Thread: Socialism as transitional solution to overcome the dependence on the global market?

By this trend, our market in the US and Europe only can collapse.
The world´s economy is dependent on a situation in which every cogwheel is working properly.
The Japanese earthqake gave us a good insight into what happens, when even one country takes some damage. Even the production in Germany had to stop for a time because of the lack of supplier ware from Japan.

And this is not the only Problem.
Western companies will play no role anymore. Every company producing in China has to give away its know-how to Chinese authorities. Furthermore, there is no way to take ground in China for a foreign company without a cooperation with a Chinese company side by side.
Chinese companies will produce the goods in future. They will offer it even cheaper then western companies can. Mabye, western companies would not be allowed to produce in China anymore.
The result is a lack of proceeds for us. Therewith a lack of new investments and developments. A downward spiral will accrue.

Nobody is alerting us about that. We are running straight into a desaster, while they tell us about our golden future.

A good solution would be socialism.
Why? Because we need to control our economies now. Otherwise, the economies will destroy them self. The companies are controled by people, who just are responsible for their short incumbency. "Not matter, what´s when I leave. I get big bonuses by increasing the profit. Let´s go to China"
"Damn, others are going to China, if I want to be competitive in future, I also have to go to China".

Socialism makes it possible to lead the companies without profit thinking.
It´s main concern is to keep it running.
So we lead our economies through this period, until national markets will be able to stand alone in future.
Then we can ponder, which companies can go private again and which better not.

What do you think?

Socialism is what got us into this mess. It is a parasitic tumor on a capitalistic free market that perverts the accumulation of capital, otherwise known as money, from a means to an end, to an end unto itself. In the process money has to go fiat, which will eventually become useless paper.

We need to remember that money is not wealth in and of itself, it is a unit of measure of the resources needed to live and accomplish goals, a means to an end. We wouldn't call someone with an overabundance of rulers to be wealthy, would we?

What we need to do retie our currency to something tangible. Gold is a poor choice, there isn't enough of it, and it really isn't all that useful. It should be tied instead to resources, energy, labor, and intellectual property. The Treasury would issue money as credit based on the amount of strategic resources extracted for use, and to a lesser degree recycled material returned to circulation, our energy production capability, our labor force, and our education level. Those are the things needed to drive an economy, material, and power to forge it into something useful.

Originally Posted by Commodore

Socialism is what got us into this mess. It is a parasitic tumor on a capitalistic free market that perverts the accumulation of capital, otherwise known as money, from a means to an end, to an end unto itself. In the process money has to go fiat, which will eventually become useless paper.

We need to remember that money is not wealth in and of itself, it is a unit of measure of the resources needed to live and accomplish goals, a means to an end. We wouldn't call someone with an overabundance of rulers to be wealthy, would we?

What we need to do retie our currency to something tangible. Gold is a poor choice, there isn't enough of it, and it really isn't all that useful. It should be tied instead to resources, energy, labor, and intellectual property. The Treasury would issue money as credit based on the amount of strategic resources extracted for use, and to a lesser degree recycled material returned to circulation, our energy production capability, our labor force, and our education level. Those are the things needed to drive an economy, material, and power to forge it into something useful.

You are searching for a patch for the economy. But it´s just a botchiness now. We have to create it new.
Cheap products in the name of the "free market" are something that is prohibited rigorously when it is a national matter. But when it´s a global matter, it´s freedom. That´s the mess.
Excluding rationality, we don´t have any reasons or inducement to get the production back to our countries. Financial services are just a mean to get products. They will run safer wihout the compulsion to be the biggest, only and the surviving company. In this race, none of this companies will survive.

So we need to change something to get started again.
Socialist companies ain´t born to fail. One example:
Many socialist companies from the GDR (Socialistic Germany) are very thriving even today.
And in my OP´s remarks, many companies ain´t supposed to be socialistic for ever, just for the time, they need to.

Bleipriester, a lot of what you want here is not about Socialism it is about protectionism. There is one tiny problem with protectionism. The west could not possibly maintain its current level of wealth without outsourcing to other parts of the world (read: exploiting other parts of the world). Not even remotely. How much would you believe your clothes and your shoes would cost if they were all produced in Europe or even in your own country? I can tell you. Shoes would start at 90€ maybe, shirts maybe at 50€. The basic ones, no luxury. Apart from that are self sufficient national markets a pipe dream. We don't live in the 18th century anymore. An isolated national market is either dirt poor or needs at least a few hundred million people nowadays to be possibly somewhat self sufficient. In other words, if possible at all, only at European level. But even there you'd face major problems which might be possibly overcome but only at a considerable loss of general wealth.

Last time national economies headed towards protectionism was in the 20th century and it was disastrous for all.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

protectionism

EU-terminology to black paint the most essential tasks of a government.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

There is one tiny problem with protectionism. The west could not possibly maintain its current level of wealth without outsourcing to other parts of the world (read: exploiting other parts of the world). Not even remotely.

Indeed. With outsourcing we can maintain it for a while. Then we will lose it.
My idea is to keep as much wealth as possible.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

How much would you believe your clothes and your shoes would cost if they were all produced in Europe or even in your own country? I can tell you. Shoes would start at 90€ maybe, shirts maybe at 50€. The basic ones, no luxury.

One pair GDR-made shoes: 2,50 GDR-Mark


Entertainment products e.g. will become more expensive, sure. But therewith, the wages will increase. After some time we will reach our current level - but on a much saver stage.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

An isolated national market is either dirt poor or needs at least a few hundred million people nowadays to be possibly somewhat self sufficient.

I wasn´t talking about isolated markets, Slartibartfas. I was talking about stand alone markets, which will not collapse in a chain reaction, when one does. That´s safety.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

In other words, if possible at all, only at European level. But even there you'd face major problems which might be possibly overcome but only at a considerable loss of general wealth.

"Possibly" sounds much better than "assuredly", don´t you think?

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Last time national economies headed towards protectionism was in the 20th century and it was disastrous for all.

Woldwar is not an alternative to a uncontrolled global market. May I remember you of the good things of "protectionism"?
"Made in Germany" is made in England actually. The Brits ordered Germany to label it´s products which are supposed to be sold in the UK with the "Made in Germany" branding to protect the British market from "cheap German goods". But it became a worldwide cachet.

Originally Posted by Bleipriester

You are searching for a patch for the economy. But it´s just a botchiness now. We have to create it new.
Cheap products in the name of the "free market" are something that is prohibited rigorously when it is a national matter. But when it´s a global matter, it´s freedom. That´s the mess.

It's not a patch, its a restoration.

Manufacturing once depended on raw materials and know how, small shops and craftsmanship ruled. New materials made manufacturing dependent on massive energy and labor intensive facilities, making the flow to where ever resources, energy and labor are cheapest unstoppable. Technology will soon make manufacturing dependent on just the resources and intellectual property to produce the goods once more, which swings the pendulum back in the first worlds favor.

Bleipriester:
There are "market economies" and "planned economies".
The GDR which you seem to fancy for some reason, was a planned economy and it failed utterly.

Besides:
You can't look at GDR shoes for 2.5 Mark and go like "Oh look how cheap they were".
Those were not market prices...those were fixed prices.
They propably did cost 60 Mark but somebody decided that they will be sold for 2.5 Mark.

Originally Posted by Commodore

It's not a patch, its a restoration.

What you point out is just a reset to the initial situation. Every time it threatens to collapse, it could collapse to a not restorable level.

Originally Posted by Commodore

Manufacturing once depended on raw materials and know how, small shops and craftsmanship ruled. New materials made manufacturing dependent on massive energy and labor intensive facilities, making the flow to where ever resources, energy and labor are cheapest unstoppable. Technology will soon make manufacturing dependent on just the resources and intellectual property to produce the goods once more, which swings the pendulum back in the first worlds favor.

Yes, but I wrote about it in the OP. When western know-how goes to Chinese authorities and the ability to build production means to the cooperating Chinese companies, it is just a matter of time, till China can build and develope without us.
Then we combine it with the Chinese ability to produce even cheaper than we do, and our failure is pre-programmed.

Originally Posted by El_Zoido

You can't look at GDR shoes for 2.5 Mark and go like "Oh look how cheap they were".
Those were not market prices...those were fixed prices.
They propably did cost 60 Mark but somebody decided that they will be sold for 2.5 Mark.

In socialistic times, there are no money costs. Just costs of man power. Money ist just a mean to distribute goods and is supposed to be abolished in socialism.
We won´t reach that stage, because we would re-activate the market economy before.

Originally Posted by Bleipriester

In socialistic times, there are no money costs. Just costs of man power. Money ist just a mean to distribute goods and is supposed to be abolished in socialism.
We won´t reach that stage, because we would re-activate the market economy before.

Indeed money is used to distribute ressources. It's a rather efficent system if the free market is protected from obstruction.
This system has worked for more than 2000 years, even on large scale.

What you had in the GDR is ressources (materials and labour) being wasted all the time. Inefficiency in which sometimes more people were employed for maintainance than production.
Centralized planning or socialism is not the answer. Neither is laizse-faire capitalism. Both render a free society disfunctional and lead to self-distructive mismanagement.