Forum Post: Free market would work if the Demand was as powerful as the Supply

The problem is that it is not. What is Power? Information + resources + time, things the demand is heavily lacking. The 80s was the era of the all powerful Supply. And it worked so well that the Supply now bends and dictates what people should want and how much they should pay for it.

But we are now ready for the Demand to rise, to organize and get informed. OWS has this kind of power, it gathers people, brings in information. So practically, what would a powerful demand look like:

100 families asking the private sector for 45 000$ three bedroom homes. If 100 families asked that at the same time, then you have a 4,500,000$ contract. You gain power because 100 families is not one single person trying to fight a big contractor. You won't each have a 4.5M$ house, but can benefit from economies of scale and could throw in some shared amenities. About 400 people, that means you also have human resources, collective financial power, and information that some will have collectively gathered while others will have time to supervise the project at any given time. And you can even go and bargain with the enemy for a decent mortgage. This is the people's economy. The Supply would then no longer be the one fixing prices, and the demand would create its own supply.

But then we would also have to learn to get along. Maybe it's just an utopia ;-)