As opposed to every other system whereby the most powerful are the government and have no need to "consolidate" power as they already have all of it and can readily siphon off government money for their own purposes. No amount of ideology about how some economic system is supposed to work will change humans from how they actually behave.
There are more than two ways. that is all.
citation needed
This.
The evolutionary fitness argument of markets is nice and all, but the reality is as above, and it impacts on many lives and wastes resources every day. Surely we can consider ways to improve this, perhaps by more democratic or crowd-sourced monitoring of key decisions. Egos can sometimes be dissolved by many eyes.
firstly, following the thread the argument was about a free job market, and the ability to fire at will. On your second point, I agree wholeheartedly - a great example that a "free market" is in fact a myth.
There have been more than two forms of government. Yours is not an argument for what we have, it is a resignation from improving society. surely we can do better?
So why in the real world are so many bad managers in business. Nice theory - doesn't relate in any way to my experience of businesses in US and Europe.
BTW, it appears that you don't understand the beauty of the free market... If Enterprise A screws up, you can go work for (or buy products from) enterprises B, C, D, et al. If the government screws up, you can... move to another country?
I'll take the free market, thanks.
Sadly your example only works in some fields not all. The myth here is that of universal access. Works for some industries (e.g. pc manufacturer), not others e.g. transport (I want to go to one place, not any place).
Central provider has flaws too. Particularly where unmonitored (e.g. soviet style dictatorship). Can't we find a better way to manage finite resources that comes closer to democracy?
I worked for a company that paid me salary of about $100k a year.
There's nothing wrong with that.
You are in a minority, and with respect, yours is not the problem to which the thread refers. I'd agree you are not particularly exploited, and probably have some nice shoes too - this says nothing in itself about the best way to run society.
Totally agree the specific case isn't free market. But interested in the wider debate. My experience is that the theory you state (and as I was taught), just doesn't appear to happen. From my working life, which I don't have any reason to believe has brought me in to contact with a particularly bad subset of people, poor performing people are often promoted, and massively inefficient business regularly carry on. Don't get me wrong I like the implied use of evolutionary theory, but I do not believe in the limited real world that it is the major factor. Many businesses work in isolated or limited gene pools, if i may abuse the metphor. Nor do I believe we should abbrogate responsibility for management of finite resources , or have the time (millions of generations) to allow such a crude tool to work.
*Yawn* - anyone capable of engagine in political debate? The last bit didn't really work. BTW the US, where the case happened, isn't currently socialist.
I wasn't particularly calling for socialism, by pointing out some flaws in the "free market". I'd hoped we'd all moved on from a previous generations' stupid "only two possible ways to run the world, and one is evil" idea - it really didn't go well and it killed people, a lot.
And BTW, I really used to think that would happen. But in my experience sadly they often get promoted, government or company.
maybe rather than either example - "free market" or run by closed governments, we could try a third way. perhaps adults could manage their resources, and allow oversite of functioning to the review of the public, in a democratic way. our communications systems could now be that good.
Your definition of an economy appears to me to centre around what can fail 9in various ways). i'd rather not have that. Rather than play such vulnerable games as a proxy for management of (finite) resources, could we not be a little more adult, and just manage the resources? We have the ability to collate and manage them, and to understand the needs they fill. We also have improving means to communicate, and hence the Athenian dream of democracy finally has a chance to be considered.
You'll find that's true of pretty much any job that combines low pay with repetitive or tedious work. If there's no incentive to do a good job, then most people won't bother. This was one of the big issues with communism.
Nope - US isn't communist. This is the big hidden problem with Capitalism. In more socialised governments caring for each other is an incentive for some (admittedly not all, but more than where profit is the sole concern).
how about the fact that from the top down, there is no accountability for anything until shit meets fan? I'm in a similiar position in a government job where I routinely point out flaws in our SOP and demonstrate exactly how shit will meet fan unless we make simple changes. Those changes never happen, because it would cause the top to work. I usually get the response, "it's not broke, so we won't fix it". Would I go so far as to publicly document the flaws?? hells no. That's suicidal.
How many lives depend? Not documenting the flaws could be long term damaging to your freedom, should anything go wrong in a public way. Entirely depends on your line of work and odds of public impact.
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"
