[ZS] Re: Is there a consumer market at all?

[Michael Hrenka]

I see there's some confusion here in this thread. First of all, my
suggestions of a consumer market process is completely compatible with
our current system. I'm not suggesting replacing all current forms of
advertisement and Monte Carlo market placement with the more
interactive model. Instead, the interactive market model is to be
understood as complement to the current reactive market model. It
looks like some here think the reactive market doesn't work badly
enough and that the interactive market is too costly (in time and
money) to justify its expansion. Is that a really justified judgment?
Partially it seems to be, because the majority is probably too
comfortable to participate in an interactive market, just as the
majority is too comfortable to participate actively in politics (I see
votes as reactive participation). However, in politics there are still
a few people who are actively engaged. Why don't we see the same in a
similar fashion in the economic realm? Currently it looks like there's
only the binary choice between reactive market participation or owning/
working for a company which produces goods. There's not much in
between. This is a vacuum which demands a serious explanation - and
not just naive dismissals.

There are a few possible explanations - the argument about an
interactive participation costing too much time is only half of an
explanation, because time is a given fixed factor - the only variable
are the preferences and priorities of different persons. Here are a
few options how to explain the vacuum:
1. People care more about what they DON'T want than what they actually
want.
2. People don't know what they actually want, so they can't ask
actively for it.
3. People really don't want anything really strongly and thus remain
solely passive or reactive.
4. There are other psychological factors which are adverse to
interactive markets (status quo bias for example).
5. People are simply too stupid to participate in interactive markets.
6. People are too stupid to devise practicable procedures for
interactive markets.

If 6. turns out to be a major factor in the true explanation of the
phenomenon there's a real chance for Zero State to exploit the current
situation by designing effective interactive market procedures. There
are just no good places for producers and consumers to meet each
other. In other words there are no good forums - and "forum" is simply
the Latin word for "market". With our modern online technology the
time and resource requirements for an interactive participation of
consumers in the production process might be minimized drastically.
Some companies start to reach out for customers on platforms like
Twitter and Facebook and try to get into a real conversation with
them. However, Twitter and Facebook look like very suboptimal forums
for interactive markets. I'm rather looking for something that changes
our production processes like Khan Academy changed our education
processes. There might be a serious amount of cash behind an idea like
this.

What if the new interactive market process could lead to products
which have 10 times higher quality while only being half as expensive?
Impossible you say? Well, then prove that!

-- Michael Hrenka

P.S.: Furthermore I propose that we refrain from using terms like
"capitalist", "socialist", "free markets", "centralised",
"decentralised", "planning", and so on, because those terms come with
too much ideological baggage! Please try to use other words that
actually describe what you mean. Otherwise we really land in a
situation where capitalism = socialism = planning = centralised =
markets = free markets = capitalism.

-- 
Zero State mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/DoctrineZero

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