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Millennial Socialism
Source Rob Schaap
Date 01/09/25/02:03

Mark Jones wrote:

> You still didn't let us know what *you* think "we" should do about
> falling markets. Maybe the answer will be in your forthcoming book about the
> New Economy.

Well, I'll take a pop. Let's take another look at 'infrastructure', 'natural
monopoly' and 'public good' and 'externalities' - and speak loudly for the
public ownership and control of those sectors which meet the definitions - at
global (eg. internet, software standards, currency transaction regulation and
taxation, intellectual property), national (eg. airline, telecommunications
backbone, electricity, interstate transport, libraries, education,
incarceration, health insurance, national parks, centralised wage and
conditions body, public service broadcasting, public housing), or council
level (eg. cable channel allocation, community broadcasting, local
thoroughfares, rent controls). Environmental despoliation/depletion oversight
and responsibility is sadly especially difficult to allocate - it's tied in
with many of the above and a while global body would be ideal (given global
implications of local decisions), but then we run the risk of a
Summers/Pritchett scenario, I suppose. That little lot would go some way to
recognising some Schumpetarian thoughts on monopoly, Keynesian thoughts on
cycles, development and amelioration, Polanyian thoughts on the relationship
betwen polity and market, Arrowian reservations about information economics,
Georgian/dependencista thoughts on development traps, and maybe even a couple
of Marxian thoughts on competition and crisis. Whimpering incrementalism in
the face of cacophonous urgency, I admit. But a comfy fit between Keynesian
nostalgia and logical projection of principles - and fetchingly bold in its
bald innocent simplicity, I think. Waddya reckon?

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