have indeed heard stories that people in socialist countries "only have one or two brands of X", I'm not sure to what extent that is true but it seems like the natural conclusion from doing this...
Do you think this is better for an average person? main things that scare me are that, much like with companies in a market, how could we ensure the state produces things that benefit us and not benefit itself instead?
Is the time spent finding the cheapest brand of in the store actually valuable? Is there any real difference in canned bean brands. Toothpaste is similar, outside of flavor and specific "sensitive" formulas, is there a point to having many brands?
This actually probably goes for all the different brands in the grocery store. What's the point of having a "choice" between canned tomatoes from Kroger or Hunts?
Now obviously different flavors/formulas are a bit of a grey area (i.e. Pepsi vs Coke), but at least when it comes to things like beans, toothpaste, and I would argue healthcare, choice actually makes us less free.
You're describing a different in product at this point though (i.e. style of bread, etc) rather than a "brand". Again, products where generics are literally the same and simply have a brand (ibuprofen for example) are what you were talking about and unless you're entirely brain poisoned there's no difference between Advil (brand) and the generic chemical!
A lot of the different products in stores are really made by a small number of conglomerates. Those companies are making new products all the time through what are essentially little internal planned economies. They are doing it to stave off competition, but these aren't products being developed in "the marketplace". They are deliberate planned processes.
No reason to believe the couldn't happen under a state run planned economy.
I just don’t think that’s true. There are different qualities of tomato’s for example. The value of choice gets even clearer when we look at things like phones or computers
Tiers of "quality" for products exist under communism too. Some people need powerful computers, other just need to open their mail. There is a demand for several tiers and flavors, that demand can be met in a planned economy.
Then how do you decide who gets the better and who gets the worse food? Doesn’t that introduce inequality. And yes good food isn’t a necessity so you can argue that there is no real need for good food but that’s just depressing for people who like food
I don’t think that is true at all. Food is “bad” because as you said the producers cut costs. But you are forgetting that these costs represent real world resources. You have the choice to A. Produce less with a better quality or B produce more but with a worse quality. In order for us to be able to provide for food for everyone food quality is going to suffer even if only a bit
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
You can have a planned economy that encompasses "niche" consumer products too. Regardless that nowadays most "niche" things scale up in consumption really quick thanks to quick logistics.
Something being niche doesn't mean it shouldn't be produced.
Also, you can have systems where the state controls the big and medium levers of economy (energy, grains (wheat/corn/soy/etc), healthcare, housing, education) through different kinds of state organisms/"enterprises", while the small scale production, say fresh-bread bakeries is handled by small coops.
how about we worry about that when everyone has food that is high enough quality to not kill them. but presumably first come first serve or something? people will have more free time to prepare food better regardless? reorganizing the entire economy around human value instead of profit would so completely alter american foodways so much that the question is borderline pointless?
Is the time spent finding the cheapest brand of
in the store actually valuable? Is there any real difference in canned bean brands. Toothpaste is similar, outside of flavor and specific "sensitive" formulas, is there a point to having many brands?
This actually probably goes for all the different brands in the grocery store. What's the point of having a "choice" between canned tomatoes from Kroger or Hunts?
Now obviously different flavors/formulas are a bit of a grey area (i.e. Pepsi vs Coke), but at least when it comes to things like beans, toothpaste, and I would argue healthcare, choice actually makes us less free.
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You're describing a different in product at this point though (i.e. style of bread, etc) rather than a "brand". Again, products where generics are literally the same and simply have a brand (ibuprofen for example) are what you were talking about and unless you're entirely brain poisoned there's no difference between Advil (brand) and the generic chemical!
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A lot of the different products in stores are really made by a small number of conglomerates. Those companies are making new products all the time through what are essentially little internal planned economies. They are doing it to stave off competition, but these aren't products being developed in "the marketplace". They are deliberate planned processes.
No reason to believe the couldn't happen under a state run planned economy.
I just don’t think that’s true. There are different qualities of tomato’s for example. The value of choice gets even clearer when we look at things like phones or computers
Tiers of "quality" for products exist under communism too. Some people need powerful computers, other just need to open their mail. There is a demand for several tiers and flavors, that demand can be met in a planned economy.
Then how do you decide who gets the better and who gets the worse food? Doesn’t that introduce inequality. And yes good food isn’t a necessity so you can argue that there is no real need for good food but that’s just depressing for people who like food
The first priority is that everyone gets adequate food, and once that has been achieved, variation can be achieved from locally sourced produce.
That seems fair tbh
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I don’t think that is true at all. Food is “bad” because as you said the producers cut costs. But you are forgetting that these costs represent real world resources. You have the choice to A. Produce less with a better quality or B produce more but with a worse quality. In order for us to be able to provide for food for everyone food quality is going to suffer even if only a bit
Even if that was the case, which it isn't at all, would you NOT trade everyone eating adecuately for you not eating the fancy variety of tomatos?
How much human suffering is caviar worth to you?
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deleted by creator
You can have a planned economy that encompasses "niche" consumer products too. Regardless that nowadays most "niche" things scale up in consumption really quick thanks to quick logistics. Something being niche doesn't mean it shouldn't be produced.
Also, you can have systems where the state controls the big and medium levers of economy (energy, grains (wheat/corn/soy/etc), healthcare, housing, education) through different kinds of state organisms/"enterprises", while the small scale production, say fresh-bread bakeries is handled by small coops.
how about we worry about that when everyone has food that is high enough quality to not kill them. but presumably first come first serve or something? people will have more free time to prepare food better regardless? reorganizing the entire economy around human value instead of profit would so completely alter american foodways so much that the question is borderline pointless?