this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/542559

The irrational way of ressource allocation and oganization of production inherent in capitalism leads to wasted economic potential in pursuit of personal gain and profits, instead of democratizing the workplace, improving living standards and reducing work hours. We waste the potential found in automation on producing mostly useless things that are designed to break in a few years, while also threatening the job security of countless of working people instead of shortening the work week with same or increased pay.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Monopolism is bad, but markets can be a ludicrously powerful tool. I'm personally a georgist, which is an economic ideology that holds we should have free markets free of rent-seeking and monopolism. It aims to do that mainly by policies such as land value taxes, Pigouvian taxes (such as carbon tax), severance taxes (taxes on the extraction of finite natural resources), elimination of bad taxes and bad regulations, and intellectual property reform.

When the market fails to solve climate change, that's because carbon pollution is a negative externality, which tends to cause market failure. Price carbon correctly using taxes, and suddenly you have what is agreed upon by basically all economists as the best, most efficient climate policy.

When the housing market goes amok and housing becomes unaffordable, it's usually because land is fundamentally scarce and NIMBY regulations are manufacturing an artificial scarcity of housing. Much of those NIMBY policies like zoning make it literally illegal to build enough housing in the places that need it most. If you tax land -- a kind of tax regarded by almost all economists as the "perfect" tax -- you also remove the ability to speculate and hoard land. No more hoarding vacant lots in growing cities.

Markets are a tool. It'd be a stupid to throw out a powerful tool just because it fails under certain conditions. The key is you just gotta understand when markets fail and why, then implement technocratic policy to correct those failures.