The Case for Market Socialism

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/case-market-socialism-1387381541

Here is the central economic paradox of our times. There is enough to go around. But it’s not getting around enough.

This is not an abstract problem. Economists know it, and they have a whole set of rules, axioms and theories designed to provide guidelines and mechanisms to move an economy through troubled waters, like we’re in now.

But what happens when their paradigms break down? The Fed has been printing money, buying bonds and keeping interest rates near zero, for years now. We should be drowning in inflation, the way the Fed is gushing dollars.

But we’re not. Instead, we have a serious prospect of deflation during this deluge of cash and credit. No wonder the economists are confused.

Why is there no inflation? Because work doesn’t pay. Inflation happens when too much cash chases too few goods. But only the one percent has too much cash, and there’s just so much they can buy. Meanwhile, the purchasing power of the vast majority of working people has been withering for decades.

How did we get here? The markets took us here