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Because its really hard to predict the future and yet there exist goods that only exist as future goods in the present? Building a house is an investment/risk for the builder; there is no guarantee that someone will want it. People want just about everything, but they have to scale things because there is scarcity and they can't have everything. So ask someone if they want a jet pack and they will say "hell yeah" but that doesn't mean its worth the resources. Just asking people what they want is fruitless; you have to ask them what they are willing to pay (i.e. produce) for. And sometimes they don't know until you've already made it.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
That's a waste of time, resources, and labor. Why should we make things that people might want in the future but might not? In other words, why should we encourage people to want more and ourselves to work more? Let people want what they want and let them get what they want, don't try to make them buy stuff they don't want. It creates false needs and makes people do unwanted labor just so some unproductive idiot can make money off of the unwanted labor. In other words, it is inefficient.
If someone's telling you a way to get rich, they're really telling you a way to make them rich.
If someone's telling you to fight for freedom, they're really telling you to fight for their freedom.
"Market economies require a rule of law. A society without state protection of individual rights, especially the right to own property, would not build private long-term assets, a key ingredient of a growing modern economy." -Alan Greenspan
Yeah, you're right. Because progress is ALWAYS predictable and ALWAYS meets consumer demands and NEVER upsets any of them and is ALWAYS widely accepted. Yeah. yeah.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
Let me ask you, why is consumer demand so important, but social demand, i.e. what the people actually would like and not just the people with money, not important?
It is important. That is why there exists charities, foundations, etc etc. All these fulfill the function of "social demand". If social demand was really high people would give up more of their income. Taking they're income and saying they're demanding is like making someone buy a jetski and asserting that they actually want it, even if they don't. If people have "social demand" they'll donate, if they do not, they will not.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
WHAT? why? if that were true there would be no starving people. Social demand does'nt provide a profit, (which is what counts in a market system). The only incentive is because they would feel bad, there is no material incentive. The ones that MAKE the demands don't have the money.
If the people who had social demand could donate to themselves there would'nt be social demand now would there? The people who have the vast amounts of money TO donate are not the ones suffering here.
Demand when it comes to the market is only as powerful as how much money do you have, this is economics 101, and I'm astonished you can't conprehend it. Social demand is not based on money. People that starve because htey can't afford food don't come up on the market because they don't have money, to affect the market, thats a social demand, because they are part of society (i.e. people).
You should be embarrased that I have to exaplain this to you.
I demand a yacht. Should the community be obliged to provide it if I cannot provide it for myself? Or should I (or an organization acting for my interests) petition others to give me the money (or the yacht itself) but not expect it or steal to gain it?
If I could afford a yacht, I wouldn't need to ask others to give me a yacht. Yes. I am suffering because I do not have a yacht though, it is far more important than people who can't afford air conditioning, in my opinion.
Thats not true. You could have a relatively poor preacher who happens to preach convincingly in front of a rich businessman and the man donates 10,000 dollars. Your ability to persuade and convince others that they will profit from the transaction (the business men felt so good about donating 10,000 dollars he believes it was well spent, or he felt so bad before he donated it that by donating he relieved this pain and felt pleasure because of it).
The difference is you make interpersonal value comparisons and I do not. You can NEVER prove that I don't demand a yacht more than a poor person demands food. It is a general assumption that you may well be correct on more often than not, but if the man is suicidal and wants to die and my love of the sea is as boundless as the universe than obviously I would benefit more from the yacht than he would be from the food.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
If you want a yacht, then (in a communist society) you either gotta convince the community to give you one, or you can make your own one as long as a everyone is ok with it.
But what on earth does this have to do with what we are talking about? I was explaining that social need does'nt get taken care of in a market system, you claimed it does through philanthropy, I refuted it, and now your making some rediculous "what if" statement.
What are you talking about?
First of all, I've already answered this before. Second, what does it have to do with comsumer demand vrs social demand under a market system?
Believing that its well spent or for a good cause is not profit. What your essencially saying is if your too poor to make consumer demand, become a begger, beg.
THIS is the market solution for poor people, beg, suck it up.
So who should make that desicion? The market (i.e. rich people), or society through a democratic process.
Under the market system, yeah, rich peoples demands for yachts ARE mett and poor peoples demand for food are not, because rich peoples demands are more important because they have money to spend.
Under a social system, I honestly doubt that you could get a yacht through a democratic process while people starve.
Same in a capitalist society. The difference is you don't need permission to make anything, just the resources.
You didn't refute anything. All you said was that those who demand something cannot get it for themselves.
What I am saying that there is no difference between consumer demand and social demand. Selling charity is the same thing as selling anything else.
No, it is profit. Profit =\= money. Not in the slightest. I can have a "profitable" evening. It just means the benefits outweigh the costs and the benefits do not at all have to be monetary.
What I am saying is under a true free market there would be no such thing as involuntary unemployment, and you do not have to beg to go to a soup kitchen or the salvation army or any other such thing. The market solution is to take responsibility or take action to improve yourself and to not live off of stolen dollars.
No one should make that decision for everybody else. Not the majority, not a rich person. People, individuals, should make the decision for themselves that 200 dollars to charity is more important to them than a new T.V. Or not.
I've already shown, for the most part, in America no one is really starving, and if you are its really through lack of effort on your part than any lack of philanthropic efforts. There are soup kitchens, salvation army's, good will, and any other number of charitable organizations (even just churches) that exist everywhere in the United States. If you would rather not find them and starve your decision should be respected as any other.
That still doesn't prove that you wouldn't have benefited more from the yacht than the starving person would've through food. You cannot make interpersonal value comparisons, and you cannot make them especially for other people.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
No its not the same, also who said anything about permission?
In a Capitalist society as was said before, social need is'nt addressed, only consumer need (lets stay on topic), which is why yacts are made by and for those with tons of money, while people still starve.
Which refutes what you said, that if there was a demand for social good the market would take care of it. (which it would'nt because those demanding have no market power).
Selling charity is begging.
Consumer demand is people with money deciding what to buy. Social demand is what society as a whole needs, whether or not they have money. Thats the difference.
Yeah, and Capital also means the main city of a country, so Capitalists are people that live in the main cities. When we are discussing economics, Profit = money, something measurable.
Your gonna have to proove there would not be involuntary unemployment, because all evidence and resoning points to the contrary.
Yeah, but only Rich people have the ability to make that desicion.
No you hav'nt shown that, and almost all philanthropic organizations admit they don't have the resources to even come close to meeting all the needs that the market ignores.
So what? I'm saying better desicions would be made democratically rather than dictatorially (meaning by the wealthy, which is the case in a market system when put in practice).
Why do you need to convince the community if you don't need their permission?
Social = consumer. There is no difference. Any marketable good (charity is marketable) is met on the market. There is a lot more demand for yachts than there are quantity supplied (hey don't you want a yacht too?), but this is only because people place more value on other goods than yachts. That people place more value on other goods than charity is no different than this. People are starving because other people don't demand enough to stop it, just like people are still yachtless because people don't demand enough to give everyone yachts.
The market takes care of it insofar as its demanded. People demand other things moreso than charity (think cars, air conditioning, cable, etc etc). It is not your or my place to say people should value somethings more than others (you can't tell me that I should value pecan pie more than apple (or at least you shouldn't be able to make me make decisions that reflect your value judgements)).
Why do you need to convince the community if you don't need their permission?
Social = consumer. There is no difference. Any marketable good (charity is marketable) is met on the market. There is a lot more demand for yachts than there are quantity supplied (hey don't you want a yacht too?), but this is only because people place more value on other goods than yachts. That people place more value on other goods than charity is no different than this. People are starving because other people don't demand enough to stop it, just like people are still yachtless because people don't demand enough to give everyone yachts.
Is selling food begging? Is selling tv's begging? Someone asking you to donate money because it is a good thing to do/you will help someone is no different than someone asking you to buy a tv because you will be entertained/it has higher quality.
Needs are subjective. Brussels recently decided that state sponsored vacations was a need/right. Does this make it so?
No, it actually doesn't. Thats "capitol". Its no different at all. Profit means that benefits outweigh the costs. Perhaps in business it strictly means money profit, but you must delineate this while speaking of profit only in this way. Also there are accounting and economic profits, economic profits also factoring in opportunity costs (which don't have anything to do with revenue/cost in the accounting sense). So you're wrong in both ways.
In a true free market I could do anything. I could go out and be a prostitute, or approach a drug dealer so I could sell drugs. OR I could walk into a shop and offer to sweep the store for a meal. There would be no minimum wage laws to restrict what I could sell my labor for, and there'd be no regulation that would make it so the shop keeper could not hire you without filling out form after form.
Oh, so no one has absolutely no disposable income whatsoever? Yeah, only rich people can decide whether or not charity gets money. Gosh, you're so silly sometimes.
Okay? All yacht making companies don't have all the resources to meet the demand of yachts (i'd take a yacht if they weren't so expensive, wouldn't you?). What is the difference? Demand is infinite, supply is limited. This is what economics studies.
I'm saying the decision shouldn't be made at all for anybody else. When a rich person spends money he isn't deciding for anyone else how that money should be used. He is making a personal decision. When a poor person spends money he isn't deciding for anyone else how that money should be used. Rich people do not tell others what their money should be spent on. Poor people do not tell others what their money should be spent on. The most they can do is make suggestions. No one (not a majority, a dictator, a capitalist, a prole, or a technocrat) should have the power to decide what someone can spend their purchasing power on.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
It's true there are risks. But the argument for capital's income based on risk begs the question.
Let's suppose all the means of production were owned in common by the community and the community makes decisions about allocation of resources to production, including our own labor and other inputs.
Even if people now make predictions about what they will want..and this is better info than the capitalist "market researchers" have...things can change for a variety of reasons. People might come to no longer what this product as much but the resources could have been used to make something much more in demand.
But in this case it is the community that assumes the losses.
So, we can agree with the principle that whoever owns the means of production will shoulder both the gains and the losses, and hence the risks.
But why should it be a minority of capitalists have this power? The argument for capitalist income based on risk thus begs the question because they are already assuming it is legitimate for the capitalists to monopolize the means of production and hence gains and losses from that fact.
The "risk" argument is entirely circular.
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.
You have no idea how the market works do you, in your response you did'nt mention money once, in the market, peoples demands are ONLY as important as the amount of money they have to make their demands, THATS IT, thats the market.
Your honestly saying that the millions that starve are simply not demanding food? Also that people have yachts because there is more social demand for it? PEOPLE STARVE BECAUSE MARKETS DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE WITHOUT MONEY. Rich people have plenty of yachts because markets love rich people.
You are an idiot, if you can't grasp that simple fact I have to conclude that your simply a moron of the highest degree.
I can't continue with this discussion until you learn the basic functionings of markets and money.
I have a very clear understanding of how the market works. Everyone has infinite demand and there is limited supply. The market works to efficiently allocate resources to those who are most likely to make those resources grow.
Millions of people do not have yachts, but they are demanding them. Is this a tragedy? "Also that people have yachts because thee is more social demand for it?" doesn't make any sense. The market doesn't give a shit about anything. Its not an entity like god that is conscious. Markets don't love anyone. Anyway, markets are made up of individual actors making decisions; are you saying that no one cares about people who are starving? Because the number of charities would seem to indicate otherwise.
And yet you are the one one who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're". (I'm sorry, one ad hominem deserves another, does it not?). Anyway, you have yet to grasp the simple fact that the market is made up of individuals and if you assert that no one acting in the market cares about those less fortunate than themselves I would assert that you are simply wrong. Thats it. You're wrong.
Between production for profit and production for needs there is no contrast.
Ludwig von Mises, Socialism
Markets are controlled by those with money, the market rewards people with money and thus people with more money can control more of the market. BTW, this infinate demand thing has'nt been proven nor is it really that true.
Markets are made up of individual actors making desicions, but my point has been the whole time, and its a point you seem unable to grasp, is that those individual actors that make the desicions are those individual actors with money, in the market your desicion making ability is directly related to how much money you have. That goes with EVERYTHING. that why a chirity supported by a bunch of poor people has much less power than a charily supported by a few super rich folk BECAUSE IT HAS MORE MONEY.
Its the money, thats what your missing (the most basic part of a market).
You claimed, that people starve, because there is'nt a large enough demand for food, I'm pretty sure that idiocy far outwieghs my bad grammer. Your also incapable of understanding that in a market, the only indivduals that matter are the ones with money, and how much they matter is entirely dependant on how much money they have, that is the most basic part of markets, and you can't get it.
