A short description of 'market based economies' from a Marxist perspective.

Against market/competition/PROFIT driven society (capitalism):

My evaluation of Capitalist, market driven economy:

·         The competitive nature of capitalist society hinders technological progress, as the technology is not made to the best possible degree due to the competition between market leaders for profit, rather than collaboration for the improvement of society. E.g: no product is sold for it’s worth, rather for the maximum profit it can demand without protest. Due to this, Pharmaceutical corporations, rather than sharing their research with other companies, to faster achieve progress in development, will keep their knowledge in order to be the only supplier of a drug or treatment in the future so that they can maximise profits for themselves. Which surely is amoral, yet, in a market/competition based economy, it is the logical decision to restrict resources in order to increase their value, rather than try to attain abundance; which holds no promise of profit (e.g. If a gold mine produces more gold, they do not have more money, just the value of gold is decreased, so by restricting your supply of gold to others gold retains its value and maximum profit can be achieved) .

·         In this sense, corruption and amorality is an inherent part of the economy, as a moral and humanitarian company would be destroyed by those companies that make more profit.

·         This inherent corruption is in turn then applied to society; as due to the suppliers restricting supply to increase their products value, the consumer must compete with one another in order to attain resources for themselves. This is apparent in the ‘Alienation’ that arises between the Bourgeoisie (wealthy) and the proletariat (poor) and the unbalanced distribution of wealth in the population, as we are born into a society whereby hoarding as much one’s self as you can is seen as the only way to progress within society (e.g. the Bourgeoisie).

·         This leads to international scale amorality, with powers such as America etc. feeling the need to invade and dominate other nations for their resources, as competition for profit from resources dictates that nations, corporations and the populace must only share resources for unfair ‘maximum profit’ orientated costs.

·         This even spreads to humanitarian aid, as the investment in poorer countries (who are poor due to the inability of more PROFITABLE countries to fairly share resources) is only done in order to create a perpetual and ever growing debt to the more powerful country.

From this it is apparent that money IS debt and profit IS corruption (corruption being the exploitation of others for personal gain).

Thus, profit kills fair trade.