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Well, market fundamentalism aside, we've already made progress on the core question just by characterizing it: we need information about relative commodity scar

Well, market fundamentalism aside, we've already made progress on the core question just by characterizing it: we need information about relative commodity scarcities and people's desires to be transmitted and collated efficiently, so that commodities can be produced to maximally meet human needs with minimum wastage. Now we just need to find an expert in information economics and start asking them good questions! Also, I'm not exactly a supporter of central planning, but it is worth noting, against conventional "market fundamentalism", that firms make fairly centralized and definite plans internally. So it seems that where information is scarce and radically incomplete, the stochasticity of markets helps achieve good outcomes in the same way that we might do empirical experiments in science rather than prove theorems. Likewise, where information is abundant, well-understood, and fairly complete (and where goals can be specified clearly -- extremely important!) - and where only success will be rewarded rather than failure! - the kind of planning done by firms and governments works well.

orangecat 11y ago
Also, I'm not exactly a supporter of central planning, but it is worth noting, against conventional "market fundamentalism", that firms make fairly centralized and definite plans internally. And that becomes increasingly inefficient as firms get larger, which is one reason why you generally don't end up with one company running everything.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >And that becomes increasingly inefficient as firms get larger, which is one reason why you generally don't end up with one company running everything. That's not quite true. While internal firm planning does seem to get less efficient as firms get larger, that inefficiency doesn't seem to stop firms from actually getting larger, or gobbling each-other up to form monopolies and oligopolies. The real-world upshot seems to be that as long as firms are allowed to grow past the point of efficient planning and efficient competition, they will actually harm the larger economy by attempting to grow and consume market share even when doing so makes them less economically efficient.
grinnbearit 11y ago
Its not a fair comparison. Businesses have a single, all important goal, to generate a profit so a top down plan can and does work. People on the other hand have different and changing values. Money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy them. Markets help to do this more efficiently.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >People on the other hand have different and changing values. Money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy them. Markets help to do this more efficiently. How is this substantively different from just calling human beings (or perhaps "rational" human beings?) money-maximizers and pretending we don't even need particular items to be bought and sold as long as economic transactions take place? What you're proposing sounds far too vulnerable to the "Disneyland with no children" scenario.
  - grinnbearit 11y ago
    Oops, that wasn't clear, money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy _their values_. You earn money from people when you satisfy their values, and spend money to get yours satisfied. I do think that people are "value-maximisers", short or long term is irrelevant. Being rational isn't really important either, people do what they believe will satisfy their values, even if it doesn't end up helping.

orangecat 11y ago

Also, I'm not exactly a supporter of central planning, but it is worth noting, against conventional "market fundamentalism", that firms make fairly centralized and definite plans internally. And that becomes increasingly inefficient as firms get larger, which is one reason why you generally don't end up with one company running everything.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>And that becomes increasingly inefficient as firms get larger, which is one reason why you generally don't end up with one company running everything. That's not quite true. While internal firm planning does seem to get less efficient as firms get larger, that inefficiency doesn't seem to stop firms from actually getting larger, or gobbling each-other up to form monopolies and oligopolies. The real-world upshot seems to be that as long as firms are allowed to grow past the point of efficient planning and efficient competition, they will actually harm the larger economy by attempting to grow and consume market share even when doing so makes them less economically efficient.

grinnbearit 11y ago

Its not a fair comparison. Businesses have a single, all important goal, to generate a profit so a top down plan can and does work. People on the other hand have different and changing values. Money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy them. Markets help to do this more efficiently.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>People on the other hand have different and changing values. Money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy them. Markets help to do this more efficiently. How is this substantively different from just calling human beings (or perhaps "rational" human beings?) money-maximizers and pretending we don't even need particular items to be bought and sold as long as economic transactions take place? What you're proposing sounds far too vulnerable to the "Disneyland with no children" scenario.
- grinnbearit 11y ago
  Oops, that wasn't clear, money is a distributed consensus system to figure out how to satisfy _their values_. You earn money from people when you satisfy their values, and spend money to get yours satisfied. I do think that people are "value-maximisers", short or long term is irrelevant. Being rational isn't really important either, people do what they believe will satisfy their values, even if it doesn't end up helping.