No. However, 'no state' presents a problem if a need for external defense or recovery from a cataclysmic event was necessary. Some kind of responsive structure would be needed for such purposes — Bitter Crank

Okay. What do you think about distributism then? I'm trying to gauge how your position is different from mine.

If you are defining "private property" as clothing, a dog, a house... that's called personal property. — Bitter Crank

Okay so what if I am a mechanic and I have my own tools and garage where I fix cars? Does that count as personal or private property? What if I design my own car and then start getting some factories to build it - do I get to keep rights to my invention? What if I go to India and bring good Cashmere Indian quality from there which I sell in a shop I setup? Do I get to own the store?

meaning railroads, factories, warehouses, stores, etc. — Bitter Crank

I would disagree with some of those being "private property". Railroads and such are public property.

Because that is the way Marx referenced the class of people who are capitalists. Most people do not have a clue about how to use "class" properly. — Bitter Crank

I don't think entrepreneurship can only exist in capitalism. Do you? I think many more people would be entrepreneurs under distributism for example.

I've gone far enough down the rabbit hole. — praxis

Actually, you yourself have argued to me that morality is objective before, so I don't see why you're going back on it now. You sent me the Sam Harris video which argued that there are moral FACTS in the world, that are just as much facts as the facts studied by physics. So what happened? Did you change your mind or are you choosing what your position will be depending on what you want to argue against?

I'm pro-rich in the sense that people should have the opportunity to be rich and be economically powerful if they earn it fairly. — Agustino

Why should being rich equate with (economic) power? Bigger corporations use that power to externalise costs to smaller suppliers or customers which is an expression of economic power but has nothing to do with a fair and equitable distributions of risks and profits.

I consider it natural that a bright and successful person has influence due to the fact that he's bright and seems to know what he's doing business wise. I'm not sure whether that should automatically translate to influence in fields where his knowledge and expertise are not a given. In a society where the "economic reality" trumps reality, economic power is too much to be awarded for the simple status of being rich (which, btw, more often than not is a matter of luck).

Why should being rich equate with (economic) power? — Benkei

Well what would economic power equate with then? Economic power means the power to decide how capital is allocated and to what uses it is allocated. If I have economic power, I decide if we're going to start making trains, or we're going to produce toys. I decide if we're going to build a hospital, or a school. I decide if a restaurant employing homeless people gets opened. And so on so forth. A lot of these activities require money to finance themselves before they can start pulling income to be self-sustaining. Without economic power, they are impossible to achieve.

If I had $1 million for example, I wouldn't mind risking even 100K to get such a business off the ground. Like a restaurant employing the homeless, or a school for the disadvantaged that had a different business model, and so on so forth. But as a middle class person, who lacks the capital, I lack the courage to take such actions, because if they don't work out, I could be put in a perilous situation.

I consider it natural that a bright and successful person has influence due to the fact that he's bright and seems to know what he's doing business wise. — Benkei

Being bright and successful isn't sufficient to make you influential. For example, I think I am not that stupid of a person, but I generally don't have the patience to cultivate the long-term relationships and make the necessary compromises that are often required to be influential quickly. Influence is much more a factor of having the right connections - OR - having a lot of capital (economic power). That's why many people who enter politics end up corrupt for example, even if they start out honest. Gaining the right connections often requires compromise.

In a society where the "economic reality" trumps reality, economic power is too much to be awarded for the simple status of being rich (which, btw, more often than not is a matter of luck). — Benkei

In terms of massive wealth (let's say $50 million+) you're quite correct, I would agree. But I think wealth in terms of $1-5 million is achievable by pretty much anyone who wants it and who works long enough on it assuming they are healthy and a circumstance like war and the like doesn't interfere with their wealth building.

Well what would economic power equate with then? Economic power means the power to decide how capital is allocated and to what uses it is allocated. — Agustino

Whose capital? Surely only your own? But we see economic power expands itself and coerces other actors to accept the burden of costs that should reasonably not be borne by them.

Take for example Exxon Mobil's standard terms and conditions for contractors who supply and administer additives to increase the yield of oil fields. If the contractor discovers a better compound or a better method that increases the yield, the IP to that is owned by Exxon Mobil. If you don't accept the general terms and conditions, they'll go to another contractor. Not exactly fair or reasonable since its the contractors work and knowledge that is leveraged to develop the new compound or method but if you have sufficient economic power, fair and reasonable don't play a role any more.

Being bright and successful isn't sufficient to make you influential. For example, I think I am not that stupid of a person, but I generally don't have the patience to cultivate the long-term relationships and make the necessary compromises that are often required to be influential quickly. Influence is much more a factor of having the right connections - OR - having a lot of capital (economic power). That's why many people who enter politics end up corrupt for example, even if they start out honest. Gaining the right connections often requires compromise. — Agustino

I suppose my choice of words that it's "natural" was bad. I mean to say that I would consider it far more appropriate that a bright and successful person has influence in his area of expertise because of his being bright and successful than because of the money he has (or the connections he might have). On a personal level, where money doesn't matter, this is precisely how it works: if I have a question about houses I ask my friend who's an architect not the one that's a DJ (not even if he was David Guetta). Money has become the measure for all things but it's a bad one for most things that matter.

Whose capital? Surely only your own? — Benkei

Yes, exactly. The point is that if the capital is not your own - and it is the bank's, etc. etc. - then you don't really get to do what you want with it, and hence it's not a form of economic power. That's why being rich - as opposed to merely being able to influence how capital is allocated - is part of economic power in my view.

But we see economic power expands itself and coerces other actors to accept the burden of costs that should reasonably not be borne by them. — Benkei

This is a different point, but yes, I agree that the costs should be borne by you, and not by others, especially if they haven't risked anything in the first place (for example if they haven't financed your project).

Take for example Exxon Mobil's standard terms and conditions for contractors who supply and administer additives to increase the yield of oil fields. If the contractor discovers a better compound or a better method that increases the yield, the IP to that is owned by Exxon Mobil. If you don't accept the general terms and conditions, they'll go to another contractor. Not exactly fair or reasonable since its the contractors work and knowledge that is leveraged to develop the new compound or method but if you have sufficient economic power, fair and reasonable don't play a role any more. — Benkei

Ahh yes, I see what you mean. Yes I've come across similar practices quite frequently, and I think they should be illegal. Pretty much anyone who controls a distribution channel of some sort tends to set such unfair conditions. Supermarkets do it very frequently. If you don't like their conditions, take your product elsewhere. But of course, they already have the infrastructure set up, and it's very expensive to set it up yourself (not to mention it would take very long), so you're pretty much stuck with having to accept their terms if you want to get your product to market. It's a hard situation to fix - I'm not sure if merely implementing a law against it would be sufficient. Such practices can be masked in different, not so obvious, ways.

I suppose my choice of words that it's "natural" was bad. I mean to say that I would consider it far more appropriate that a bright and successful person has influence in his area of expertise because of his being bright and successful than because of the money he has (or the connections he might have). — Benkei

Yes, I agree with you.

Money has become the measure for all things but it's a bad one for most things that matter. — Benkei

Indeed, this is another side of it as well. Money confers social status, the way other expertise quite frequently doesn't, and I think that's wrong too.

Sam Harris video which argued that there are moral FACTS — Agustino

Harris is no different to utilitarianism. He would have nothing but utter contempt for your Orthodox faith, he thinks it is a brain-destroying delusion. Choose your allies carefully.

Harris is no different to utilitarianism. He would have nothing but utter contempt for your Orthodox faith, he thinks it is a brain-destroying delusion. Choose your allies carefully. — Wayfarer

:s

Harris is not my ally. I just agree with him that there are moral facts. Most religious people agree as well. I don't see what's the problem with it. If he's wrong about one thing, it doesn't mean that he can't be right about others.

Harris hates Christianity. You should know that.

Harris hates Christianity. You should know that. — Wayfarer

Okay, so what does that have to do with my agreement with him over the existence of moral facts? If he hates Christianity he's wrong about moral facts because he hates Christianity?

Okay. What do you think about distributism then? I'm trying to gauge how your position is different from mine. — Agustino

I don't know a great deal about 'distributism'. There are some aspects of it that are interesting and attractive. How do we get there? Dorothy Day and Peter Marin who founded the Catholic Workers (pretty much an American group) were distributists. One of their earliest moves was buying a small farm on Staten Island in New York City (this was about 85 years ago) as part of their program. The Catholic Worker Movement was much like the IWW, or Socialist Party, New Union Party, and other such groups: Their thinking is that their ideas are good and that their ideas will spread. "The people" will organize around their good ideas, and society will change. And, you know, it would be a fine thing if even 1/4 of their good ideas were implemented.

But the trouble with these social idealists is that almost everything about the societies in which they operate is pretty much hostile to their ideals, and if it threatens the dominant paradigm, hostility is expressed concretely. As somebody put it, "The labor movement in the United States didn't die from indifference, it was murdered."

Okay so what if I am a mechanic and I have my own tools and garage where I fix cars? Does that count as personal or private property? What if I design my own car and then start getting some factories to build it - do I get to keep rights to my invention? What if I go to India and bring good Cashmere Indian quality from there which I sell in a shop I setup? Do I get to own the store? — Agustino

Technically, the mechanics tools are income producing property, not personal domestic property -- unless working on cars is a hobby. (This isn't socialist -- this is the way the US Tax Code looks at things. A mechanic can depreciate the value of his tools; a hobbyist can't.)

As I said, production would be coordinated by producers and consumers, collectively. Maybe cars will have been retired to the dustbin of history. You could design your car, but whether it got built or not would be a collective decision. If you were a car designer, you would need to be part of a product design group. The abolition of private property (factors, stores, railroads, etc.) also means the abolition of private income, and private entrepreneurship.

Own the store where you sell imported cashmere sweaters? Are you out of your mind? Hell, no!

To your average capitalist, this sounds about as perverted as bestiality with under-age animals.

I would disagree with some of those being "private property". Railroads and such are public property. — Agustino

They should be pubic property, even under capitalism, but in the United States they are (and have always been) privately owned. I don't think many miles of railroad were ever built on land which the rail companies actually bought from owners. Usually, the government granted the land to railroads as part of the drive for internal development. The survivor railroads (like Burlington Northern Santa Fe) which have been around more than a century, are still profiting from the land they were given, which is often forested or has coal, oil, or minerals. The railroads also sold off the land they were given in farm-sized lots to immigrants, so they would have customers along the road to ship from, and to.

I don't think entrepreneurship can only exist in capitalism. Do you? I think many more people would be entrepreneurs under distributism for example. — Agustino

Inventiveness is a human trait. Entrepreneurship is too, but it requires more learned economic skill. In a distributist economy entrepreneurship (within limits) would make sense. A society run by and for the benefit of the workers would certainly need plenty of inventive thinking, but socialist organization is collectivist, not individualist. Too much entrepreneurship would work against a distributist organized society too, I would think.

Entrepreneurship is the trait par excellent of capitalism. Capitalist economies are organized around facilitating entrepreneurship (including small entrepreneurs being crushed by bigger entrepreneurs).

Harris's video is about human values and in it he claims that the separation between science and values is illusory. He never claims that morals are objective facts. He only broadly outlines a spectrum from the worst possible suffering (earthy suffering because no one can actually conceive any other kind) to the greatest good or happiness, and makes a distinct point that in the horizontal plane there can be equivalent peaks and valleys within this spectrum.

Informed by science, I claimed that values can shift away from being materialistically centered. Some may take exception to this claim, because of the imagined polarity between science and human values.

How do we get there? — Bitter Crank

Well, first of all, I would suggest we get there by getting rid of democracy, which has become, and will continue to be ruled by politicians who are bought and sold by corporations. I think corporatism is the biggest obstacle to getting there. That includes both working for corporations, and the political mechanism that favours them and keeps things rigged in their favour. And to a large extent, corporations have taken on a life of their own - they're no longer controllable at the moment.

Technically, the mechanics tools are income producing property, not personal domestic property -- unless working on cars is a hobby. — Bitter Crank

Okay, but can the mechanic own that income producing property?

As I said, production would be coordinated by producers and consumers, collectively. — Bitter Crank

This "collective coordination" sounds quite scary. It reminds me of communism in Eastern Europe. What is this "coordination" going to look like, and who will supervise it?

You could design your car, but whether it got built or not would be a collective decision. — Bitter Crank

Okay I think I see. But what if the collective decides that I shouldn't get to build that car, but I go to my garage and over time acquire the tools etc. necessary and build one myself. Is that allowed?

If you were a car designer, you would need to be part of a product design group. The abolition of private property (factors, stores, railroads, etc.) also means the abolition of private income, and private entrepreneurship. — Bitter Crank

Ahh, but see I think this is a problem for it impinges upon individual liberty too much. Should I be coerced to be part of the product design group if I don't like it and want to work independently?

And what is wrong with private income? If I am a shepherd and I have 10 sheep, why can't I go find comrades around who need wool and sell it to them or exchange it with them for other goods?

Own the store where you sell imported cashmere sweaters? Are you out of your mind? Hell, no! — Bitter Crank

>:O >:O No no, I didn't mean to sell already made cashmere sweaters which were produced on the backbone of slave labour in India. What I meant is that I would go to India, buy the Cashmere WOOL, and then sell that wool back home to tailors and other people who needed it.

pubic property — Bitter Crank

:-O What's this type of property?! I never heard of it before. Can you have that kind of property?

I don't think many miles of railroad were ever built on land which the rail companies actually bought from owners. Usually, the government granted the land to railroads as part of the drive for internal development. The survivor railroads (like Burlington Northern Santa Fe) which have been around more than a century, are still profiting from the land they were given, which is often forested or has coal, oil, or minerals. The railroads also sold off the land they were given in farm-sized lots to immigrants, so they would have customers along the road to ship from, and to. — Bitter Crank

Right, you see, again the state is the problem. It is because the state is controlled by these corporate interests that strangle the small natural producer and the normal (not capitalist) exchange of goods.

In a distributist economy entrepreneurship (within limits) would make sense. — Bitter Crank

In a distributist society there is no centralised control though (whether by the state or by the collective). Rather it is more like the aim is for the highest number of people to have access to economic freedom - not having to work as a wage slave for others. In other words, freedom to work as they desire.

Now there would be no private banks in distributism. Nor would there be monopolies, corporations or the like. Distributism involves local production meant to satisfy local needs - not mass production meant to simply (apart from other considerations) make more money.

The principle of subsidiarity which is central to distributism would require matters to be settled locally and among the people directly involved - not by some central committee of "the people". So that basically means that what me and my family produce isn't dictated by anyone else, but it's something we decide upon as a family. And similarly for you and for all other groups of people. Things that are the benefit of everyone in a community - I suppose public utilities would fit here - would obviously be decided at the local community level by such a thing as "cooperation" as you call it :P

Now I guess you can see that this system is very much entrepreneurial, since everyone is free and encouraged to act locally in their economies. People can freely form trade relationships with each other, so long as the aim isn't just making money for money's sake, but rather the production of something useful in the needed quantities.

Entrepreneurship is the trait par excellent of capitalism. Capitalist economies are organized around facilitating entrepreneurship (including small entrepreneurs being crushed by bigger entrepreneurs). — Bitter Crank

I disagree here. I think capitalism as practiced today at least is profoundly anti-entrepreneurial. There is nothing that makes life more difficult for today's entrepreneur than the combination of state + corporations. Together these two entities create an octopus which strangles the small entrepreneur before he can even get started. It's hard to open a local fast food when McDonald's forces all suppliers not to supply to you if they want to work with them. Who makes all this possible? The state.

Capitalism is organised around facilitating one thing: wage slavery. The end of capitalism isn't all of us becoming entrepreneurs, but rather all of us becoming wage slaves. That's where we're headed now.

And to a large extent, corporations have taken on a life of their own - they're no longer controllable at the moment. — Agustino

And this is even more true in less developed countries where the corruption is 10 times higher than in the US, and the state is 10 times more likely to be bought.

Well, first of all, I would suggest we get there by getting rid of democracy, which has become, and will continue to be ruled by politicians who are bought and sold by corporations. — Agustino

Politicians should be bought and sold; that's their role. Except the currency should be votes not money. I agree with your issue about corporatism, which is a perversion of capitalism. I'd personally start with ending limited liability for all for profit corporations. If something is sufficiently beneficial for society as a whole and not run for profit, it can receive the gift of limited liability. Solves useless daytrading (or HFT nowadays) at the same time.

I'd like to keep democracy though, thank you.

Politicians should be bought and sold; that's their role. — Benkei

The usual colloquial meaning of 'buying' a politician is not to appoint them by voting them, but to induce them to campaign and vote in parliament for a measure in which they do not believe. The notion of buying a politician with money is about campaign donations that are implicitly conditional on the politician furthering the selfish aims of the donator. Sometimes it is also about bribes, although the boundary between large donations by rent-seekers and bribes seems blurry to me.

Analogously, 'buying' a politician with votes would mean that the politician is induced to support something in which they do not believe, in order to gain more votes. That is the phenomenon of populism, and an example is when politicians demonise refugees because they know that gains votes, even though they know that refugees are not the problem.

Edmund Burke spoke eloquently against this sort of buying with his immortal quote:

'Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.'

in an (unachievable) ideal democracy, parliamentarians would always vote for measures they thought were best, rather than what they thought would gain the most votes at the next election.

I hope you don't mind me pointing out this obscure irregularity of the English language. Your English is amazing. I only wish my French and German were a quarter as good.

pubic property
— Bitter Crank
:-O What's this type of property?! I never heard of it before. — Agustino

Actually, a good share of the United States is public property (28% of the total acreage is government owned forest land for instance). Public Property is held as a public trust by a governmental entity (federal, state, county, municipal, township). It consists of all natural waterways, land owned and managed by a government (like Central Park in New York City), 99.9% of all roads, streets, sidewalks, and highways are owned by a government, from the Federal level down to the township level. This doesn't include military bases.

Anyone may walk down any public sidewalk, drive on any public road, walk on any public park land, and so on. In the west, some public lands are open for use by grazing herds (cattle).

Comprende?

The principle of subsidiarity which is central to distributism would require matters to be settled locally and among the people directly involved - not by some central committee of "the people". So that basically means that what me and my family produce isn't dictated by anyone else, but it's something we decide upon as a family. And similarly for you and for all other groups of people. Things that are the benefit of everyone in a community - I suppose public utilities would fit here - would obviously be decided at the local community level by such a thing as "cooperation" as you call it — Agustino

Didn't you say you liked the Shire from Lord of the Rings? Was that you or somebody else?

The shire -- a very low-population rural area--is ideal for distributism. It seems to look back to the English village of the 17th century and earlier, a time when many products were produced at home. There are two critical problems: First, very few people live in self-sufficient villages, these days. Most people don't produce many products at home. They still could, but it seems wildly inefficient. I could, for instance, make several kinds of bar soap--one for laundry and heavy cleaning, one for bathing, and possibly one for hair. But small batch soap making doesn't yield the kind of soap people like to use.

There are far too many people living without much (if any) connection to raw materials that can be turned into useful products. For instance, where would the several million residents of London obtain fiber to make so much as shoe strings for each other? Animal skin for leather? Vegetable or animal fat for soap making? Raw wool or raw cotton to clean, card, spin into yarn, and then weave into cloth? Hides to tan into leather? Food?

Distributism seems more difficult than socialism to implement.

Some people could live in a distributist economy. Most people would have to have died off to make it work (just in terms of the amount of raw material that could be turned into finished products" by highly decentralized household manufacturing. \

You're right of course. I was imagining it more along the lines of the most votes buy the representative and then he should stay the course to do what I bought him to do. If he doesn't, I'll buy someone else next round and thus he's sold again (shipped out of parliament). A bit obscure and remote from how we usually imagine buying and selling of politicians. (Y)

Thanks for the compliment by the way. I always feel my English is idiosyncratic. Recently I was working closely with an English QC and we were saying the same thing but he was so much more eloquent. It's amazing how big the gap is when it comes to how a person lives his native language and when it's learned from abroad.

Your English is better than Trump’s although that's not exactly a blazing endorsement. ;)

Didn't you say you liked the Shire from Lord of the Rings? Was that you or somebody else?

The shire -- a very low-population rural area--is ideal for distributism. It seems to look back to the English village of the 17th century and earlier, a time when many products were produced at home. There are two critical problems: First, very few people live in self-sufficient villages, these days. Most people don't produce many products at home. They still could, but it seems wildly inefficient. I could, for instance, make several kinds of bar soap--one for laundry and heavy cleaning, one for bathing, and possibly one for hair. But small batch soap making doesn't yield the kind of soap people like to use.

There are far too many people living without much (if any) connection to raw materials that can be turned into useful products. For instance, where would the several million residents of London obtain fiber to make so much as shoe strings for each other? Animal skin for leather? Vegetable or animal fat for soap making? Raw wool or raw cotton to clean, card, spin into yarn, and then weave into cloth? Hides to tan into leather? Food?

Distributism seems more difficult than socialism to implement.

Some people could live in a distributist economy. Most people would have to have died off to make it work (just in terms of the amount of raw material that could be turned into finished products" by highly decentralized household manufacturing. \ — Bitter Crank

Distributism can and does include worker owned cooperatives, and other manufacturing businesses that can work on a larger scale. The scale isn't the problem. Distributism doesn't say that everything is to be produced by individuals.

However, we do produce a lot more than we need today. Do we really need 100s of brands of cereal for example?

The principal difference between distributism and socialism is that socialism is dictatorial and - in my view - tries to force everyone into being a wage slave. There are no business owners (or everyone is the owner, same thing), but precisely because of that everyone becomes a wage slave. The problem with this, just like in capitalism, is that people have no economic freedom/independence.

Breakfast food is a good example of superfluous production. There are really very few ways one breakfast food can be more than trivially different than another, and those differences were discovered in the first 15 minutes of breakfast food history.

Your comments on socialism indicate you did not understand the kind of socialism I was talking about.

The example of socialism that you are referencing is the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Everyone except hard core soviet communists have repudiated--or never accepted--the USSR/PRC/Cuban model of socialism.

Worker ownership and management of the economy -- replacing government altogether -- wouldn't result in a dictatorial system of socialist wage slavery. The whole business of wages and prices would largely be eliminated. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" might not work out well (it hasn't been tried in a secular setting) but there is no reason to presume that it would result in dictatorship or wage slavery.

The American socialist alternative model (developed towards the end of Marx's life) is democratic self-management, self-ownership of industry, where the workers for example of the Malt-O-Meal breakfast cereal plant would own and operate the now-privately-owned plant. The Malt-O-Meal workers would negotiate with distribution coops to determine what kinds, and how much, cereal to make. There is a difference in producing for human need and producing for profit. If there are orders for 100 tons of cereal, that's all they would make. They wouldn't make 200 tons and try to under cut Post or Kellogg workers; there wouldn't be any rationale to compete that way.

Distributism and worker-owned socialist industry are models with little concrete experience behind them. The details will have to be worked out as experience is gained, just as there were no pre-existing models for capitalism, the industrial revolution, and lots of other things.

Your comments on socialism indicate you did not understand the kind of socialism I was talking about.

The example of socialism that you are referencing is the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Everyone except hard core soviet communists have repudiated--or never accepted--the USSR/PRC/Cuban model of socialism. — Bitter Crank

That is easy for you to say, but my family lived through Communism, so I don't have many good things to say about it. If I were an adult during Communist times I probably would have had an extremely miserable life.

Someone introverted, religious and independent like me would very likely have ended up a political prisoner or worse. Even if I escaped that, I'd be forced to work with very little independence to go my own path and pursue my own interests. Even today that is largely the case - Im lucky to be able to work as self-employed. Most of the people I know work as wage slaves, having very little control over their type of work and what they have to do to earn a living. They are told when to show up to work, when to leave (sometimes with very long hours), how to dress, and so on so forth. In Communism that was even worse! You had almost no means of escape from that. At least, now there is a path, even if it's narrow and hard to walk.

In Communist times, you probably couldn't have been in a worse place than to be someone like me. So I have built an instinctive revulsion towards it, and towards society's control over the individual.

The whole business of wages and prices would largely be eliminated. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" might not work out well (it hasn't been tried in a secular setting) but there is no reason to presume that it would result in dictatorship or wage slavery. — Bitter Crank

Okay, so where is the place of artists and creators in your type of socialism? An artist or a creator must create. Must make something new, something different - they must be independent. They cannot be told what to create. They must find it themselves.

In one sense, in terms of production, the entrepreneur is a creator. Steve Jobs said that the customer - or the people - don't know what they want. You have to show it to them first. And that's indeed right. The business of the entrepreneur is largely to discover what the economy needs, and only secondarily to find a way to fulfil it. That's why I think no functional economy can exist without the entrepreneur.

The American socialist alternative model (developed towards the end of Marx's life) is democratic self-management, self-ownership of industry, where the workers for example of the Malt-O-Meal breakfast cereal plant would own and operate the now-privately-owned plant. The Malt-O-Meal workers would negotiate with distribution coops to determine what kinds, and how much, cereal to make. There is a difference in producing for human need and producing for profit. If there are orders for 100 tons of cereal, that's all they would make. They wouldn't make 200 tons and try to under cut Post or Kellogg workers; there wouldn't be any rationale to compete that way. — Bitter Crank

Right but much more important than this is that the Malt-O-Meal workers must first get in touch with those who need cereal and find out how much they need. This is in a sense the job of the entrepreneur - to find out what people need and then provide it to them.

What I think would be best is if entrepreneurship didn't have profit as the criteria of its existence, but rather fulfilling society's needs. There must exist people who think what we need, and then provide it to us. Not everyone can be such a person. If the profit motive is eliminated in the entrepreneur, and we cease having a society where the economy rules our social life instead of our social life ruling the economy, then I think in such a society money would lose its power. To be an influential person in such a society you'd have to be someone who fulfils its needs, not someone with a lot of money.

Money would be treated much like it was in many of the Ancient societies. It would confer only limited powers to its possessor, much more important back then was family background, and social position, which had less to do with money, but your role in sustaining the community.