Although I agree with your general point, I would offer some refinement on the
details. It is possible to remove some goods from the market. The trend at the
moment is to push goods into markets, but in the past some countries have removed
health insurance from the market. There have been partial removals with the
introduction of government pharmaceutical plans. If I remember correctly, public
transit in Seattle and Portland is paid for from tax revenues rather than fares.
My general programme would include identification of the areas in which the basic
needs of the population were not being met by the market. Design non market
programmes to deliver those goods. And hope that the demonstration effect would
induce the spread of alternative methods of distribution.
Rod
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >My main complaint about the idea of market socialism is that it does
> >nothing to go beyond the sort of incentives that contaminate life in
> >a capitalist economy. I would prefer to take a chance that people
> >can go beyond the limited incentives of selfishness that dominate
> >market society. I
> >may be wrong, but if so capitalism might even be superior to market socialism.
>
> How do you propose to get to a nonmarket socialism? Seems to me the
> only hope is to bend, push, modify, transform what exists now, which
> means, in Diane Elson's phrase, socializing markets. It seems
> abstract and adventurist to talk about any postmarket socialism as if
> you could just pull it down from the shelf.
>
> Doug
--
Rod Hay
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