Make markets work for all
Philosophy
2021
If all inputs are limited and therefore all outputs are limited this means we have to figure out how to fairly share the resources before we produce things and services and how to fairly share them after their production.
Economists have for a long time been trying within the walls of the tradition economic thought to allocate our common resources, our means, between different ends but their models and tools, mostly focusing on the market, have been just as we humans are, imperfect.
The market left on its own, pursuing its goal of endless economic growth thinking human welfare comes from consuming more and more stuff made on the market, has a hard time adjusting to ecological limits. Nor does it incorporate the environmental destruction as a cost to human being or value the most important part of the economy, the resources given to us human beings by earth, nor can it handle that a lot important things in our world are nonmarket goods like important ecosystem services, knowledge, public health or economic stability and it cannot, what we are concerned with under this heading, allocate to those who lack money.
The market has a very limited view of human beings and it is difficult for the market to understand the relationships between us, ignoring the idea of fairness we base a lot our human activities around. The market mechanism sides with the human being with money in its pocket making money the decider of whose wants are satisfied, putting a person trying to survive in the same arena as a person living on a yacht.
The consequence is as Georgescu-Roegen pointed out, that
“every time we produce a Cadillac we irrevocably destroy and amount of low entropy that could otherwise be used for producing a plow or a spade.”
It is absurd that our economy and market have people who tries to get over the undernutrition level and needs water for their subsistence crop to compete with people who wants to water their lawn. Power or money shouldn’t determine how our common wealth is distributed, and economic growth should definitely be the goal that guides us.
Instead let us use the market and its tools, like the diminishing marginal utility, and have the allocation of resources through the market weighted by our goal to allow all human beings flourish within limits. References and quotes
Next encouragement