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>>"The issue of overproduction is a common crisis in Capitalism where more goods are produced than there are customers to consume them. In a free market this s

>>"The issue of overproduction is a common crisis in Capitalism where more goods are produced than there are customers to consume them. In a free market this should result in prices dropping until the excess supply lowers to meet demand. But what typically happens is that manufacturers either artificially restrict supply or resort to simply destroying the unsold goods. "<< --- Seems like a correct observation, pointed out by the article. I had not given it a thought before. But, by the same token, isn't setting up this type of 'smart city' with human-less services, also a significant investment, and also can be overdone. What will happens when this type of infrastructure is overdone ? I personally think, that 'de-urbanization' with increased mobility across cities, 80%+ telecommute work force, and a 4 day work week, is the answer to many of today's issues in developed and yet-to-be-developed economies (still corruption, political militarization of law enforcement -- are huge issues that must be addressed).

gnicholas 9y ago
> But what typically happens is that manufacturers either artificially restrict supply or resort to simply destroying the unsold goods. Note that the link regarding destruction of unsold goods has nothing to do with cars. It's about H&M clothing. In an article that's all about cars/housing, it's a bit off-topic to use this as support. Including a parenthetical noting that the citation is about clothes, not cars, would be less misleading. Most people won't read every linked piece, and those who don't shouldn't be misled. This was in a section called "Crisis of Car Manufacturing" and was preceded and followed by paragraphs solely focused on cars and auto manufacturing.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Really old unsold cars do get recycled. however car manufacturing is switching to even more on demand and bespoke pattern. Toy get to put in Amb order for a car with options A-F in your colour of choice. Only typical serious and a few of those are available on hand.
vidarh 9y ago
That observation is simply Marx restated: " A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented." (From the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto) The idea that capitalism inevitably leads to such crises forcing it to increase levels of exploitation, eventually pushing things too far, is the most central underlying idea of Marxism.

gnicholas 9y ago

> But what typically happens is that manufacturers either artificially restrict supply or resort to simply destroying the unsold goods. Note that the link regarding destruction of unsold goods has nothing to do with cars. It's about H&M clothing. In an article that's all about cars/housing, it's a bit off-topic to use this as support. Including a parenthetical noting that the citation is about clothes, not cars, would be less misleading. Most people won't read every linked piece, and those who don't shouldn't be misled. This was in a section called "Crisis of Car Manufacturing" and was preceded and followed by paragraphs solely focused on cars and auto manufacturing.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Really old unsold cars do get recycled. however car manufacturing is switching to even more on demand and bespoke pattern. Toy get to put in Amb order for a car with options A-F in your colour of choice. Only typical serious and a few of those are available on hand.

vidarh 9y ago

That observation is simply Marx restated: " A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented." (From the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto) The idea that capitalism inevitably leads to such crises forcing it to increase levels of exploitation, eventually pushing things too far, is the most central underlying idea of Marxism.