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1. ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭ (angle@anticapitalist.party)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:20:10 EDT ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭

   Markets are actually a very interesting mechanism, strange as it might seem for a commie to say that. They have a number of advantages, most notably the fact that they require little to no effort to set up. They will literally assemble themselves. I'm not that big on markets overall effectiveness, but at least they're easy to create. XD

   1. Adam (inkslinger@mastodon.club)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:30:04 EDT Adam

      in reply to

      @Angle This why I often feel like we should use markets for luxury goods, even in the communist utopia. Socialize the necessaries and use markets for the rest...not sure how that squares with a post-money economy, though.

   2. ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭ (angle@anticapitalist.party)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:31:03 EDT ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭

      in reply to

      I'm going to continue this thread on my other account, @Angle . For those who are interested, I will be taking an analytical approach. The approach an engineer might take when assessing a technology for use in their projects, or a gardener might take when reading up on a new species for their garden. If this interests you, keep watching. I will be boosting all of my posts from this account, so you should see them.

      1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:43:52 EDT Long Angles

         in reply to

         To start with, one thing I'd like to point out is why I'm not using the term "Free Market". And the reason is because I regard that term as errant propaganda. markets are always governed by limitations, enough so that calling them "Free" is completely misleading. What you can buy and what you can sell is always limited by a thousand different factors - what you have the resources for, what your government will allow, what you can manage, what you can defend, what your community will allow, what people are willing to sell you, etc, etc, etc. Using the word free in this context is just silly. :/

         1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:45:37 EDT Long Angles

            in reply to

            Now, on to the uses and problems of markets. The use of a market, obviously, is to distribute goods and services. They do this, of course, according to power - the power of wealth, of knowledge (Where can I buy x? How can I get it cheap?), of social standing and strategic position and all the million other forms of power both great and small through which one can get what they want. I wouldn't say that this is the best way of distributing resources, but it does generally assure that the carpenter can buy wood and the farmer can buy farm tools and that something vaguely resembling a functional economy will result. This is actually a bit where I find my expertise lacking - perhaps @profoundlynerdy can give us a good summary of the uses and advantages of markets? I could go for some adversarial collaboration right about now. :P

            1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 16:56:20 EDT Long Angles

               in reply to

               The problems of markets is an area where I'm much more confident in my knowledge. I'm going to divide this into a series of posts, each of them detailing one problem and each of them in response to this post.

               1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 17:02:30 EDT Long Angles

                  in reply to

                  First and foremost, the problem of externalities. Externalities are costs or benefits that are not subject to the people involved. The best example would be pollution. I do <x>, I get a positive value of $500 from it - but I create a negative externality in the form of pollution and thereby cause -$600 in cancer in other people. The activity as a whole is of negative utility, but that negative utility is an externality, and thus the activity receives a reward of $500 instead of a penalty of -$100 as it should. Thus, the market rewards me with more resources. I scale up my activity, my business booms, and a whole lot of people get cancer and suffer for it.

                  1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 17:02:39 EDT Long Angles

                     in reply to

                     This is the classic case for regulation - the government comes in and whacks me with a -$600+ fine per activity and uses that to pay for cancer treatment, and I'm forced to find a better way of doing things or go out of business. Of course, this runs into all the problems of government and regulation, but thats a whole nother thread. :/

               2. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 17:07:39 EDT Long Angles

                  in reply to

                  Another problem of markets is the limits on information. I cannot possibly know all the details of the local market, nor can everyone else. When distributed evenly, this lack of information decreases the efficiency of the market and causes resources to be expended on less than optimally efficient activities. When distributed unevenly, this lack of information creates power asymmetry, and allows those with more of it to drain resources from the market - say, by buying a commodity high and selling it low. Now, this can be a useful correction mechanism, and isn't wholly without benefits, but it can be a problem too under the right circumstances. :/

               3. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 17:13:09 EDT Long Angles

                  in reply to

                  Anbother problem, not exactly one with markets but a problem with everything that markets do little to nothing to address and occasionally exacerbate, is power asymmetry. Anytime the people engage in a transaction are of unequal power, there is the possibility of the more powerful person extracting more value than they should otherwise be able to. The most obvious case of this is violence and the threat of violence, but it manifests in much more subtle ways too.

                  1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Sunday, 20-May-2018 17:28:20 EDT Long Angles

                     in reply to

                     Some examples:

                     Theft
                     This is also an example of an externality. I spend some time stealing to take something and give nothing in return. This costs me my time and effort and you the thing stolen, and gains me the thing stolen. Overall, this transaction has negative utility from the time spent that created nothing, while the transfer of ownership balances out. Thus, it's overall a waste, but because *I* make a profit, I'll continue doing it. (Again, something we have government to balance out by hitting me with a stick until I stop stealing things.)

                     Employment
                     If I employ 100 people, then each person represents 1% of my employees - but I represent a hundred percent of their employer. Thus, I have a massive advantage over them in negotiations. Whether I hire any given one of those people is only a small factor in business, but it's a huge factor in their "Do I get to keep eating". This is the reason why we have minimum wages and unions, is to try and correct this power imbalance - either by short-circuiting the negotiation entirely with a minimum wage, or by allowing all of my employees to negotiate as a group and thereby equal my power. These have their own problems, of course, but again - nother thread. XD

                     Monopoly and Monopsony
                     If I'm the only seller or buyer for a good, I can use this position to extract excess value from those who purchase or sell it. I can also use this position for more strategic objectives, like driving my competition out of business or manipulating other markets.