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When we explain to other people how our capitalist system works and they recoil in horror
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this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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I've read The Expanse lol. I was describing the system on Earth in that series.
The thing is, markets predate the written word. Some form of trading is literally one of the first things humans did. It could even be a prehuman invention. Eliminating markets is like trying to eliminate prostitution, or drugs.
Markets, much like life, uhh... Find a way.
Instead of turning up your nose, make them work for you, in a way you want. We don't want the markets to spread, unrestrained, like kudsu. We want Bonsai markets.
Not to be the um actually guy, but before any recorded trading existed, there was something called the gift economy. We just gave people the things they need, without expecting anything in return. No trading at all. I wonder what life could be like if we kept that system and people would be free to do whatever they want.
Prove it.
The first writings we have are accounts, receipts, and famously, a complaint about the quality of copper. The first named person in recorded history appears on a tablet accounting for a number of slaves.
Records were literally invented to document trades.
This has been my conclusion as well after many years of deep reflection amidst my depression since the pandemic. The problem with current capitalism isn't markets, it's 'how vulnerable the entire system is to greed & power and if it can grow unchecked like cancer to corrupt the nervous system of society - the government itself'. This sure happened in the most capitalist nation of all as we're witnessing it now, but don't tell me a strong centrally controlled government isn't susceptible to it. A government that can dictate what you can & cannot make holds enormous power over all individuals. Markets really represent individual freedom. I can make a fucking cake and exchange it for whatever piece of jewelry I want from the free market. Currency just allows for easy exchange of goods. These are just tools, not the root of the problem.
Edit: I've interpreted the bonsai tree as - Fedonomy, or federated economy, much like the fediverse, is a federated web of nodes, representing customers, producers, & service providers. It is an economic model that solves the problem of value creation, distribution, & consumption in a democratic, open, & equal manner without a middle man dictating the terms of such economy. It is the natural evolutionary step after capitalism.
https://lemm.ee/c/fedonomy
I created it and it’s empty.
Trade isn't the same as a market, necessarily, and markets aren't the same as the specific Capitalist iteration that depends on the M-C-M' circuit where commodities C are produced with money M in exchange for greater money M'. When Marxists say they wish to abolish markets, they mean so by stating that they wish, rather than production being handled through competing entities where that M-C-M' circuit applies, we instead fold all of these entities into the public sector and democratically plan them along a cooperative basis.
Early on, there would presumably be labor vouchers, which differ from money in that they would be destroyed on first use. A sort of credit for work, for use in the only "store" that exists. Social services and safety nets would be deducted from your "pay" and be free at point of service. Things like that, and this doesn't really constitute a "market" in the normal sense of the word. Eventually, these labor vouchers would likely be abolished once they became unnecessary.
That's really just a company store but worse somehow.
You're going to have a market. If you make markets illegal you'll just have black markets. You need to contend with that, failing to realize that literally killed the Soviet Union. It got so bad, and was such a core part of daily life that they just kinda made it legal, and the union collapsed shortly after.
You can't fix homelessness by making it illegal, you can destroy markets by making them illegal. These things have been tried and failed in practice.
There's a difference between saying we should work towards getting rid of the necessity for Markets, and saying we need to do that instantly, today, by outlawing them. Black Markets didn't kill the Soviet Union, but they did highlight flaws in how it was run and where it was lacking. That's a separate conversation that we can have, if you want, but is largely unimportant.
The thing is, over time, markets centralize through firms outcompeting and absorbing or eliminating smaller firms. This increases barrier to entry as it is more expensive to compete on even footing. Marxists don't want to abolish markets simply by decree, but developing to the point that they no longer make sense. Competition can't last forever, and neither can markets.