The Monopoly Problem

Here is the problem.

It's the problem I see every day.

Technological efficiency.
Bigger really is better. It's about economies of scale.

The workerless factory really is a viable possibility. It is possible- in theory- for most of the goods we now need to produced, largely by systematic button pressing. Not even that.

But herein lies the failing of the capitalist mode.

Ultimately, the most efficient wins. Everybody competes to outdo eachother and gain dominance in a certain sector.
But the capitalist mode depends on a consumer choice which is ultimately self defeating.

The real long term value of consumer choice was that it meant that the fittest to provide eliminated the least fit.
The most efficient enterprises, those who could minimise their production costs, won increasing shares of the market because they were able to offer us BETTER goods, cheaper.
Whilst the global infrastructure was in a state of genuine growth (as in, actually being constructed, a process which has largely happened now), this competitive drive to win the ultimate prize saw living standards get better and better. The problem is the rules of the paitalist system are such we daren't TRUST any of the competitors to take the ultimate prize.

Monopoly.

Only if it's the board game.

The problem is, once globalisation has been reached, is this.

No matter what product you choose, the bigger the economy, the more efficient it can produce. The provider has more to invest and could reduce its costs to maximum efficiency. The more people it provides to, the less energy it needs to use up on providing to each individual.

The problem is, when you reach Oligopoly point. When the key players are few enough in number to make private agreements between themselves not to undercut eachother too much.

Which is where we are today, in most sectors.

The problem is this. If all the food production in each continent was in the hands of a single organisation, that organisation could produce food to ultimate efficiency. It would have optimum efficiency, in terms of use of energy and ability to invest.

But as things stand, we couldn't trust such an organisation. Because, without competition, it could charge us what it liked. We'd have no power over it.

Capitalism has achieved it's purpose. It has created a global economy.

And in a global society, a co-ordinated global system of production and distribution is the MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO USE HUMAN ENERGY AND TECHNOLOGY.

Effectively, monopolies in all forms of production and distribution.

But we can't actually risk that. Monopoly corporations having power of life or death over us.

Exactly. My point.

We are now at that stage where the most efficient and most productive mode of human existence at our fingertips is one we can't allow, because we can't trust anyone to run it.

Private control over the means of production and distribution has now become the KEY OBSTACLE to human progress.

Because the most efficient way to produce and distribute, really is to have global co-ordination of those functions.

But we can only do that, if those administering them have no power to milk them.

We have to have democratic control over those appointed to administer that infrastructure on our behalf.

Because there is no sector where a monopoly wouldn't actually be the most efficient solution. It's just there is no sector where we'd trust corporations to run a monopoly.

Can't you see the point?

If we can't trust corporations to run the most efficient solution we can think of, then ultimately, monopolies aren't the problem, it's corporations.

If we had monopoly administrations, whose Executive Officers weren't appointed by shareholders, and weren't appointed by the government either (this is why nationalisation has never worked), but were elected by the entire population and paid a fixed salary like any other elected officer, elected on the basis of whether they could provide for us as efficiently and cheaply the best products they could, otherwise we'd vote them out, can you not see that really, Democratic Communism NEED NOT BE a dirty concept?

This is the answer.

No governments, no corporations.

Just an array of separate Executives, elected by the people they serve, each responsible for a specific section of the human infrastructure.

We'd elect a Food Executive. And a Transport Executive. An Education Executive. A Police Executive. A Technology Executive. A Health Executive.

Every aspect of our culture a SEPARATE Executive, each one elected by the population.

Our states don't need leaders, we're past the need to worship human beings and see them as saviours. Central government, it's an anachronism unsuited to the needs of modern life. Or modern FREE life, I should say. An anachronism that has a tendency to turn malignant.



And the legislature?
In the world of the internet, why do we need one?
Why not have direct democracy?

Why not have these Executives ask US every time they want to change a rule?
Ask us to our faces, direct.

You say this is a dream, its unrealistic, its unfeasible.
It's not, and I stand by it.

I give the Capitalist system fifteen to twenty more years, maximum.

And then the whole lot is coming down, it is.

And I believe that what I've just described, is the model we should look to establish on it's ashes.

The future's bright :)