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So it sounds like a market economy is optimal in some senses, but the advantage of a centrally-planned economy is that it would allow administrators to directly

So it sounds like a market economy is optimal in some senses, but the advantage of a centrally-planned economy is that it would allow administrators to directly choose the objective function that they're optimizing for. That's interesting. It seems like even if the optimization problem part were tractable, choosing an objective function to optimize social wellbeing would be very hard.

Retric 6y ago
I wonder if it would have been easier back in 1848 when the communist manifesto was created than today. Consistently meeting people’s basic needs for food, clean water, and shelter would have been a step up for most of the world back then where today the standard of living for most people is dramatically past that point. Both China and Russia experienced a famine shortly after becoming communist, so at least initially it seems to make things worse.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Those needs could be met in an agrarian model, but you'd get swept away by the industrialized nations in pretty short order. Meeting those basic needs wouldn't be enough for long in a competitive global landscape.
  - Retric 6y ago
    I am not suggesting a hypothetical economy which only did those things. Governments need to build militaries and roads etc. I am rather suggesting 170 years ago the yardstick for success may have looked very different. Something that is obviously flawed today may have seemed far more reasonable to people at the time and even somewhat worked. Hell the US still had slavery back then, it was simply a very different time period. Which kind of makes me think what biases someone in 170 years in the other direction aka 2190 would have thinking about our time period.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      ... and back then one of the arguments for keeping slavery was "if you (bostonians) start attacking the right of property (in people), you're going to wind up with communism!" It's funny how little the slippery slopes differ from the pre-internet (pre-telephone!) era to our own.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Yeah. The problem is, the administrators don't know me. I've got lots of preferences; they don't know any of them. They don't know what kind of chocolate truffles I like, or what kind of pizza, or what kind of shoes. They may get me food, and shoes, but my preferences are much more detailed than that. The economy is something like a fractal. We have food, clothes, shelter, and medical. We all need that. But in food, we have fruit, vegetables, meat, grains, and candy. Even if they get all of that right... how are the planners supposed to know how many people want Life Savers instead of M&Ms? So they're likely to choose an objective function that is not what individuals would choose for themselves. How are they supposed to gather the data that tells them that they made too many M&Ms and not enough Life Savers? How do they collect data at that level of detail and put it into their objective function?
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Nonsense, comrade! You will be fine with one standard unit of food per day like everyone else. Candy is for weak capitalists.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Candy? You need bread and meat to live, not candy!

Retric 6y ago

I wonder if it would have been easier back in 1848 when the communist manifesto was created than today. Consistently meeting people’s basic needs for food, clean water, and shelter would have been a step up for most of the world back then where today the standard of living for most people is dramatically past that point. Both China and Russia experienced a famine shortly after becoming communist, so at least initially it seems to make things worse.

titanomachy 6y ago
Those needs could be met in an agrarian model, but you'd get swept away by the industrialized nations in pretty short order. Meeting those basic needs wouldn't be enough for long in a competitive global landscape.
- Retric 6y ago
  I am not suggesting a hypothetical economy which only did those things. Governments need to build militaries and roads etc. I am rather suggesting 170 years ago the yardstick for success may have looked very different. Something that is obviously flawed today may have seemed far more reasonable to people at the time and even somewhat worked. Hell the US still had slavery back then, it was simply a very different time period. Which kind of makes me think what biases someone in 170 years in the other direction aka 2190 would have thinking about our time period.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    ... and back then one of the arguments for keeping slavery was "if you (bostonians) start attacking the right of property (in people), you're going to wind up with communism!" It's funny how little the slippery slopes differ from the pre-internet (pre-telephone!) era to our own.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Yeah. The problem is, the administrators don't know me. I've got lots of preferences; they don't know any of them. They don't know what kind of chocolate truffles I like, or what kind of pizza, or what kind of shoes. They may get me food, and shoes, but my preferences are much more detailed than that. The economy is something like a fractal. We have food, clothes, shelter, and medical. We all need that. But in food, we have fruit, vegetables, meat, grains, and candy. Even if they get all of that right... how are the planners supposed to know how many people want Life Savers instead of M&Ms? So they're likely to choose an objective function that is not what individuals would choose for themselves. How are they supposed to gather the data that tells them that they made too many M&Ms and not enough Life Savers? How do they collect data at that level of detail and put it into their objective function?

titanomachy 6y ago
Nonsense, comrade! You will be fine with one standard unit of food per day like everyone else. Candy is for weak capitalists.
kolinko 6y ago
Candy? You need bread and meat to live, not candy!