Correction. I don't really want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden.
They would be much too muddy and it would be too difficult to prepare them.
Just a few additional points for Justin to address:
1) In describing Schweicart's market socialism you included markets as one of
the socialist parts. Markets per se are not socialist. The system is socialist
because of the other features you picked out. No?
2) Unlike idolators of the free market you are very much in favor of
regulation of markets and having
public goods produced via planning and distributed on the basis of need. As I
understand it, market defenders would claim that regulation would skew the
supposed signals that are to provide the information that is to make the system
work efficiently. No?
3) To ensure that markets take into account environmental costs prices must
reflect those costs. How do you ensure this? Do you use the typical nc how much
people would be willing to pay technique? But won't this be wholly unjust? Rich
are typically willing to pay more for unpolluted air etc. than the poor. How do
you avoid what might be called the Summers' effect! If you don't do this then
won't you resort to some political technique. Public hearings etc. when prices
are to be changed? But then this is a non-market methodology.
Ken Hanly wrote:
> The critique makes no sense to me at all. Would von Mises or Hayek really
> claim that we do not know our needs and desires without participating in a
> market? I know that I want to have fresh mashed potatoes out of my garden
> without participating in a market. I know when I want sex without going to a
> red light district. When I participate in markets I learn what I can afford
> not what I need or desire.
