Thank you for your informative posts! I wasn't aware of the term market socialism and didn't know I was talking about that lol
Would such a model eliminate excess competition/unneeded production such as the 'bajillion models of cellphones' the previous user was talking about?
Also, do you think market socialism is a good step to take in implementing socialism/communism or should we support more of a market abolitionist approach?
Market socialism is and always will be in my mind the very first stepping stone to the world beyond it at best, though there are options to jump right over it.
Excessive production, however, will only end with either standardization of certain objects produced (determining them as a physical utility like we treat service utilities such as power, water, heating, etc) under market socialism or when the means of production is a societal "ownership", particularly one where price systems are eliminated and we can begin a safe transition to planned economies.
I am personally about market abolition, but this is because I am a price system abolitionist at heart. Again, at best, it's a stepping stone.
There is still a basis for competition in a marketless society, but the competition isn't as cutthroat as it doesn't have dire consequences for failure that competition under capitalism generates. When the moment where we evolve past markets and price systems arises, competition that remains will likely be driven by renown and acclaim.
Capitalism rarely gives credence to these drivers of activity unless some monetary value can be extracted from them (and even then, corporate entities usually try to take the credit rather than the individual(s) themselves), but without price systems, their place in human motivation becomes much more prominent, because they are part of an over-arching human motivation:
legacy.
In capitalism, wealth becomes the most important and powerful legacy one can offer the world, because it often grants all the others (such as through the corporate equivalent of "stolen valour" I mentioned earlier), especially renown's cousin, prestige.
But in a world without a price system, all the other means of creating legacies would undoubtedly bubble up to the forefront. Certain work still does value such legacies for individuals even under capitalism; doctors who come up with new surgical techniques or discover new ailments are often granted renown and acclaim, but that typically is followed by wealth that those things can generate for them.
New ideas and innovations would be the brass ring some strive for in lieu of a competitive edge in a market. So even if there's no corporations and, as an example, there's only one model of refrigerator and everyone is working to design the best, most efficient and most reconfigurable kind of refrigerator, whoever designs them in a way that makes them more efficient, more repairable, etc. earns a bit of renown for their work and are lifted up by their fellow engineers and scientists for a job well done. It leaves something to compete for (to be exalted above one's peers and create a legacy), but removes the desperation.
