[ralfy]

Not really. The current setup runs on racial lines which is very inefficient. Open up the markets to the full 7 billion and the chances of rigging would not be as high given the larger human pool.

But capital does consolidate in the hands of the capitalist as he naturally gets the cream so on that score, if the worker wants to eat the cake and cream and save the trees, there is socialism.

My understanding is that the global economy operates along extensive use of energy and material resources, which is why the world population ballooned to over seven billion. However, it also uses money, which means more of that and credit in general is concentrated among fewer people. Meanwhile, some of the same money had been moving to BRICS and emerging markets, which is why their use of money, energy, and material resources have been increasing readily. At the same time, there has been little intervention among governments, leading to increasing pollution.

Thus, what we have is the result of a free market, and in terms of increasing money generated from increasing production and consumption of goods and services, a fairly efficient one.

Given that, socialism may involve the opposite: heavy regulation and the use of resources mainly for basic needs.

[ralfy]

Wrong. The structure of the markets force compliance in the process breaking down parochial barriers. Now the question you should be reinforcing is whether this is good for the planet, not whether the markets can be anything other than free as that is now firmly a global function and moving beyond the regional apartheid of yesteryear.

Are these Earth Firster concerns likely to resonate with the vast majority of the planet who until now have stood on the outside looking in on the regional fest. Most unlikely if one is realistic. Thus until we see clear evidence of resource buffers, we can reasonably assume that the shift from skewed to free markets will continue.

The free markets from a Marxist perspective offer the opportunity of raising consciousness which a fuller belly is more amenable to than an empty one. So for communists, being the realists that we are, any redeeming of the planets virtues can definitely come through a mans stomach if properly approached.

Obviously the third world does not have the luxury of indulging in doomerist fantasies being as it has been on the margins to date so we work with what we have and hope for the best.

What you probably want is a market that ensures basic needs of the global population but also protects the environment so that such an assurance can take place in the long term. That involves the opposite of a free market.

[ralfy]

This sounds like a wonderful experiment, I hope I can watch it from the moon and not be stuck down in the chaos it would create on earth. The markets are speculative, imprecise, and without any regulation are a pogo stick with a spike sticking up for when you come down too hard. I find the idea as unworkable as a planned economy with central controls, which is a pogo stick without a spring.

The important point to consider is a combination of financial crises, peak oil, and global warming.

[ralfy]

Local markets are always the springboard to regional and then global markets. To suggest that localism can somehow operate in isolation to these forces even whilst there is nothing to show that globalisation is running out of steam other than wildly irrelevant reinterpretations of Darwinian economics is sheer fantasy.

Globalization will continue indefinitely only given extensive levels of energy and material resources available. That is not likely.

[Tanada]

Globalization will continue indefinitely only given extensive levels of energy and material resources available. That is not likely.

That pretty much sums up my feeling, Globalization as we know it only works because fossil fueled transportation is incredibly cheap, making it possible to ship goods 12,000 miles more cheaply than manufacturing them locally.

Take away the incredibly cheap transportation and suddenly it costs a vast sum to haul goods from China to Europe and vice versa. The whole basis of the Silk Road and international cargo ships hauling luxury goods from India and China to Europe was that only luxury goods were worth the cost of transport. Take away cheap energy and that fundamental reality will reassert itself. Unfortunately for staple food importing countries that makes famine likely and for countries just producing enough for everyone one bad year can be the difference between life and death from starvation.

[americandream]

Globalization will continue indefinitely only given extensive levels of energy and material resources available. That is not likely.

That pretty much sums up my feeling, Globalization as we know it only works because fossil fueled transportation is incredibly cheap, making it possible to ship goods 12,000 miles more cheaply than manufacturing them locally.

Take away the incredibly cheap transportation and suddenly it costs a vast sum to haul goods from China to Europe and vice versa. The whole basis of the Silk Road and international cargo ships hauling luxury goods from India and China to Europe was that only luxury goods were worth the cost of transport. Take away cheap energy and that fundamental reality will reassert itself. Unfortunately for staple food importing countries that makes famine likely and for countries just producing enough for everyone one bad year can be the difference between life and death from starvation.

It was the Marxists who first recognised the resourcing contradictions in capitalism, who recognised the radical nature of its social relations which many Americans take for granted, that it will sought to be operated on an apartheid basis but be compelled to globalise by none other than the capitalist, that globalisation would be accompanied from all manner of hue and cry from lumpen workers and that that globalisation has the potential to be harnessed to circularity.

Thus we on the communist left are fully aware of capitalisms sell by date. What we reject are arbitrary timing initiatives with no supporting evidence, to thwart the modernising project of all humanity.

Communism is fundamentally Earth First in its circularity (the Soviets were noticeable by the absence of JIT) and proiressive in its modernising effects. It does not harness population hysteria to try and thwart the needs of traumatised refugees, nor does it stoke fear with non contextualised population sensationalism.

Instead it adopts a measured approach to the capitalist conundrum, mysticism and prophecies not being intrinsic to its approach, only rational evidence based methodology.

It is of course essential that we secure our planetary home in equal partnership with our animal brethren...that is fairly basic. It is also essential that we cap exponential growth at the earliest instance.

But there is no doubt, the racist and incompetent blocks to equal access to modernisation must go if value is to be extracted for the larger project.

It is utterly imperative that we do not arm reaction with hysteria.

[ralfy]

But capping growth means the opposite of a free market and efficiency.

[davep]

But capping growth means the opposite of a free market and efficiency.

Not quite. It is slightly more complicated than that and dependent on the whim of banks (but I'm not going to make another thread all about banks).

[ralfy]

Not quite. It is slightly more complicated than that and dependent on the whim of banks (but I'm not going to make another thread all about banks).

Removing that whim does not affect my argument, as the latter also applies to banks, which because of competition must not only lend more each time but must also promote better returns, new ways to make more money, etc.