Abolish markets.

[The Dharma Bum]

Capitalist Market Economies are a social pattern in which much, if not most, human interaction is some form of commercial transaction. Much of this activity is undertaken by corporations. Executive agents of these corporations have a fiduciary duty to maximize profits. The result of this state of affairs is an environment where every business is necessarily always at conflict with it's customers and each other. This constant conflict is called competition and according to market theories is the driving force behind CMEs and is purportedly the causative factor for the ability to manufacture cheaper consumer goods, which in turn create a higher standard of living.

However, what this "higher" standard of living actually consists of for most is being an isolated and alienated servant who has no time to actualize their own existence because they are usually in debt up to their ears and must work constantly in order to buy highly priced, cheaply made junk for families that are encouraged into over-consumption from watching hours of commercial propaganda every day. Prosperity and freedom is more an ideal than the actual reality for most people because only the very top can afford the freedom to to really actualize their lives.

Conclusion: CMEs create a social situation which is, in essence, a Hegelian war of all versus all.

Conjecture: The resulting environment of constant conflict and unattended human need is likely related to the perplexing plethora of social maladies found in supposedly prosperous modern western societies.
http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/parecon.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wil ... rich_Hegel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

[The Grandmaster]

What does “Abolish Markets” mean? We open a thread containing this statement and see a critique that seems to be about Capitalism, even though they are not synonymous. Capitalism must have markets but certainly not all markets much exist within Capitalism. What system or organizing trade and allocation of resources would you prefer? How would you change things? How would you abolish “markets?” Would you and I still be able enter into an agreement of trade if it suited us?

[The Dharma Bum]

There are three types of basic distribution philosophy.

Market distribution (state capitalism)
Central Planning (state socialism)
Participatory Economics (producer managed economy regulated by participatory democracy)

Everything else is either a variant or a combination of these three philosophies.

So, you are incorrect. You can read the link to ParEcon if you want basic information about how it would work. I've gone over that info ad nauseum in other threads and don't want to go through that nightmare again.

Yes, you can trade stuff. You can do anything you want to do. It's freedom.

[Medius]

[The Dharma Bum]

China is an example of state capitalism, as are all currently existing states.

That's not exactly "my" assessment, and it is totally accurate. That argument doesn't even make any sense.

You can distribute products via markets, you can distribute products via state allocation, or people can decide for themselves how the products they make are distributed.

Yes, ParEcon is stateless socialism, which is what communism actually is. The USSR was an example of state socialism, not communism.

Stateless socialism is the default human society. Most of human existence has been this situation, and if we don't abandon what we are currently doing and choose a sane route the whole thing is going to collapse (again) and we will start over from the beginning (again).

It would be far better for the human race to get smart and immediately embrace a social pattern that is equitable for all of it's members so it doesn't require force. That way we can retain our current technical advantages and not revert to barbarism and a new "dark age" when petroleum fueled madness collapses.

Because our current system is monoculture and depends on extreme division of labor to operate we are extremely vulnerable. This is a survival issue. If this system collapses it will be far worse than the fall of the roman empire. We are so over specialized that most producers couldn't operate without guidance and mass starvation would ensue.

Being a specialist in a world without division of labor is a ticket to starvation. Our people simply don't know how to survive on their own in the wild anymore. We in the West have been fully domesticated.

[The Comrade]

any exchange of goods is a market. i don't understand this. even anarcho-whatevers and socialist theories involve markets to varying degrees.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

BTW a whether or not a system is market based is defined by how prices are set, not whether or not an exchange takes place.

If prices are set according to supply and demand its a market system. If they are set by an authority it is centrally planned. Parecon sets prices according to a plan arrived at through participatory democracy.

[The Dharma Bum]

A system of decentralized planning via direct democracy basically.

[The Grandmaster]