Opposition to capital and alternatives
Opposition to capital and alternatives
This is a niche topic and I'm not sure this is the right community. Let's say we start to move on to a society less focused on capital. Not perfect but on the way there. There are still companies and there is an overall economy running around small businesses. How would a small business get started without access to "capital"? What are the alternatives?
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There would have to be some system to allocate limited resources, mostly real estate and materials. A command economy type system might say a local government gets a proposal and if it looks good allocates what is in their discretion to allocate: "your business is assigned to this address and up to X resources a month". There are more democratic ways to do that as well, you could do a community vote to allocate community resources.
Capital abstracts resource allocation, without capital you need to really dig into who is getting what and why.
So some sort off central government resource allocation? Would it be possible in another way? I think crowdsourcing is a basic example that alternatives exist even if that in particular is highly dependent on a globalized economy. The main problem I see with central government is that it's much more susceptible to corruption, even if it's on a local level.
Crowdsourcing is basically the direct democracy version of what I described. I show off my business plan and everyone gets a vote on if it goes through. In this case they'd need to vote with their collective share of local resources though. You can't allocate more rice than exists locally, no matter how many burrito stands you want in town.
I think you'd want to avoid any system that relies on how many resources a person personally has accumulated. That's the libertarian nightmare state where rich horder-preppers rule the world with their stash of toilet paper.
"Everyone" might be a bit hard to organize, but you rarely start in a vacuum. For example there could be an agricultural cooperative that you are already a member of, or someone you know is. That cooperative might be willing to sponsor your burrito stand if that is beneficial to their members, either because you buy maize from them and/or because they would like to have a tasty food shop near their shared warehouse or so.
I think I see your point. Getting investment from the parties directly affected makes sense and would also create a sustainable business model as it proves the need for it. It could also create some synergy if the created business is also a co-op itself that may in turn eventually do the same for something else. Basically investment without rent seeking.
True, completely agree with your final part. I think I see your point. But your set still needs a post money society. What about a middle ground? Would for example funding also come from the community?