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Oh yeah, by "communism" I mean whatever was implemented in Soviet block, China, India, Vietnam etc., not what Marx and others envisioned in their theories.

philipov 9y ago
I think it's a big difference, and one of the enduring legacies of cold-war propaganda is the confusion of the issue by conflating the two. A market economy is better at allocating resources efficiently than a command economy, but the argument over whether to have a command economy or market economy is separable from tendency of wealth to concentrate. The existance of winners is important to a market economy, but it also serves as an entaxic force (inverse of entropy, analogous to gravity) in the system that moves it towards greater order and centralization, until the corporate winners become de-facto states unto themselves with their own command-setting potential. Keeping the winners from leveraging their winnings to also win every subsequent round is the game we're playing to keep the field fair. That points to ideas from communism, but it has nothing to do with whether there's a command economy. Socialism is what happens when the demagogues get control of the ideology, just as they have in the US. What we need are anti-trust protections that prevent the formation of `too-big-to-fail` entities of all stripes.
- ShannonAlther 9y ago
  Just to be clear, when people say "Communism" and specify "the Soviet Union", that's adequate for rhetorical purposes. You can clarify that the Soviets were merely extremely socialist if you want, but everyone else understood what he was saying.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  "A market economy is better at allocating resources efficiently than a command economy" It was that way, agreed but might not always be that way. Because free market economies have their own share of inefficiencies and moral hazards and certainly cannot be the efficiency pinnacle of human civilization. I don't know what computers and networks will be capable of in the future, but it's worth noting that command economies failed in the time before these things really took off. The weak link has always been people who's brains developed in a time when they were monkeys scrabbling under trees and screeching at their fellows. No wonder they can't efficiently run big systems. But it's becoming evident maybe these tiny self centered brains are just big enough to design something that _can_ run a complex system efficiently.
  - kesselvon 9y ago
    Market economies are good at allocating resources, but they're also good at concentrating resources, which kills the market. And in some sectors, markets don't benefit the social fabric as a whole, hence why intervention into markets is often necessary

philipov 9y ago

I think it's a big difference, and one of the enduring legacies of cold-war propaganda is the confusion of the issue by conflating the two. A market economy is better at allocating resources efficiently than a command economy, but the argument over whether to have a command economy or market economy is separable from tendency of wealth to concentrate. The existance of winners is important to a market economy, but it also serves as an entaxic force (inverse of entropy, analogous to gravity) in the system that moves it towards greater order and centralization, until the corporate winners become de-facto states unto themselves with their own command-setting potential. Keeping the winners from leveraging their winnings to also win every subsequent round is the game we're playing to keep the field fair. That points to ideas from communism, but it has nothing to do with whether there's a command economy. Socialism is what happens when the demagogues get control of the ideology, just as they have in the US. What we need are anti-trust protections that prevent the formation of `too-big-to-fail` entities of all stripes.

ShannonAlther 9y ago
Just to be clear, when people say "Communism" and specify "the Soviet Union", that's adequate for rhetorical purposes. You can clarify that the Soviets were merely extremely socialist if you want, but everyone else understood what he was saying.
mythrwy 9y ago
"A market economy is better at allocating resources efficiently than a command economy" It was that way, agreed but might not always be that way. Because free market economies have their own share of inefficiencies and moral hazards and certainly cannot be the efficiency pinnacle of human civilization. I don't know what computers and networks will be capable of in the future, but it's worth noting that command economies failed in the time before these things really took off. The weak link has always been people who's brains developed in a time when they were monkeys scrabbling under trees and screeching at their fellows. No wonder they can't efficiently run big systems. But it's becoming evident maybe these tiny self centered brains are just big enough to design something that _can_ run a complex system efficiently.
- kesselvon 9y ago
  Market economies are good at allocating resources, but they're also good at concentrating resources, which kills the market. And in some sectors, markets don't benefit the social fabric as a whole, hence why intervention into markets is often necessary