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> You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural It really isn't. The whole point of the market system is to collectively align people's actions t
by zozbot234 7mo ago
> You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural
It really isn't. The whole point of the market system is to collectively align people's actions towards a shared target of "Pareto-optimized total welfare". And even then the alignment is approximate and heavily constrained due to a combination of transaction costs (which also account for e.g. externalities) and information asymmetries. But transaction costs and information asymmetries apply to any system of alignment, including non-market ones. The market (augmented with some pre-determined legal assignment of property rights, potentially including quite complex bundles of rules and regulations) is still your best bet.
- dns_snek 7mo agoBroad alignment =/= Wealth maximization.
- _DeadFred_ 7mo agoThe market aligned us with children working in sweat shops after we outlawed it by convincing us it was OK if it was foreign kids and we got to share in pocketing the savings not just the evil factory owner.
- dns_snek 7mo agoYes I'm well aware. Of course that's not how things are advertised to people, and they absolutely hate it when this is pointed out to them. This tells me that deep down they don't actually agree with how the system operates.
- jasonwatkinspdx 7mo agoPlease read David Graeber. What you describe is factually not how human society formed.
- zozbot234 7mo agoAIUI David Graeber famously pointed out that people in small groups can form the equivalent of a "market" simply by exchanging favours ("I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine") in an informal gift economy, without any money-like token or external unit of account. That's quite in line with what I said.
- jasonwatkinspdx 7mo agoYou understanding is mistaken. Graeber's "everyday communism" is not a market, and his whole larger point is that contorting everything to the lens of markets is simply ahistorical and unempirical. I'd strongly suggest reading his books. They profoundly changed my understanding of how human institutions and society form.
- zozbot234 7mo agoUnless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. What happens if people try to free-ride on the whole "communist" system? If they get excluded from its benefits, that's equivalent to enforcing some bundle of property rights.
- jasonwatkinspdx 7mo ago> Unless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. No, it does not, and that's Graeber's whole point. "Markets" are not some sort of physical law of the universe. A simple example of this is it's the norm in hunter gatherer societies to take care of people who never will make an equal contribution back in the transactional sense. Because the social ties in those societies are not simply transactions. If your model fails to accurately describe empirical reality, time to improve/expand the model.
- zozbot234 7mo agoThese social ties are real (they are a kind of wealth, or social capital, for the persons involved) but they're also limited to very small social groups, the equivalent of a modern small village neighborhood or HOA. The point of the market is that it scales well beyond those.