Post-capitalism: Alternative Economic Models

• A. Adam Smith
• B. Karl Marx ✓
• C. John Maynard Keynes
• D. Milton Friedman

Why: Karl Marx argued that capitalism contains internal contradictions, such as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and conflicts between productive forces and social relations of production, which generate recurring economic crises. Smith, Keynes, and Friedman developed other views of markets and macroeconomic policy rather than this critique of capitalism's inherent instability.

• A. Publicly funded universities only
• B. Resources managed collectively by a community under shared rules ✓
• C. Government-owned military assets
• D. Privately owned land leased to tenants

Why: The commons refers to shared resources, such as land, water, knowledge, or digital infrastructure, that are governed collectively by a community rather than being owned privately or controlled solely by the state. Elinor Ostrom's research on commons governance is a key reference point in this area.

• A. Mercantilism
• B. Laissez-faire
• C. Communism in the Marxist sense ✓
• D. Monetarism

Why: Marx envisioned a communist society in which goods are distributed according to the principle 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,' rather than through wages and market exchange. Mercantilism, laissez-faire, and monetarism are schools of economic thought focused on trade, markets, or money supply within capitalist frameworks.

• A. Removing all government regulation from markets
• B. Reducing the extent to which people's livelihoods depend on buying and selling labor or goods in the market ✓
• C. Converting public services into private companies
• D. Eliminating money entirely from society

Why: Decommodification, a term popularized by Gøsta Esping-Andersen, refers to policies and institutions that allow people to meet their needs without depending entirely on market participation, such as universal healthcare, pensions, or unemployment insurance. It does not necessarily mean abolishing money or markets.

• A. Mutual aid as a driver of social cooperation and economic organization ✓
• B. Central planning by a single state authority
• C. Maximizing shareholder value through competition
• D. Strict hierarchy of wages based on skill

Why: Kropotkin argued in works like 'Mutual Aid' that cooperation and mutual support, rather than competition alone, are fundamental to human and animal evolution and social life, and he advocated decentralized, voluntary economic organization. He opposed centralized state control and competitive market hierarchy.

• A. Consumer demand exceeding supply
• B. The unpaid labor of workers beyond the labor needed to reproduce their own wages
• C. Government subsidies to private firms
• D. Competition between merchants in distant markets

• A. The simultaneous expansion of trade and colonial conquest
• B. The tension between market expansion and society's counter-movement to protect itself from unregulated markets
• C. The alternating booms and busts of the business cycle
• D. The movement of capital and labor across national borders

• A. Freely produced goods that markets allocate efficiently
• B. Fictitious commodities, because they are not produced for sale
• C. Public goods that should never be traded
• D. Inventions of modern central banks

• A. Being unable to find employment in their home region
• B. Feeling estranged from the products of their labor, the labor process itself, and their fellow humans
• C. Refusing to join trade unions
• D. Relocating to foreign countries for higher wages

• A. A preference for luxury goods among the wealthy
• B. The tendency to perceive relations between people as relations between objects and their market values
• C. The worship of religious icons in pre-industrial societies
• D. Consumers' obsession with brand names

• A. Goods are produced by private firms competing for profit in open markets
• B. Goods are produced collaboratively by decentralized contributors who share the outputs freely ✓
• C. Goods are produced by government agencies allocating resources through central planning
• D. Goods are produced by individual artisans working alone for personal consumption

Why: Commons-based peer production, a term popularized by Yochai Benkler, describes large-scale collaboration among decentralized, self-selecting participants who make shared resources available to others, typically without price signals or managerial hierarchies.

• A. Wikipedia ✓
• B. Amazon Marketplace
• C. The Soviet Gosplan system
• D. A traditional university press

Why: Wikipedia is widely cited as a flagship example: thousands of volunteers write and edit encyclopedia articles, and the resulting content is shared freely under open licenses rather than sold.

• A. Resources that are owned exclusively by the state
• B. Resources that are shared and collectively governed by a community ✓
• C. Resources that are rationed by price in competitive markets
• D. Resources that are scarce and cannot be replicated

Why: A commons is a shared resource managed collectively by a community of users rather than by a single owner, whether the state or a private party. Digital commons, like open-source software, are non-rivalrous and can be used by many without depletion.

• A. Guaranteed wages paid by a central authority
• B. Coercion through legal mandates
• C. Intrinsic motivation, reputation, learning, and a sense of community ✓
• D. Expectation of immediate monetary payment per contribution

Why: Research on open-source and peer production communities consistently finds that contributors are driven by non-monetary factors such as enjoyment, skill development, reputation within the community, and shared purpose.

• A. They are physically scarce and must be carefully rationed
• B. They can be copied and distributed at near-zero marginal cost and are non-rivalrous ✓
• C. They require expensive physical infrastructure to produce
• D. They can only be created by a single expert working alone

Why: Digital goods can be reproduced and shared at negligible additional cost, and one person's use does not diminish availability for others. These properties lower the barriers to collaboration and make open sharing economically feasible at scale.

• A. Workers are paid a fixed wage set by external shareholders
• B. Workers collectively own and democratically control the enterprise ✓
• C. The business is owned by a single investor who hires all staff
• D. The government owns and manages all production decisions

Why: In a worker cooperative, the people who work in the enterprise are its owners and share in decision-making, typically using one-member-one-vote governance rather than control proportional to capital invested.

• A. By the largest financial investor, in proportion to shares held
• B. By a government-appointed board
• C. Democratically, with each member generally having one vote ✓
• D. By randomly selecting one worker to decide for everyone

Why: The cooperative principle of democratic member control usually means each worker-member has one equal vote, regardless of their role or how much they have invested.

• A. All profits are sent to outside shareholders
• B. Profits are kept entirely by the founder
• C. Profits are often shared among members, sometimes based on hours worked or contributions ✓
• D. Profits are donated to the national treasury by law

Why: Worker cooperatives commonly distribute surplus (profit) to members, often in proportion to their labor or patronage, with part usually reinvested in the business.

• A. Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain ✓
• B. The British East India Company
• C. Standard Oil in the United States
• D. The Soviet state planning agency Gosplan

Why: Mondragon, founded in 1956 in the Basque region of Spain, is one of the largest and most studied federations of worker cooperatives in the world.

• A. It eliminates all competition in the market
• B. It can align workers' interests with the long-term success of the enterprise ✓
• C. It guarantees higher returns for outside investors
• D. It removes the need for any management or coordination

Why: Because workers share in the enterprise's success and govern it, proponents argue this alignment can increase commitment, job security, and attention to sustainable long-term performance.

• A. Economies must maximize GDP growth to reduce poverty
• B. Wealthy economies should deliberately reduce material and energy throughput to live within ecological limits
• C. Population growth should be expanded to increase labor supply
• D. Technological innovation alone will eliminate all environmental harm

• A. Adam Smith
• B. John Maynard Keynes
• C. Herman Daly
• D. Milton Friedman

• A. Separating government spending from taxation
• B. Separating economic output from resource use and environmental damage
• C. Splitting large corporations into smaller firms
• D. Removing trade barriers between countries

• A. The total number of workers employed in the economy
• B. The flow of energy and materials extracted, processed, and returned as waste
• C. The speed at which money circulates in the banking system
• D. The volume of goods imported over a year

• A. They believe all renewable energy is harmful to the environment
• B. They doubt that absolute reductions in resource use can occur alongside continued GDP expansion at scale
• C. They oppose any form of technological improvement
• D. They think environmental regulation always reduces employment

• A. A cash payment given only to people below a specified poverty line
• B. A regular cash payment given to all citizens regardless of income, wealth, or employment status ✓
• C. A government-provided job guarantee paid at a fixed wage
• D. A voucher system that can only be spent on essential goods

Why: UBI is distinguished by being unconditional and universal: every individual receives it regardless of means testing, work requirements, or other circumstances. This separates it from targeted welfare programs, which screen recipients by need.

• A. Converting public services into privately owned commercial enterprises
• B. The degree to which individuals can maintain a livelihood without depending on the market sale of their labor ✓
• C. The elimination of all money from an economic system
• D. Reducing the number of goods that are produced for sale

Why: Decommodification, a concept popularized by Gosta Esping-Andersen, describes how far social provision allows people to subsist without selling their labor power. Higher decommodification means workers have more freedom to refuse exploitative or unwanted work.

• A. It eliminates the need for any taxation
• B. It provides economic security that may increase bargaining power and freedom to pursue care work, education, or entrepreneurship ✓
• C. It guarantees that every citizen becomes wealthy
• D. It requires recipients to demonstrate active job searching

Why: Proponents argue that a secure baseline income lets people refuse poor-quality jobs, invest in training, or perform unpaid care work. UBI does not eliminate taxation, does not guarantee wealth, and is defined by the absence of work requirements.

• A. It would be too expensive to fund through taxation and could create strong work-disincentive effects ✓
• B. It would be impossible to administer because it involves cash payments
• C. It would only benefit people who already own property
• D. It would require the abolition of all private property

Why: Critics argue that universal payments are costly, requiring high taxes, and that some recipients may reduce their labor supply. These fiscal and behavioral concerns are central debates, though evidence from pilot programs remains mixed and contested.

• A. A UBI is paid to everyone, while a negative income tax phases out payments as income rises above a threshold, so it is targeted at low earners ✓
• B. A UBI is paid only to the wealthy, while a negative income tax is paid to the poor
• C. A UBI is funded by inflation, while a negative income tax is funded by borrowing
• D. There is no difference; the two terms refer to the same policy

Why: A negative income tax provides support that declines as earnings rise, targeting low-income households through the tax system. A UBI is universal and unconditional, paid to all regardless of income, which is why the two are often compared but are structurally distinct.

• A. Immediately abolishing all markets and private property in a single revolutionary act
• B. Gradually building alternative economic institutions within or alongside existing capitalist structures ✓
• C. Maintaining capitalism unchanged while adding minor social welfare programs
• D. Waiting for technological automation to spontaneously end the need for economic organization

Why: Many post-capitalist theorists emphasize incremental transition: building cooperatives, commons, public institutions, and other alternatives over time, rather than relying solely on a single sudden rupture or passively waiting for change.

• A. A firm owned by external investors who set wages and working conditions
• B. A business owned and democratically controlled by its members, who are also its workers ✓
• C. A government agency that employs workers in public services
• D. A temporary partnership formed to complete a single contract

Why: Worker cooperatives distribute ownership and decision-making power among the people who do the work, making them a common example of alternative ownership models studied in post-capitalist economics.

• A. Resources owned privately by a single wealthy family
• B. Shared resources managed collectively by a community under agreed rules ✓
• C. Government-owned military and infrastructure assets only
• D. Financial assets traded on public stock exchanges

Why: The commons refers to resources such as land, knowledge, water, or digital infrastructure that are governed and maintained collectively, as analyzed by scholars like Elinor Ostrom, rather than being owned privately or solely by the state.

• A. Ensuring that all economic activity is conducted in a single national currency
• B. Coordinating production and allocation across large economies without relying on market prices alone ✓
• C. Eliminating all forms of human labor through immediate robotics
• D. Preventing any individual from owning personal possessions

Why: A central debate in post-capitalist design is how to coordinate complex economies, including information and incentive problems, through planning, democratic deliberation, or hybrid mechanisms instead of markets alone.

• A. A wage paid only to workers who meet strict productivity targets
• B. A regular payment made to all citizens regardless of employment status or income ✓
• C. A tax levied exclusively on corporate profits
• D. A loan program for small businesses in developing regions

Why: UBI is proposed by many transition theorists as a way to decouple basic security from wage labor, giving people greater freedom to participate in cooperative or non-market work during a transition.