Mandel on Market Socialism

Interesting section on markets and unpredictablity wrt auto production, near beginning of essay. I'd say this has a particular resonance based on the problems of US car manufacturers in the current moment andthe reasons given for their failures. Often the ailments of this industry are seen as being caused by excessive "entitlements" to employees (though these current commitments were basically a way of deferring commitments to higher wages earlier on so the implicit blaming of the employees for their own downfall is more than a bit unfair.)

It would seem, in this case, that one of the best things for the US car industry--especially when viewed in a global context--would have been for there to be far more regulation of environmental standards. Actually, just using the regulations on the books would have been enough, disallowing the light truck loophole that became the cash cow for Detroit over the last decade or so instead of shifting their focus to the more fuel efficient vehicles that would keep them more globally competative. On the other hand, I find it sort of strange that, after building such a good market, Honda (and to a certain exent Toyota) would re-double their efforts to challenging Detroit in the light truck/SUV market. In any event, they are doing this from a position of greater strength than US manufacturers, in large part because the Japanese govt forced them to make the changes that are now making them even more competative globally.