Dumping (pricing policy)

[jondwhite]

Is there a flaw with thinking that socialism will spread very quickly when production of goods in one part of the world are distributed by (what free-marketeers call) “dumping” for free (no price) on the world marketplace. Hence the world marketplace for “goods/services with a price tag” would collapse and (hopefully) production would continue.

[DJP]

 A glut of free goods may cause a temporary fall in prices.. It is peferctly possible for goods created by socialised labour in one area to be sold as commodities in another region of the world. Surely this would just be giving a free gift to commercial capitalists?Or perhaps I haven’t grasped what it is you’re talking about.

[ALB]

Doesn’t Marx say somewhere in the Grundrisse that if capitalism went on long enough the unit price of many goods would become virtually zero (because the level of productivity reached would mean they would contain very little labour-time) and that capitalism would not be able to continue in these circumstances? I don’t think this is really a theory of capitalist collapse since he would have expected capitalism to have been overthrown long before this point was reached (and we’re still a long way from it even today 150 years later).

[jondwhite]

But what if a significant proportion of producers where prepared to continue to produce for free, then why would it only be a temporary fall in prices? Also what if distribution was widespread and global in reach, how could any goods or services with a price outcompete those without?

[Young Master Smeet]

jondwhite wrote:

But what if a significant proportion of producers where prepared to continue to produce for free, then why would it only be a temporary fall in prices? Also what if distribution was widespread and global in reach, how could any goods or services with a price outcompete those without?

This circumstance occurs pretty frequently, whenever there is an economic crisis.  Part of the point of crises is that they re-impose scarcity, after capital has pushed productive capacity beyond what the market can sustain. 2001 saw “overproduction” of cars, 2008, houses (and yet, they stand empty).

[jondwhite]

Maybe a better way of putting it would be “distribution for free”.

[Author]

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