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The attempt to shut down the economy in October 1972 not only failed; it also shone a floodlight on the sheer scale of the redundancy (in terms of unnecessary equipment and so on) a supposedly 'efficient', competition-based economy needs, just to that its players can compete with each other.

Under 'business as usual', however, managements are less concerned with discharging an organization's avowed purpose (providing nutritious food, easy transport between A and B, warmth, comfort, and so on) than with discharging their responsibilities to shareholders (to provide healthy dividends and…

Centrally planned economies now dominate the world economy, but instead of having 'Socialist Republic' after their names, they have 'Inc' and 'plc': they are massively centralized, commercial hierarchies, and this has happened without much discussion of their feasibility or otherwise.

Conventional economics doesn't capture all of the economy's costs and, according to its critics, it isn't meant to. The Harvard economist Steven Marglin argued in his 2008 book The Dismal Science that mainstream economics has always been the servant of powerful interests, which naturally want rea…

[...] The subtext is: there is no need to wonder about the future because brilliant minds are working on it, and it will be nice. Everything you could wish for is being taken care of.