the trick: Wants are unlimited. So if you are criticizing capitalism because it doesn't satisfy wants efficiently, then you have to back up a step and realize that nothing else will either. Can't be done. We'll never have production so high that wants cease to be unmet.
You have given us a condition for efficiency that is not possible to meet. Therefor you have given us a condition for efficiency that isn't objectively better than any other, for example effectual demand. (Demand backed by sufficient purchasing power).
Where do you go from there? If you begin placing conditions on the wants, well who decides those conditions? And how big of a population are you talking about before those centrally decided conditions mean that many people no longer get what they want, but rather what someone else decided they should have?
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All wants are subjective. Many needs are variable. All wants cannot be met, as I said above. Many, if not most, needs vary person to person. Since you cannot efficiently allocate all wants, since all wants cannot be met, how do you allocate all needs, and then let people pick their wants from whatever is left over?
Why does there have to be one grand master plan for distribution? Society isn't a building, you don't call in a bunch of architects and engineers to draw up a definitive set of blue-prints and then set about realising them. That's not how any of its historical developments have occurred, so to assume that any future ones must follow the same pattern is ridiculous. So why am I being asked to offer up just such a set of blue-prints?
In all frankness? I have no idea. That's something that can only be established in reaction to concrete circumstances, and is therefore something unpredictable and changing. The best I could offer is some vague sketches of an early post-capitalist society might look, and I'm quite ready to admit that I simply don't have the breadth of knowledge or the depth of understanding to do that very well.
That's exactly the critique of capitalism: capitalism produces not for consumption, but for exchange. The purpose of production is not to satisfy human wants, but to accumulate capital. The satisfaction of human wants is, in the very strictest sense, a side-effect. Look at how much money is ploughed into advertising, package design, etc.- none of it fulfils any kind of human want, but can be useful in diverting consumers one way or the other. (Incidentally, this was also true of the Soviet Union. So let's keep than in mind before we start trying to use it as an example of non-market economies.)
...is a failed way to satisfy the concept of an efficient way to allocate resources.
Then strike "unlimited", and come back with something more than a petty semantic argument.
Oh, well, seeing as you've told me that I'm wrong, I suppose I'll just accept it. I'd hate to be so uncouth as to request some further explanation; sneering is quite enough for me!
I don't follow. You can only critique one something if you have a foolproof alternative worked out? Then how is anyone ever going to work out an alternative if they're not allowed to communicate a critical perspective to begin with?Because you are the one saying that the distributed distribution system by the market method is inefficient?
