Market abolitionism

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Market abolitionism is a belief that the market, in the economic sense, should be completely eliminated from society. Market abolitionists argue that markets are morally abhorrent, anti-social and ultimately incompatible with human and environmental survival and that if left unchecked the market will annihilate both.

In large countries in the modern world, the only significant alternative to a market economy has been central planning or coordinatorism as was practiced in the early U.S.S.R and in the People's Republic of China before the 1990s. Other proposed alternatives to the market economy —participatory planning as proposed in the theory of Participatory economics ("Parecon"), and the idea of substituting a gift economy for a commodity exchange—have never been tried on a large scale.

[edit] Market Abolitionists

Michael Albert, creator of Znet and co-creator of Participatory economics, self-identifies as a market abolitionist and favors democratic Participatory planning as a replacement. He and several colleagues, including Robin Hahnel have elaborated their theory of "Parecon" in books, on Znet, and in Z Magazine.

Notably, Noam Chomsky is one of those who has expressed the opinion that a truly free market would destroy the species as well as physical environment. He also favors a democratic participatory planning process as a replacement to the market.[1]

Some anarcho-communists have proposed that a gift economy could be practiced on a large scale.

[edit] Criticism against the abolition of markets

Market oriented economists such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Brink Lindsey argue that if the market is eliminated along with property, prices, and wages, then the mode of information transmission is eliminated and what will result is a highly inefficient system for transmitting the value, supply, demand, of goods, services, resources, along with an elimination of the most efficient mode of market transactions.