| What is democratic economy? |
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What is the difference between democratic
economy and socialism? |
In
democratic economy, economic process is being conducted
from below, according to the wishes of individuals. Hence
it is analogical with democratic politics, as far as
democratic politics is understood as free and neutral way
of conducting political action by individuals. When
politics provides the society with common
regulations and aims, economy provides the society with
economic commodities. In democratic economy democracy is
applied to economy and politics separately.
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| The idea of socialism is to
control and direct the economy by political
intervention. The government tryes to correct the
biases and defects of capitalist market economy
by categorizing economic functions and giving
different obligations to different categories. |
| The idea of democratic economy
is to make the market more perfect. Market
participants and governments agree on rules that
prevent market participants, including
governments, to control market by categorizing
each other and granting different rights to
different categories. |
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| How does democratic economy work? |
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What is the difference between democratic
economy and capitalism? |
| The same principles apply in democratic
economy as do in democratic politics. What is essential
is the influence from below, that every individual has an
equal and direct opportunity to conduct the progress of
society. In politics these rights are ensured by e.g. the
free distribution of information, an open discussion and
an equal right to vote, i.e. to "buy" political
decisions. In economy democratic rights are ensured by
free and public information of all market actions, an
open discussion about this information and an equal and
direct right to buy commodities in public market. |
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| The practice of capitalism
grounds on principles of unfettered private
ownership and freedom of contract. This
combination leads to an economy where producers
and sellers can, by discriminative contracts,
pressure buyers and consumers into trades that
are more profitable to bigger players than to
smaller ones. |
| The practice of democratic
economy grounds also on market but on public
ownership of market information and the denial of
discriminative contracts. Since market
information is open the misuse of it is easy to
discover. Since discriminative contracts are
banned the big players cannot take the advantage
of the smaller one's weaknesses. |
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| What are the aims of democratic economy? |
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What is the relation between citizen's
movements and democratic economy? |
Like real democratic politics real
democratic economy can be seen as a progress toward ideal
democracy where individual equality is fully implemented.
Although the ideal democratic economy is impossible to
achieve, it sets the end toward which democratic powers
aim against the forces which try to maintain the status
quo. The following aims result from the principle of
public openness of market information and equal freedom
to directly buy what ever there is sold.
| 1. Everyone has an equal right to
know all the factors of trade: possessors,
prices, qualities and quantities. |
| 2. Everyone has an equal right to
buy anything that is sold. Hence, exclusive or
discriminatory trading rights are not for sale. |
| 3. Every individual has the same
rights and obligations to trade as any economic
organization. |
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| The two main problems of
today's economy are a growing global
socio-economic unbalance due to a widening wealth
gap and a high pressure on environment due to
globally growing production. |
| Numerous local and global
civil movements have developed to solve these
problems. Some movements have a special agenda,
e.g. human rights, environment, unemployment or
corporate power, and a special solution to the
problem in question. Some movements prefer a
worldwide political agent that could control the
whole global economy in favor of a random
citizen. And some movements have no expressed
goals but to break down the present system and
bring up a better one. |
| The aim of democratic economy
is not to concentrate on specific problems, nor
to build a global government nor to break down
the present economy. Its goal is to change the
rules of trade so that the big ones cannot
pressure the small ones so that the gap between
rich and poor narrows. But when the market rules
are democratized and a competitive pressure is
lowered every small community has a better chance
to cope with local problems. |
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