We use markets for almost everything – put it on the market and supply and demand will take care of everything – you are supposed to get everything you need in the markets.
But this system is not good enough. Many people are left uneducated, in bad health, with substandard housing, in a general state of suppression and poverty.
The market system works well in many cases, but the deficiencies are severe. The industrial and technological developments have made production of food, industrial products possible in abundance. Often farmers and factories have to reduce production to avoid surpluses. At the same time time many people have less than they need.
Some markets may even hurt you, so that you can lose everything or find it impossible to participate. Markets presume efficiency to work well, equality and balance among participants, satisfactorily elastic and predictable supply. This is not always the case.
So a lot of human activity must be kept out of markets to function well. Basics like education, health, roads, water and others too should be shared and made available to all by the community.
Shared resources should therefore be considered part of a common pool and administered as such by users, partners, interested parties – often outside of politics. Many resources could be part of such schemes: metals, fisheries, oil, forests, water. For some resources this could be done on a global basis. The system we have for utilizing the worlds resources is – and have been for centuries – based on powerplay and political scheming, and will one day hit the wall.
So changes must come. Markets must be sorted out, common pool resource thinking must be introduced, both locally and in some cases globally. We must sort out our thoughts about markets: what can be left to the markets, what is to be provided for all, what are common resources to be administered in a pool for all, what sales should be taken care of by special systems – e.g. distribution of human organs. We should consider that when a product becomes a commodity it is seen as a common pool resource and is to be had by all and financed through taxes and levies.
This change also ties in with politics and the economic system which do not benefit all.
A new, refined and modern thinking related to production – ever cheaper and more efficient – and distribution of goods and services tied in with a new monetary system is hereby placed on the wish list.