Computers for Free & No Accountants!

By Kevin

free4.gifLooking up a quote from Marx, I came across worldsocialism.org's proposals for economic reform. And not a moment too soon, because now I know the truth:

The time has come in the history of our species when it can get everything it wants for free. Yes, you heard me right, for free!

Technology has evolved to the point where there is no reason why food, clothes, housing, medical care, education, transportation, computers, books, CDs, digital connections, cannot be freely available to all human beings on the planet. It is time for such a change.

You say that, given their current human capital, billions and billions of people cannot possibly afford all these goodies? Why, didn't you know that capitalists maximize their profit by wasting resources coordinating private plans? Why, all we have to do is eliminate the coordinators!:
There are many other examples of employment which is necessary for the profit system but would be immediately redundant in a socialist society of common rather than private ownership and production for use instead of for market sale. The list is a long one - legal workers, chartered accountants, cost accountants, estimators, valuers, claims assessors, underwriters, brokers, taxation workers, marketing and sales personnel, advertisers, social security workers, cashiers and check-out assistants, police, prison workers, security guards, charities, armies, navies, air forces, armament workers, defence establishments etc.
Thankfully, I do not have to live in a world where these views are serious contenders for popular ideology.

-- October 26, 2004 5:06 PM |

Comments

Andrew McManama-Smith wrote:

Hahaha, that is scary!
I wonder what those people think of mises.org?

-- October 26, 2004 5:17 PM ∞

jen larson wrote:

While the position that socialism will reduce clutter is silly, the idea of "fat" in the system is crucial.

For example we spend around 35% of our health care dollars on administration, roughly double that of the rest of the industrialized world.

Without arguing for socialized system why is a supposedly competitive system less efficient than a government run one?

Arguments of superiority are less than convincing because we spend roughly twice as big a percentage of our wealth as do other industrial nations. With slightly lower life expectancies.

And while in most of the industrialized world it is possible to get US quality care by increasing personal expences to the US average, in the US most of us can't get into a system that uses 10% of total resources rather than 17%.

I will submit that the position that "our system is better because it is private" is probably as irrational as the socialist gist. It is true that lawsuits and defensive medicine are responsible for a significant part of the difference, but not most of it.

There is certainly redundant labor in many places.
Parts of government are certainly an example. Government does add to it by regulations which provide little tangible benefit while increasing the needs for accountants and others. But much of the private sector especially corporate bureaucracy is equally guilty.

And a large number of well positioned sectors do not compete. We haven't seen a move by real estate agents to cut their percentages. So there is flab there.


-- October 28, 2004 2:30 PM ∞

Kevin Brancato wrote:

Point taken about slack in the system. But slack in a competitive system means "profit opportunity" for those willing and able to become the middlemen who remove the slack.

Also, real estate agents in my area can be dickered to 4%, down from 6% a few years ago.

-- October 30, 2004 12:25 PM ∞

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