How does Anarchism deal with conflict within its societies? - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14353610
Voluntarism wrote:Getting off track, so will only touch on this briefly. Keynesianism requires Say's Law to be wrong and Keynes attempted but failed to prove that it is wrong. Say's Law (which is really a series of propositions) is by far a truism rather than a theory. Supply is demand because no demand can be met without supply and "demand" itself is essentially unlimited. Any "glut" is simply consumption by someone (the producer) who [b]thought they could trade their production for the production of someone else but it turned out they couldn't [/b]- ie people didn't actually want the crap you produced at the price you are asking for it. The only way to solve such a glut is to unemploy factors and destroy the capital that makes the crap people don't want at the price you're asking and redeploy it into things that people do want at the prices you're asking. This is the recession. You have to move supply backwards (ie stop producing crap) in order to move forwards. (Also, any generalised "hoarding of money" can simply be associated with the fact that people have a demand curve for money stock just like any other commodity.)


I absolutely disagree with that statement! It is true that recessions can happen because of misutilization of the factors of production (thus generating a decrease in investment), but it is myopic to say it is the only possible reason. The busts in the business cycle can also be caused by an increase of savings (which reduces consumption). Therefore, it is not only falling demand for capital goods by entrepreneurs that can decrease production, but also falling demand for goods by families. Keynes then criticized Say's Law on the basis of this perspective. It may be true than in THE LONG RUN supply = demand; but definitely not in the short run, since people may save more of the income (and thus consume less). In fact, Say's Law is fallacious from its premise that rational individuals won't keep their money in cash: "It is worthwhile to remark that a product is no sooner created than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. When the producer has put the finishing hand to his product, he is most anxious to sell it immediately, lest its value should diminish in his hands. Nor is he less anxious to dispose of the money he may get for it; for the value of money is also perishable. But the only way of getting rid of money is in the purchase of some product or other. Thus the mere circumstance of creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products." (J.B. Say, 1803: p.138-9)

That could've been the case in the past. Nobody could really trust any particular currency. However, in modern times, monetary stability has become one of the aims of economic policies. Evidently then, Say's law is not true at all times in all conditions.

Voluntarism wrote:Of relevance to the previous discussion is that Say postulated a situation where all costs of production are at last reduced to zero: "in which case, it is evident there can no longer be rent for land, interest upon capital, or wages on labour, and consequently, no longer any revenue to the productive classes." What will happen then?

What then, I say, these classes would no longer exist. Every object of human want would stand in the same predicament as the air or the water, which are consumed without the necessity of being either produced or purchased. In like manner as every one is rich enough to provide himself with air, so would he be to provide himself with every other imaginable product. This would be the very acme of wealth. Political economy would no longer be a science; we should have no occasion to learn the mode of acquiring wealth; for we should find it ready made to our hands.

Anyway, the simple point was that the government can simply redirect the stream of production and does not need to individually "fund" the supply it diverts because it's ability to demand the diverted goods is only possible if those same goods are actually produced in the first place (ie they cannot distribute flying cars to everyone until the capacity to produce flying cars for everyone exists - and once it can be produced then they can automatically distribute).


What an interesting quote by Say. I agree with him on this. What a beautiful world where everybody is able to have anything they want without exploiting others! The only bad thing is, even though capital can be made ubiquitous and labour can be done by robots (in this way, both factors of production would cost $0), as long as private property is maintained and we don't colonize another planet, then land can never be made accesible for everybody. It is too scarce, esp. when its distribution has always been unequal.

Maybe the State should be present there to expropriate lands and re-distribute them?
#14353619
Matt24 wrote:The busts in the business cycle can also be caused by an increase of savings (which reduces consumption). Therefore, it is not only falling demand for capital goods by entrepreneurs that can decrease production, but also falling demand for goods by families.

But that indeed verifies Say's Law. To demand money (ie to increase savings) is not to demand nothing from the market. Hoarding is the natural response of savers and consumers to a structure of production that does not meet to their needs/wants. It is a signal of protest to entrepreneurs: “Please offer different consumer and capital goods! Change the structure of production, since the composition of offered goods is not appropriate.”
#14353621
Voluntarism wrote:But that indeed verifies Say's Law. To demand money (ie to increase savings) is not to demand nothing from the market. Hoarding is the natural response of savers and consumers to a structure of production that does not meet to their needs/wants. It is a signal of protest to entrepreneurs: “Please offer different consumer and capital goods! Change the structure of production, since the composition of offered goods is not appropriate.”


But producers can't supply money! That's the difference! Money is not a good in itself: it's a medium, and especially for what concerns us, a reserve of value.

Just think about it, let's say producers are selling a high quantity of cars. All of a sudden, car businesses witness their sales going down. In fact, the whole economy is producing less and less. Why? Because families are quite indebted after a period of credit-boom. Now they are increasing their savings, and trying not to spend money on non-basic goods. Do you think it would change anything if producers diverted their resources to producing microwaves, computers, or whatever?

Moreover, if that were the case in the real world, then we would the vast majority of companies closing down every time the economy's in recession. Yet we know that's not the case.
#14353640
Matt24 wrote:But producers can't supply money! That's the difference! Money is not a good in itself: it's a medium, and especially for what concerns us, a reserve of value.

Just think about it, let's say producers are selling a high quantity of cars. All of a sudden, car businesses witness their sales going down. In fact, the whole economy is producing less and less. Why? Because families are quite indebted after a period of credit-boom. Now they are increasing their savings, and trying not to spend money on non-basic goods. Do you think it would change anything if producers diverted their resources to producing microwaves, computers, or whatever?

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. A credit bust following a fiat-backed FRB-credit boom is a great example of misallocation of resources as a result of the mispricing of currency and consumer value. It doesn't negate Say's Law, it negates Keynesian ideas that more credit will solve the problem of the initial misallocation and mispricing rather than create a bigger or more drawn out bust.

Separately, a stock of currency does have demand value in and of itself. The simplest example is if I have regular weekly expenses of $500 but only get paid $2000 per month then my money stock is:
Day 0 = $2,000
Day 7 = $1,500
Day 14= $1,000
Day 21 = $500
Day 28 = $0
Average stock of currency demanded/saved = $1,000.

Now suppose I get paid fortnightly (at $1,000) instead of monthly, then my stock of money is:
Day 0 = $1,000
Day 7 = $500
Day 14= $0
Average stock of currency demanded/saved = $500.

My average demand for savings is therefore different under different circumstances even if my weekly consumption is identical. As people's circumstances change so too can the stock of currency. Obviously you can extend this very simple example into far more variations (including changing the price of currency/debt) to show that people have rational demand for a given level of currency (ie savings) as well as demand for other goods/services.

Matt24 wrote:Moreover, if that were the case in the real world, then we would the vast majority of companies closing down every time the economy's in recession. Yet we know that's not the case.

I don't know why you think the "vast majority" of business activity is not producing what people want to consume. Mostly we are talking about a small section of the economy which can be making the wrong things for many reasons, not least of which is disruptive technology change which requires closure/retooling of wagon making facilities to car making facilities etc. Company failures do increase noticeably during recessions - eg UK or USA.

PS Sorry for dragging your topic off track.
#14353973
Voluntarism wrote:I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. A credit bust following a fiat-backed FRB-credit boom is a great example of misallocation of resources as a result of the mispricing of currency and consumer value. It doesn't negate Say's Law, it negates Keynesian ideas that more credit will solve the problem of the initial misallocation and mispricing rather than create a bigger or more drawn out bust.


I think it does negate Say's Law. Resources aren't misallocated in this particular case: there is no overproduction nor underproduction of products. You say this is not the case, because currency may be mispriced. But that is not always the case. As long as supply catches up with demand in a credit boom, there is no reason for an inflationary scenario.

Anyhow, I only mentioned a decrease in consumption after a credit-boom as an example of a "glut" caused by underconsumption. It is not the only case in which this situation can arise. A case in point is the US economy in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. The recession deepened not because of badly-allocated resources, but as a result of fears and the expectancy of a slowdown. ("In a Blue Chip survey of business economists taken one week later (of the terrorist attacks), 82% answered yes to the question “Is the U.S. economy currently in a recession?”). In fact, who knows what a crisis would've developed if it weren't for U.S. authorities encouraging spending? (In addition to increasing government spending after 9/11, Bush asked Americans to go shopping, and they did -- bringing an economy shattered by the attacks back to full speed within a few years. -- CNN http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/08/911.ov ... index.html).

Bottom-line is, demand shocks negate Say's Law. Say could not foresee in a time of weak currencies that people prefer to "save for the rainy day", instead of spending the money and/or trusting it to financial institutions.

Voluntarism wrote:Separately, a stock of currency does have demand value in and of itself. The simplest example is if I have regular weekly expenses of $500 but only get paid $2000 per month then my money stock is:
Day 0 = $2,000
Day 7 = $1,500
Day 14= $1,000
Day 21 = $500
Day 28 = $0
Average stock of currency demanded/saved = $1,000.

Now suppose I get paid fortnightly (at $1,000) instead of monthly, then my stock of money is:
Day 0 = $1,000
Day 7 = $500
Day 14= $0
Average stock of currency demanded/saved = $500.

My average demand for savings is therefore different under different circumstances even if my weekly consumption is identical. As people's circumstances change so too can the stock of currency. Obviously you can extend this very simple example into far more variations (including changing the price of currency/debt) to show that people have rational demand for a given level of currency (ie savings) as well as demand for other goods/services.


I don't really understand what's the point of the example. In these cases, you're not increasing or decreasing your savings, which is what I'm driving at. You can decide to save more or less, or even to get indebted, any day of the year. Nobody goes around: "I'm always saving $200 of my monthly earnings, every month, every year." It's just foolish to think people behave that way.

Voluntarism wrote:I don't know why you think the "vast majority" of business activity is not producing what people want to consume. Mostly we are talking about a small section of the economy which can be making the wrong things for many reasons, not least of which is disruptive technology change which requires closure/retooling of wagon making facilities to car making facilities etc. Company failures do increase noticeably during recessions - eg UK or USA.


You yourself said that "gluts" can happen only when producers are producing "crap" (your own words, not mine ) and nobody wants that.

Even so, I agree with you that some companies may fail during a recession because of that. But that is almost never the cause of the downfall. Unless we are talking about supply shocks.

Voluntarism wrote:PS Sorry for dragging your topic off track.


Never mind, it's got to a point where nobody is commenting anymore lol. I'm waiting for Technology to answer our last posts
#14353980
Matt24 wrote:Everything starts to take its shape now. I'm getting really fond of your idea of libertarianism.

The transition though from capitalism to technological distributism is what worries me the most. The Government would have a hard task in finding the revenue to re-distribute money in society. We are talking about the vast majority of the population here (in my mind, under such a transition system with technology replacing most labourers, at least 90% of the labour force will be unemployed). Hence the money involved in a redistribution scheme would be considerable. The State will need to start cutting down expenditures before the transition creates an unemployment crisis. If it hastens as soon as possible to reduce costs in public services (say, hiring robots to work as teachers, doctors, nurses, etc.) then maybe the costs involved in maintaining the transition won't be that worrying. But any bad step and the Govt. would find itself having no other choice than using coercive methods to hold back the protests of the unemployed. Which at the same time could destabilize the whole system through a demagogue/communist/nationalist in power. So it becomes really difficult to stay on the right track of our libertarian aim.


It will be difficult, because there are hard battles to be had. It's possible people will turn to Marxist collectivization to solve the problem, or it may be that something else will happen, like a corporate reaction against the undermining of their monopoly power. All we can do is try. In the short term such goals may be disrupted very badly, but in the long run, technological advancement will enable decentralization to emerge as it becomes easier and easier to replicate machines from common sources (humans are essentially that!), and utilize open source information to decentralize the engineering knowledge into a software form anyone can use so long as they follow the plan and use desktop manufacturing to build individual parts, and this will tend to undermine centralized control, which will require more and more force to maintain. Since communities and individuals will become more independent through these processes


Matt24 wrote:That said, libertarian distributism through technology sounds incredibly realistic with all these additions. Nevertheless, even though you disagree, I would still label it a "utopia". The roots of the whole system lie in the possibilities of technology freeing humans from the monopolistic ownership of the means of production (be it the burgoesie or the state). And it's still a long way to go for that. But that's not all: even time is no certainty that this can be achieved. I wanted to show you this article by chess legend Garry Kasparov: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8adeca00 ... abdc0.html He has been one of the critics of the so-called technological progress of the last decades. He argues that most of the tech innovations from the 90s onwards have had little or no impact on productivity. And if you think about it, he's right. Mobile phones, iPads, GPS... they're nothing but sumptuous goods which don't really alter our dependance on corporations for fulfilling our most basic needs. And at the same time, these items are entirely useless for those corporations too. All in all, they have contributed nothing to our ways of living. If the markets keep driving scientists to devising these unworthy tools, then even if centuries go by we won't get any closer to this technological distributism ideal.


Unfortunately, I can't read that article without a prescription, but I don't think Garry Kasparov is the most unbiased person on this subject considering the chess skills he'd spent his life perfecting were bested by a computer. Now we are at the stage of natural language comprehension (beyond the move analysis of chess), and so there are machines like Watson which can win at Jeopardy.

Developments in consumer computing driven by market competition for consumer demand, have catered to the consumers desire to have more informational power at their fingertips. Consumer technology in computers may still be tied to big corps in terms of production, but computers have already opened the door to the first inklings of technological distributism in allowing information to spread freely. On the internet, the application of copyright law has been weakened in practice, and old business models have been threatened. As a consequence, corps have lobbied government for harsher penalties and a more locked down and less open internet. There has been a backlash against measures like SOPA, and there will be further societal battles to be had in the future. On the information front, Pandora's Box has already been opened, and now the powers that be are madly trying to close it shut. This may lead to a retrenchment of the old society, but here too they'll fail since they need consumer demand and have keep soldiering on in technological progress in order to fulfill the growth in profit they desire, so corporations (of those who even realize) are really in a Catch 22 situation with no winning move... in the long run, anyway.
#14354892
Technology wrote:It will be difficult, because there are hard battles to be had. It's possible people will turn to Marxist collectivization to solve the problem, or it may be that something else will happen, like a corporate reaction against the undermining of their monopoly power. All we can do is try. In the short term such goals may be disrupted very badly, but in the long run, technological advancement will enable decentralization to emerge as it becomes easier and easier to replicate machines from common sources (humans are essentially that!), and utilize open source information to decentralize the engineering knowledge into a software form anyone can use so long as they follow the plan and use desktop manufacturing to build individual parts, and this will tend to undermine centralized control, which will require more and more force to maintain. Since communities and individuals will become more independent through these processes


I agree with you. What I underlined from your post is what I think is specially necessary to achieve this. "Open source information" for the reasons you mentioned below. The Internet has made great strides toward making information accesible to anyone, and as long as big online corporations like Google don't yield to political powers, then I believe people won't allow the Internet to be censored or anything of the like. The fact that "anyone can use (these technologies)" is also very important in my mind. If these turn out to be too complex, then decentralization just won't happen. People need to be able to use these technologies without any special "training", and without much loss of time. Otherwise we'll pay for a "3D printer" or special corporations to make our goods, just like we rely on tailors/seamstresses/department stores to make our clothes (instead of buying a sewing machine ourselves).

Technology wrote:Unfortunately, I can't read that article without a prescription, but I don't think Garry Kasparov is the most unbiased person on this subject considering the chess skills he'd spent his life perfecting were bested by a computer. Now we are at the stage of natural language comprehension (beyond the move analysis of chess), and so there are machines like Watson which can win at Jeopardy.

Developments in consumer computing driven by market competition for consumer demand, have catered to the consumers desire to have more informational power at their fingertips. Consumer technology in computers may still be tied to big corps in terms of production, but computers have already opened the door to the first inklings of technological distributism in allowing information to spread freely. On the internet, the application of copyright law has been weakened in practice, and old business models have been threatened. As a consequence, corps have lobbied government for harsher penalties and a more locked down and less open internet. There has been a backlash against measures like SOPA, and there will be further societal battles to be had in the future. On the information front, Pandora's Box has already been opened, and now the powers that be are madly trying to close it shut. This may lead to a retrenchment of the old society, but here too they'll fail since they need consumer demand and have keep soldiering on in technological progress in order to fulfill the growth in profit they desire, so corporations (of those who even realize) are really in a Catch 22 situation with no winning move... in the long run, anyway.


You are right, Kasparov may not be too impartial about it. But the article was also co-written by Peter Thiel (a FB investor and Paypal's founder, so he has no reason to speak against modern technology), and I think they have a good argument.

I fully agree that the Internet has done wonders. Yet think about the latest technological innovations. After computers (and consequently the Internet), what else did we get? iPods, iPhones, iPads... are any of them really worth their invention? Can we say that iPads revolutionized our lives like the Internet did? I understand that consumers demanded to have information available at their hands, but now it's getting to the point where these new products don't bring anything that new or even productive for businesses.

It's time we used our resources for something more worthwhile: such as desktop manufacturing processes, as you say. Just consider how much talented human capital we are wasting on these gadgets. Mind you, it's better to waste them on this than on warfare; however, it's still a waste in all possible aspects.
#14354937
A waste according to your personal preferences..
Consumers say otherwise. Who are you to say tablets are a waste of resources?
Do you expect every new technology to be groundbreaking? Most innovation happens on a small incremental scale, improving what had come before. Just because you don't approve of it doesn't make it a waste.
#14355338
mum wrote:A waste according to your personal preferences..
Consumers say otherwise. Who are you to say tablets are a waste of resources?
Do you expect every new technology to be groundbreaking? Most innovation happens on a small incremental scale, improving what had come before. Just because you don't approve of it doesn't make it a waste.


I'm nobody, of course. And no, it's not that I'm expecting every new technology to be groundbreaking, but they're making such a big deal out of those gadgets. "The iPad 65 came out..."; "A new iPhone model has been launched..." etc.

When you think about the big corporations of the century, two big names stand out: Apple and Google. And although Google was and is a big part of the "Internet revolution", it is now creating mobile software like Android and products like Google Glass; while Apple is not anymore about computers but rather about cellphones, tablets, etc.

I'm not saying they're worth nothing. Obviously people buy these things for a reason. Yet I feel like it's stupid to keep innovating them. We already have cellphones to go to the Internet. Do we really need information more accessible than that? Now Google is designing hi-tech glasses to stay connected to the Internet at all times! And to record pics and video of everything you see! Isn't it a tad too much? Moreover, why do we need bigger and bigger cellphones? Do they really need to have touchscreen?

Don't get me wrong though, I'd rather we waste resources on that than on missiles and war-technology like it mainly used to be during WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam... However, it is a shame tech-progress means only "smaller computers".

Just my two cents on the matter.
#14355443
Matt24 wrote:why do we need bigger and bigger cellphones? Do they really need to have touchscreen?

Its not because you cannot think of a good reason for cellphones to have big touch screens that there aren't any reasons. If you can't think of a good reason, then just stay with the "dumb phones" of the late '90s. Its non-sensical to ask ask "why do people need ...". You can't have a debate about what the optimal size of a touch screen should be. That depends on the subjective preferences of consumers. You can never say that those preferences are wrong.

Anyone, what do we need email for when fax works just as well?
#14355457
Exactly.
What did we need DSL internet for when we had 56k modems ?

Don't confuse your personal preferences with the best way for society to progress. The only things that are truly wasteful are generally those that governments bring about. Wars, NSA spying programs, bridges to nowhere....
#14356392
Nunt wrote:Its not because you cannot think of a good reason for cellphones to have big touch screens that there aren't any reasons. If you can't think of a good reason, then just stay with the "dumb phones" of the late '90s. Its non-sensical to ask ask "why do people need ...". You can't have a debate about what the optimal size of a touch screen should be. That depends on the subjective preferences of consumers. You can never say that those preferences are wrong.

Anyone, what do we need email for when fax works just as well?



mum wrote:Exactly.
What did we need DSL internet for when we had 56k modems ?

Don't confuse your personal preferences with the best way for society to progress. The only things that are truly wasteful are generally those that governments bring about. Wars, NSA spying programs, bridges to nowhere....


I'm sorry, but I don't think those examples are comparable to what I said.

E-mails and high-speed Internet have contributed to productivity in businesses. Most business transactions of today (and everything from paying taxes to finding information about a product) would not happen in a world with no emails and just faxes. Imagine the cost of trying to fax somebody in the other corner of the world! Emails make that cost equal to zero. Imagine trying to download files, consult information with 56k modems!

My point is, all of these advances have been useful for the economy in general. Now please tell me if that can compare to super-fast mobile phones, tablets, etc. That doesn't help increase productivity at all. It's only a household product, just like vacuum machines and sofas are. So, all I'm saying is, isn't it a tad wasteful to employ great minds on sofas and vacuum machines?

Anyway, I'm not disregarding consumer preferences or anything. It's not society's fault, it's the fact that these technological corporations have grown too much. And if I haven't clarified yet, I don't entirely support this view. Just trying to find reasons for Kasparov's & Thiel's argument. Which sort of makes sense, in my mind.
#14356438
Matt24 wrote:My point is, all of these advances have been useful for the economy in general. Now please tell me if that can compare to super-fast mobile phones, tablets, etc. That doesn't help increase productivity at all. It's only a household product, just like vacuum machines and sofas are. So, all I'm saying is, isn't it a tad wasteful to employ great minds on sofas and vacuum machines?

Anyway, I'm not disregarding consumer preferences or anything. It's not society's fault, it's the fact that these technological corporations have grown too much. And if I haven't clarified yet, I don't entirely support this view. Just trying to find reasons for Kasparov's & Thiel's argument. Which sort of makes sense, in my mind.

But the whole purpose of production is consumption.

Also super-fast mobile phones and tablets are used extensively in businesses as well as households and the innovations required in reducing size and weight while increasing functionality and speed have many spin-offs including on the design and construction of the future robot servants technology has been discussing.
#14356525
Matt24 wrote:E-mails and high-speed Internet have contributed to productivity in businesses. Most business transactions of today (and everything from paying taxes to finding information about a product) would not happen in a world with no emails and just faxes. Imagine the cost of trying to fax somebody in the other corner of the world! Emails make that cost equal to zero. Imagine trying to download files, consult information with 56k modems!

Just because you cannot imagine which productivity increases may come from fast mobile devices, does not mean that they do not have any uses.

People buy those things so they must get some satisfaction out of it. I see a lot of people using tablets and smartphones on the workfloor. Are you saying they are all wrong and you know better?

Its a very strong statement to say: "I can't imagine any uses for new technology, so the technology is not useful". Are those millions of consumers really wrong and misguided. How come you know better?
#14356749
Voluntarism wrote:But the whole purpose of production is consumption. :?:


Yes, but I'm not referring to the creation of wealth per se. I am specifically talking about the possibility of achieving this liberating potential of technology. It's not like I am objecting the acquisition of smartphones and tablets.

Voluntarism wrote:Also super-fast mobile phones and tablets are used extensively in businesses as well as households and the innovations required in reducing size and weight while increasing functionality and speed have many spin-offs including on the design and construction of the future robot servants technology has been discussing.


This is a good point. I agree these technological innovations may have future applications. After all, we couldn't have created a TV without first making a radio receiver, right?

Now the big question is: how quickly will these future applications progress? In the long run, it seems very likely that 3D printers and robots will become fully operational. How long it will be though, is another matter. It may well be that these big developments are somewhat delayed for the creation of tech devices which are ancillary to the life of human beings. That's where my argument was driving at. Just to clarify again, I'm not saying people are stupid for consuming those products. Heck, I have a smartphone myself, so I'm not one to judge.

Nunt wrote:Just because you cannot imagine which productivity increases may come from fast mobile devices, does not mean that they do not have any uses.

People buy those things so they must get some satisfaction out of it. I see a lot of people using tablets and smartphones on the workfloor. Are you saying they are all wrong and you know better?

Its a very strong statement to say: "I can't imagine any uses for new technology, so the technology is not useful". Are those millions of consumers really wrong and misguided. How come you know better?


I'll repeat what I said to Voluntarism above: "I'm not saying people are stupid for consuming those products. (I have a smartphone myself, so I'm not one to judge)". All I'm asking is whether the production of these tablets and mobiles are diverting resources from more useful goods (emphasis on "more") or not.


Technology wrote:...ludicrous private property claims granted to highest bidder corporations under neoliberal privatization...


Technology, I have a question. Which thinkers theorized these ideas of technological distributism? Could it have been Murray Bookchin? I've been reading more information about Anarchism and I found out that Bookchin expressed similar ideas to the ones we've been discussing in his book "Post-Scarcity Anarchism".
Was he the first one to propose this anarchist system? Do others advocate his ideas?
#14356759
Voluntarism wrote:I think the term "more useful" is the problem just like the term "wasteful production". It automatically comes with the baggage of personal preferences and some sort of idea that you know better. (I don't mean "you" personally, I mean the interventionist "you".)


Yes I agree it is entirely subjective. But it's a discussion worth having, I think.
#14357003
Matt24 wrote:I'll repeat what I said to Voluntarism above: "I'm not saying people are stupid for consuming those products. (I have a smartphone myself, so I'm not one to judge)". All I'm asking is whether the production of these tablets and mobiles are diverting resources from more useful goods (emphasis on "more") or not.

That doesn't really change matters. Instead of calling people 100% stupid for buying non-usefull smarthphones, you call them 50% stupid for not spending their money at something more useful than smartphones.

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