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> It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart
by tomc1985 8y ago
> It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart refrigerator is a waste in your vision. The market demands, and entrepreneurs provide.
There needs to be a middle ground between; "the market demands and enterpreneurs provide" means that things society needs don't get done, because there is only incentive to focus on what people want. Some of us would like to live in a world with less crap ideas and products flooding our minds, with more problem-solving with an eye towards social and societal good
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoI think the hardest part of doing democratic socialism is measuring labor. I think that time is a fine unit of measure but I have no data to back that thought up. Everything else about democratic socialism is much easier now in the 21st century. Chile had a computer planned economy in the 1970s that was literally just a bunch of telex machines in factories around the nation talking to a central mainframe in the capital. Also, I think democratic socialism can work on levels other than the national one. Like, neighborhood or town scale. To be embedded in the U.S., such a community would need a to produce some kind of surplus which could entice the neighbors to integrate into the democratic socialist system.
- ci5er 8y agoIf that's what people (that are not you) wanted, then it would happen. You could, of course, use political means to force people to fund your preferences, but that kind of a sucky move, don't you think?