all the time i am thinking “this would be better without prices” and “this is worse because profit” so much so that it has become a sort of background noise to existence
the basis for any instance of the question “how will we pay for it” is fealty to price as an organizing principle
like do you understand that it isn’t money who works? you don’t build a house with money
it’s fucked up to see governments say “how will we pay for it” because it just means they’re owned by capital. capital gets to say what they can and can’t do. you can’t solve poverty, an entirely artificial condition, because it’s too expensive. you can’t build homes for the homeless, it’s too expensive. you can’t own networking infrastructure, only comcast and verizon can do that because — you guessed it — it’s too expensive. “it’s too expensive” means you have to let The Market decide who lives and who dies.
we could just not organize on price. only propaganda claims it has always been like this.
@garbados
Then rephrase as "How will we acquire or free up the resources for this?"
And you've changed nothing about the fundamental question, you've just made the math harder.
@john made the math fairer*
price is not an alias for resources. it obfuscates logistics and yields power to holders of capital, who are happy to let us die cold and sick.
@john look at it this way: price does not encapsulate cost.
actors like walmart are happy to ignore the cost of, say, worker welfare, in order to set prices a certain way. their costs appear artificially low because they've foisted some of those costs onto society at large. when we confront the true cost, in terms of labor, materials, externalities, and other requisites and consequences, we see that it is irreducible to price. how do you price a human life? how do you price marginal shifts in quality of life? if a grocer or farmer cannot profit on the sale of food, is it right to let people starve?
all price does is obscure these costs in order to allow profiteers to collect on the difference.
@garbados
The only thing you said there that holds water is "externalities".
It's not obscuring anything. Price discovery is the only mechanism we have worth a darn for these questions.
"How do you price a human life?"
The risks to one's own life are worth whatever that person thinks they are. If the tradeoff isn't worth it, don't make that trade (take that job, etc.)
"How do you price marginal shifts in quality of life?"
Whatever you subjectively think it should be priced at, for your life.
@garbados
"If a grocer or farmer cannot profit on the sale of food, is it right to let people starve?"
That's highly unrealistic. If people are starving there's going to be money to be made in meeting that need.
Nonetheless, what makes you think someone won't do a particular thing if there's insufficient "profit" (I assume you mean the accounting term) involved? People have a wide range of motivations for their behaviors.
Price is an alias for resources. If the two are out-of-line there's strong incentive to bring them into line (by adjusting prices).
Don't forget "holders of capital" is, by and large, us. Especially if you live in the first world. The majority of capital is held by the majority of people.
"happy to let us die cold and sick"
I see no evidence of that. Unless you're referring to political capital.