Wow! The other night I came across a fantastic (and quite funny) article by David Schweickart that totally demolishes parecon (a ludicrous economic theory created by Michael Albert).
Despite being a "market socialist" (advocate of what could be considered a statist version of mutualism), many of Schweickart's criticisms of a non-market economy echo my own. And he is right: it would be the most unworkable mess you've ever seen if our society was insane enough to put these ideas into practice.
I can't disagree.
ReplyDeleteWithout the market, there is no way to know what and how much to produce, or how to set prices for goods, etc.
Unless you enjoy standing in line for six hours waiting to buy the only vegetable in the store, which happens to be cucumbers ("whoops, too many cucumbers, we planned wrong!"), tons and tons of cucumbers and nothing else, you'll be in favor of a market as opposed to non-market economy.
Non-market economic theory is only applicable for certain industries. Anyone who understands the problems faced by the command economies of Russia and China will know that exerting control over an entire country's market is not going to work, especially in the democratic format of parecon.
ReplyDeleteMob rule over the market? I can't even imagine what we'd end up with... maybe drowning in porn. Maybe it's not as bad as I thought?