Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:54:14 -0500 (EST)
Hi Stefan
I've cut out everything from your mail apart from one point I want to
question... (I'm not sure if the original formulation was you/Stefan
Mz/Casi...)
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Stefan Merten wrote:
The key question is: How can a free society be self/organized, if there is
no invisible hand at all (no exchange, no money, no market, no state)?
I agree in general but I'd put it a bit differently: How *does* a Free
Society organize itself.
I always used to be very against libertarianism. Now I'm finding the logic
of my own positions is pushing me in that direction. I'm not happy about
this, so would gladly be told why the following suggestion is wrong:
There is an 'invisible hand' in a free society. It doesn't work
through the medium of money, but directly through need. If I (for large
enough values of I) need some software, but that software doesn't exist
in free form, I will write it. If the software already exists in just the
form I want it, I won't bother. The supply of programmers for particular
types of program is regulated by need: this invisible hand is the hand
that scratches your own itch...
Applying this more generally, if there is no bread available, I (again,
for large enough values of I) will learn how to bake and distribute bread
to people. And if there is no flour for me to use, I will set up a mill.
etc. No compulsion, and no monetary incentives; where there is a perceived
need, there will (almost) always be someone who finds it fulfilling to
satisfy the need. If too many people are trying to satisfy a particular
need, then it will become mundane, no-one will want to do it, and the
supply of people who do will again fall off.
Two possible problems with the revised 'invisible hand' (only 2?? ;-):
a. Nobody finds working in a sewage farm fulfulling. Then people will have
to get together and find alternative ways of dealing with sewage that
don't require sewage farms. But maybe in some cases there are no
alternative ways?
b. There is a shortage of doctors. No problem, lots of people would love
to be doctors. But it takes 10 years to learn to be a doctor...
ie. the invisible hand is, in general, incapable of planning ahead.
OK, apart from those two objections, is this idea too absurdly simple to
be possible? Like Adam Smith's invisible hand turns out to be more
ideological wishful thinking than anything else, does this version too?
Cheers
Graham
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