Allocation of the Means of Production in Non-State-Capitalist Socialism

[CartCollector]

How are the means of production allocated in non-state-capitalist socialism? I mean, I know how it's done in state capitalism (the state), but I don't know how it would work in other forms of socialism, like in market socialism, all the social anarchism variants, and other types of socialism that reject state intervention in the economy. I keep hearing this argument from capitalists that there's risk in the economy and therefore the means of production should be privately owned because of risk and that anything other than capitalism allocates the means of production inefficiently, so it would be really helpful to know. Also no I don't want to hear some futuristic fantasy about what will happen once we can produce things effortlessly and scarcity is ended. I want to know how the means of production can be created and destroyed to meet people's needs given the current level of production.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

How are the means of production allocated in non-state-capitalist socialism? I mean, I know how it's done in state capitalism (the state), but I don't know how it would work in other forms of socialism, like in market socialism, all the social anarchism variants, and other types of socialism that reject state intervention in the economy. I keep hearing this argument from capitalists that there's risk in the economy and therefore the means of production should be privately owned because of risk and that anything other than capitalism allocates the means of production inefficiently, so it would be really helpful to know. Also no I don't want to hear some futuristic fantasy about what will happen once we can produce things effortlessly and scarcity is ended. I want to know how the means of production can be created and destroyed to meet people's needs given the current level of production.

Capitalists allocate capital to those sectors of the economy with the highest profit rate, which is the same as saying that means of production are devoted to producing those goods with greatest excess of demand over current supply. While you could prioritize certain goods over others for various reasons I don't see why this same method couldn't be utilized under socialism.

[syndicat]

socialism needs to be a non-profit economy, organized to produce for direct benefit.

one way to allocate means of production would be the method proposed by participatory planning (see for example the works of Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert on this subject). this is for a non-market worker-managed economy. a worker organization is allotted means of production as long as the benefit provided equals the costs consumed by production.

benefit can be measured in two ways. if people invididually use up part of their consumption credit to acquire (buy) a product, the price they pay can be taken as a measure of the benefit to that person.

if the production group is not making things people want, or demand drops, then the benefit may not be equal to the cost, and there is then the option of disbanding that production group and putting the resources elsewhere.

the other way to measure benefit would be in terms of the way a community or region decides directly to have certain services or goods produced, such as education, electric power, houses, whatever. in this case i'm thinking about free public goods. In this case the demand (as measured through some participatory budgeting process) would justify allocation of means of production to worker groups to provide the requested goods & services.

also, let's say a group comes up with an idea for a new product. if they can get enough people to request it, then this demand may warrant allocating them enough resources to begin production of that product.

[Physicist]

[...]I keep hearing this argument from capitalists that there's risk in the economy and therefore the means of production should be privately owned because of risk

Risk in finance is merely a disconnection between expected results and the actual cash flow an enterprise experiences. In other words, obligations and money spent are not refitted with profit. One example would be a new franchisee lavishly furnishing his or her restaurant with fine chairs only to find out a year later that he's incorrectly calculated the effect this will have on consumer demand. Perhaps that type of fabric he used is too ornate for his customer base, or perhaps he didn't advertise his organization properly to literally take away the money customers would otherwise have spent on other things. (Note, I am not saying that money growth doesn't occur, but most of it is done in commercial markets and only later develops into income)

While I'm a market socialist in principle, think about the repercussions of this cost-analysis approach. As I said, risk is a mismatch between expectations and what consumers really want. While demand changes with the weather, it makes sense that the least likely way to incur risk is to plan according to consumer's demands/wants. Companies already try to do that, but they're vying against each other and the current oligopolies steal away from upcoming organizations.