Why does money rule the world?
Companies only invest in the means of production if more money can be made from money, if the intended income exceeds the expenses for raw materials, machines and wages, etc., in other words if there is a prospect of profit. So in the market economy the measure of the usefulness of the goods and services created is consequently not need, but rather is dependent on how much money is earned. The purpose of market economy production is money as the power to retain control over other people's work and its multiplication without limit. The social production of wealth, which as a market economy is controlled by the aim of multiplying wealth measured in money, degrades people and their needs to a means for making money. What is produced, how it is produced, for whom it is produced or whether anything is produced at all, in the market economy is not a question of the needs of the population, but just a question of profitable business.
The market economy as an efficient system for the optimum allocation of resources? At the latest, the crisis will make it obvious that the owners of the means of production are not interested in producing and distributing useful articles. They are only the means to an end. »The mere fact that millions of houses sit empty while millions of people are homeless shows that usefulness is not the issue. However much homeless people might have use for these houses, the market dictates that you get what you pay for, not what you need.«* The real goal is to increase the capital invested. The investments in raw materials, machines, and labour power and the sale of the corresponding articles of use must generate a sustained profit for the investor or he will stop production. This simple principle – there has to be something in it for the owner of the means of production – is the core difference between the market economy and the planned production of useful goods. Just producing additional means of subsistence is, according to the market economy goal to turn money into more money, not a good enough reason to produce. For how many people this decision means absolute misery is uninteresting from the standpoint of the market economy. Demand (human need) that cannot be paid for simply does not exist for this purpose.
*) David McNally, Global Slump
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