On Mon, 17 Mar 1997, James Devine wrote: > It's important to remember that there's a very important theoretical reason > to categorically reject market mechanisms: it encourages us to develop > alternatives, as Albert and Hahnel have done. I've talked to Robin Hahnel > and he says he doesn't reject markets completely, since any socialist > effort to run the economy would (at least initially) be forced to use > markets. (He said that he agreed with a letter I sent to Albert's Z > magazine.*) But we should know what we're trying to achieve (the utopia) > _before_ we compromise. At least that way we know what the costs of the > compromise are. Jim, we need to develop alternatives, market and nonmarket. I am glad taht there are people who categorically reject markets and so work on nonmarket alternatives, but the need to develop alternatives per se is not a reason to reject markets. Especially if--and this is news to me--Hahnel and other planners think we need markets in a transition of undetermined length. --jks
