Parecon

[freedomthistime2011]

You say re markets that "both parties are profiting from the trade, or they would not have engaged in it". That isn't a justification for markets IMO. A "mutually beneficial" exchange can still be an exploitative one. The degree to which one party exploits the other will depend on their relative bargaining power. The key word being "power". Do you want a system of distribution based upon power, or upon more noble principles? This objection to markets has nothing to do with "corporatism".

[SpectacularNumanist]

@freedomthistime2011

If an exchange is mutually beneficial then how can there even be a problem of relative bargaining power?

And in the absence of the state granted monopolies, labourers would have the bargaining power over capital

[freedomthistime2011]

@SpectacularNumanist "If an exchange is mutually beneficial then how can there even be a problem of relative bargaining power?"

Well, let's take a somewhat contrived example. I own the town's reservoir. You work for me in exchange for water. It's a mutually beneficial exchange - I get labour, you get water. But it's very exploitative and the wage you agree to work for will reflect the degree of exploitation - you need water more than I need work.

[SpectacularNumanist]

@freedomthistime2011

How did you get to own the towns reservoir? This is a land issue

[freedomthistime2011]

@SpectacularNumanist You own it by virtue of having a piece of paper saying you own it - and police/army to back up the piece of paper. I don't understand your second point. Are you saying that a reservoir should be communally owned? Why not land too? On what basis are you distinguishing what can and cannot be individually owned?

[absalaamLOSAC]

...hyprid of sorts so there is nothing in history we can cite singularly as being the cure. We need new ideas and Parecon seeks to basically democratize economies. I don't think anyone who is being honest about the current economic layout as determined by corporate pluticrats and oligarchs can say that Parecon wasn't a necessary work if for nothing else but to stir the pot to inspire other solutions.  Peep the global economy.. what we have now is a failure.

[SpectacularNumanist]

@absalaamLOSAC

the man making this video isnt promoting "what we have now"

[absalaamLOSAC]

...selfishness as evidenced by our ever increasing wealth gap and destruction of the environment which we all must share. Parecon is a step in the direction of problem solving and the current problem is, is that common people have little influence over the world around them and those who have earned the right thru capital gains to influence the world have not done so in a benevolent manner and have proven to be poor stewards. Every economy is made possible by a state and every one is a....

[absalaamLOSAC]

People > things - that's the desired paradigm we haven't reached but what progressives aspire to make a reality. We can argue any ism we want but we can look through our history to see all of their respective successes and failures. Moving forward means wrestling control from people who believe things > people and found the world on such a basis accordingly. Clearly at this point those who have amassed wealth and resources using their greater bargaining power haven't done so apart from....

[absalaamLOSAC]

There are 30 to 80 million people worldwide that essentially live in economic slavery. We haven't solved problems, we've created more because the only solutions we consider are ones that serve the current paradigm. How many laws have been changed to serve the interests of commerce at the expense of people? With 6,000 years of recorded history we have been trying to develop a system that serves people and instead we only have been able to create a system which people serve. People > things

[gentzelpwns]

All you do is say that everything that is wrong has nothing to do with free markets. Free markets don't exist without a state. Even if they did, the exponential power growth of one individual over another leads to the same sort of problems we have today...

[SpectacularNumanist]

@gentzelpwns

free markets dont exist without a state.

No the exact opposite of that is true. The freemarket cannot exist because of a state.

[gentzelpwns]

@SpectacularNumanist The state protects property, enabling the free market to operate. Without the state you have communes in which no one dares to accumulate to much more than his neighbors for fear of social consequences and robbery. This all depends on what you are calling "free" of course. I don't believe in free-will so I would say that nothing is free. I digress, my point is, without central government, something else will absorb power and suppress freedom. State, business, religion, etc.

[freedomthistime2011]

@SpectacularNumanist Here is Adam Smith explaining why markets/private property cannot exist without a state:

"The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security."

[AMIcon]

The argument that in a true "free market" bargaining power would be essentially "flat lined" seems confusing to me. Lets say someone from outside the true free market enters the system with 10X the amount of money of the average inhabitant, he is going to necessarily have 10X the amount of bargaining power, no?

[GodOfTheInternets]

"All parties are profiting from the trade" well no shit Einstein, put this argument is applyable to EVERY economic system since in EVERY economic system there's some trade (keynesianism, communism, capitalism, etc.). It's such a stupid argument that EVERY capitalist advocate makes. It also only focuses on the "outer-relation" of capitalism and not on the inner-relation of coercive hierarchies and undemocratic authority over the individual (aka authrotiarianism).

[ppbbs88]

I think you need to more thoroughly engage Albert's criticisms of markets per se, rather than the corporatist state which is irrelevant to debate about the intrinsic characeristics of markets.

[ppbbs88]

In markets those with greater bargaining power are in a position to extract a greater proportion of the total economic output than those who have less bargaining power. This is simply an inherent characteristic of markets, "free market" or not. Inequitable results and the socialistion of participants into 'competitive' relations with fellow humans are the predictable consequences.

Equally distributed bargaining power is a fantasy - genetics see to that. Markets reward power, injustice ensues.

[Baijuntak]

don't listen to the video. it is done by some ignorant guy, who doesn't read nor think thoroughly, but, self-richeously believes that he has to bless the world with his genious remarks that, nearly every time start with: "i don't know what he's talking about, but... "

this is exactly the point. you don't know it, cause you choose to be ignorant.

[coffeeintheface]

Ad hominem.

[Baijuntak]

i tend to get quite "ad hominem" when people talk ignorant bullshit.

still standing: his arguments aren't correct, coz he doesn't depict parecon properly, coz he's lazy and self-richeous (oops, i did it again!)

but i'll leave the thread, so you can say all you want and be right. it's not worth it.

[lukeev]

Parecon is silly.

[coffeeintheface]

Excellent critique. With things like Parecon, there always is hierarchy: the hierarchy of the majority over the minority, no matter what "council" or "cooperative" you associate yourself with. And of course they make the age-old mistake of conflating modern capitalist-corporatism with free markets.

[thorsmitersaw]

yea the conflation thing is really a major problem. It is as much a problem with people like me as it is with them. When these sort of things are finally swept aside I think there will be a lot more ground we can share and work from.

[D4Shawn]

Great vid.

There really aren't any new economic ideas. These little movements come along all the time, and people think the issues involved are new and the solutions are new when all this stuff has been debated and resolved (logically/theoretically) long ago.

[GodOfTheInternets]

@D4Shawn

"These little movements come along all the time", yeah like the "marxists" in the 19th and 20th century and the "nazis" in the 1930s and the Austrians and the Keynesians in the 1930s, who knows them right?

[nocturnezero]

@D4Shawn These certainly ARE new economics ideas. The ideas of planning an economy from the bottom up rather than the top down, taking the best thing about markets (horizontality) and combining it with the best thing about Socialist and planned economics (solidarity, self-management). These are values I believe in; you don't have to if you don't want to, but the things I believe shape the economic system I subscribe to. They are subjective.

[Rorshak1313]

Good video. But are you sick or something? You sound different.

Anyway, I hope you have a happy holiday.

[thorsmitersaw]

I am not exactly in the best of spirits

[graaaaaagh]

Great vid. Parecon is silly.

Also, on Stirner - what do you think of the Situationists' idea that if you take Stirner far enough, you get (anarcho-)communism?

[thorsmitersaw]

honestly, I am not familiar with it

[graaaaaagh]

scribd . com/doc/5445156 /The-Right-To-Be-Greedy

[thorsmitersaw]

url isnt working for me. can you email it to me?

[graaaaaagh]

ok, just did