However once the alternative system is reduced to trying to mimic the action of the market, it has already lost the argument.

3.
It is true that market prices only include the values of things which can be exchanged against money and which can be used as a means to an end. Prices cannot include values that are an end in themselves, like the beauty of a waterfall, or the value of one’s grandmother.

But that is not an argument against the usefulness of economic calculation because
a) every other system will equally have the same defect that end values cannot be expressed in terms of money, and
b) those end values can be valued directly in their own right, without the use of money.

4. The problem with thinking or hoping that there might be an alternative, or that alternatives didn’t get a fair trial, is that this hope ignores the logical disproof provided by the economic calculation argument.

Anyone proposing an alternative needs to *refute* the economic calculation argument *before* proposing policies that enlarge government and reduce economic calculation even further. Otherwise we get the situation as now in Germany, where people are using coal-fired electricity to shine strong lights on solar panels so as to collect the government subsidy on solar power. *All* violations of the principles of economic calculation, and hence all government-funded attempts at sustainability, are ultimately just different versions of this irrational and wasteful behaviour. If something is not to be run at a profit, it must be run at a loss. The greens have to learn so from the failure of their schemes for pink batts, green jobs, solar subsidies and so on, just as the socialists had to learn by actually starving people to death. But such is not necessary. Unless anyone can refute the economic calculation argument, we don’t have to wait to see what latest scheme the government comes up with: we are already able to finally establish from sound theory that non-capitalist alternatives are more unsustainable than capitalist ones.

*Otherwise we get the situation as now in Germany, where people are using coal-fired electricity to shine strong lights on solar panels so as to collect the government subsidy on solar power.*

Hehe, just goes to show that Govt by good intention is simply not
going to cut it! I am always amazed at how creative people
become, when it comes to acting in their own self interest to put
a dollar in their pockets. I'd never thought of the above, but
if it pays, people will in fact dream up this kind of stuff.

Dear Peter Hume,
I've only read the first of your new posts as yet but am eager to intercalate some mild objections before I read on, especially since it's unlikely I'll be able to make a fulsome reply tonight (The Daleks "and" the Cybermen(!) are teamed up in tonight's final instalment of Doctor Who and, well, you know how I feel about saving the world! Also, my children demand my full commitment).

Though your reasoning is as always admirably syllogistic, it's nonetheless unaccountably flawed. I did indeed confess to not having an alternative to capitalism at the moment; but this present impasse need not preclude a breakthrough some time in the not too distant. In the meantime yes, rather than tempt megalomaniacal tendencies I shall shamelessly look at other's ideas.

<to say that there might be an alternative but that you don’t know what it is, is not much of an advance on saying that there is no alternative, is it?>
Very reasonably put; I should add however that my position is not quite that simple (one is obliged to be pithy in these clipped exchanges and risk being misunderstood).
In truth I have no doubt but that there are any amount of superior alternatives to the capitalist obscenity whose tentacles entwine the globe; indeed, far from not having an alternative per se, I doubt one could come up with anything more inimical, both materially and spiritually than the system that afflicts us. No, the reason for my prevarication, if I may again use cancer as my analogy (it's so apt), is that I fear a sudden change of regimen, however anodyne in essence and salubrious in its effects ordinarily, might prove devastating in the throws of the ultimate cure. It is not that capitalism is irreplaceable, it's more a case of the cancer being inoperable!

But alas, the Doctor calls..

I shall continue anon.

Peter Hume,

(Sorry, I'm not Squeers - he displays splendid eloquence , don't you agree.)

You keep adhering to the same premise for your argument, ie. that no other system (that would provide obscene levels of overabundance and waste) could do it more sustainably than capitalism. The problem with capitalism is the overabundance and waste - not whether another system could do the same thing more efficiently.

Most spifflicatingly eloquent.

"The problem with capitalism is the overabundance and waste - not whether another system could do the same thing more efficiently."

Well I can only address one issue at a time, and it took an unprecedented 3 posts at the magical limit of 350 words just to get across the point that a non-capitalist system cannot be as sustainable as capitalism *assuming* it is to attempt to satisfy the same human wants.

I am well aware that the critics of capitalism do not assume that an alternative system *should* try to satisfy the same human wants. What they want is for some people to have a lower living standard (but not so low as to deprive them of playing on the internet, having children, or using electricity), and for others to have a higher living standard.

I will show that non-capitalist systems are no more sustainable or ethically superior in that aspiration than they are if trying to achieve the same results.

I will also show that Squeers argument is unsound in other ways.

For starters, the 'overabundance and waste' obviously doesn't come from providing for human wants inefficiently. The problem is that it is so efficient at using resources that people, instead of being confined to a subsistence level of existence, can have a much higher standard of living by producing more outputs per unit of input.

*If* people wanted to live at a subsistence level, capitalism would use fewer inputs per unit of outputs to achieve that result.

It's just that the don't want to live at a subsistence level. This alleged problem is not intrinsic to capitalism: it is intrinsic to the human desire to keep satisfying more wants, even after their earlier wants are already satisfied.

Most spifflicatingly eloquent.

"The problem with capitalism is the overabundance and waste - not whether another system could do the same thing more efficiently."

Well I can only address one issue at a time, and it took an unprecedented 3 posts at the magical limit of 350 words just to get across the point that a non-capitalist system cannot be as sustainable as capitalism *assuming* it is to attempt to satisfy the same human wants.

I am well aware that the critics of capitalism do not assume that an alternative system *should* try to satisfy the same human wants. What they want is for some people to have a lower living standard (but not so low as to deprive them of playing on the internet, having children, or using electricity), and for others to have a higher living standard.

I will show that non-capitalist systems are no more sustainable or ethically superior in that aspiration than they are if trying to achieve the same results.

I will also show that Squeers argument is unsound in other ways.

For starters, the 'overabundance and waste' obviously doesn't come from providing for human wants inefficiently. The problem is that it is so efficient at using resources that people, instead of being confined to a subsistence level of existence, can have a much higher standard of living by producing more outputs per unit of input.

*If* people wanted to live at a subsistence level, capitalism would use a lot fewer inputs per unit of outputs to achieve that result.

It's just that they don't want to live at a subsistence level. This alleged problem is not intrinsic to capitalism: it is intrinsic to the human desire to keep satisfying more wants, even after their earlier wants are already satisfied.