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The point I'm trying to make is people often use the term "value to society" like it's an answered question. We know it's not answered as that people's values v

The point I'm trying to make is people often use the term "value to society" like it's an answered question. We know it's not answered as that people's values vary. Centrally deciding what is useful has proven to be disastrous (see the Soviet Union and every other centrally planned economy). Free markets allow us to express our values at an individual level rather than having an authority deciding what to value.

tablespoon 5y ago
I know the point you're trying to make; it's ubiquitous. The point I'm making is that "free markets" won't answer the question either, and often result in things that are obviously against "value to society." One little thing I find annoying is that whenever someone points out some issue with free markets, someone always seems to reply with something that amounts to "have you considered free markets?" Whatever the problem, markets are the solution, even if the problem stems from markets themselves. The Soviet Union had serious problems, but it's a mistake to reason from that to the conclusion that markets are in some way ideal. They have their own problems, and we don't have access to an ideal system, so we have to try to deal with individual problems and make tradeoffs.
- neutronicus 5y ago
  I also think it's wrong to assume that the example of the Soviet Union proves anything. Maybe Free Markets were the best you could do with the quantitative decision-making tools available to Stalin, and maybe central planning with modern AI/ML/Operations Research techniques would be more successful than a free-market approach. Or maybe, the Soviet Union would have done just fine if there were no United States trying to thwart it at every turn.
  - andyzweb 5y ago
    What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. - Arthur Jensen (Network, 1976)
    - dash2 5y ago
      Red Plenty is a fabulous book about exactly this attempt to develop tools to plan the economy. Not a success, in the end, but it gave rise to great advances in the maths of dynamic optimization.
    - bennysomething 5y ago
      Are you arguing that this worked? Their centrally planned economy was a disaster of ineffeciency compared to western price based systems.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        It worked and it didn't. In large parts the bureaucrats actually opposed linear programming methods, but really the biggest issue was data, not planning. They had no automated data collection systems to speak of. Beyond that, the Soviet economy was solidly middling as far as the world was concerned.
  - bennysomething 5y ago
    The violence and suppression in the Soviet union started immediately. Trying to control the economy from the centre requires individuals give up choice not just in what they buy, but where they work. As troksky said "In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat." Who gets to decide what is allocated to whom? Giving these starting conditions it's no wonder in every single attempt at this has resulted in a death toll in the millions. Nothing the USA did from the outside forced these countries to starve, imprison and murder their own people. Why didn't this happen in the USA? Or the rest of the west? Why only in regimes that tried to control more aspects of an individuals life then ever attempted before? Most of the argument I am making is a poor rehash of "the road to serfdom". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299215.The_Road_to_Serfdom https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299215.The_Road_to_Serfd... Blaming the west for the terrors of Soviet Russia is as mistaken as blaming the allies for what the Nazis did in Europe.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Wasn't the rise of fascism in Germany directly caused by crippling and humiliating terms levied at Versailles
      - bennysomething 5y ago
        But hardly an excuse to try to exterminate an entire groups of people and invade other countries. Don't think anyone argues Hitler national socialism would have been fine if it wasn't for the allies. But they do argue communism might have worked of it wasnt for the USA.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Don't think anyone argues Hitler national socialism would have been fine if it wasn't for the allies. I’d be surprised if there aren't neo-Nazis that argue exactly that, just as modern Leninists argue that Soviet Communism might have worked out great for everyone if it wasn't for the USA.
goodpoint 5y ago
> Free markets allow us to express our values at an individual level rather than having an authority deciding what to value. This is not correct. The authority is there, it's just less visible. Market forces are extremely unequal: a small percentage of humanity, e.g. 0.1% influence 90% of the value of the housing market in all popular cities in developed countries.
- bennysomething 5y ago
  Where is that figure from? What does influence mean in this context?

tablespoon 5y ago

I know the point you're trying to make; it's ubiquitous. The point I'm making is that "free markets" won't answer the question either, and often result in things that are obviously against "value to society." One little thing I find annoying is that whenever someone points out some issue with free markets, someone always seems to reply with something that amounts to "have you considered free markets?" Whatever the problem, markets are the solution, even if the problem stems from markets themselves. The Soviet Union had serious problems, but it's a mistake to reason from that to the conclusion that markets are in some way ideal. They have their own problems, and we don't have access to an ideal system, so we have to try to deal with individual problems and make tradeoffs.

neutronicus 5y ago
I also think it's wrong to assume that the example of the Soviet Union proves anything. Maybe Free Markets were the best you could do with the quantitative decision-making tools available to Stalin, and maybe central planning with modern AI/ML/Operations Research techniques would be more successful than a free-market approach. Or maybe, the Soviet Union would have done just fine if there were no United States trying to thwart it at every turn.
- andyzweb 5y ago
  What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. - Arthur Jensen (Network, 1976)
  - dash2 5y ago
    Red Plenty is a fabulous book about exactly this attempt to develop tools to plan the economy. Not a success, in the end, but it gave rise to great advances in the maths of dynamic optimization.
  - bennysomething 5y ago
    Are you arguing that this worked? Their centrally planned economy was a disaster of ineffeciency compared to western price based systems.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It worked and it didn't. In large parts the bureaucrats actually opposed linear programming methods, but really the biggest issue was data, not planning. They had no automated data collection systems to speak of. Beyond that, the Soviet economy was solidly middling as far as the world was concerned.
- bennysomething 5y ago
  The violence and suppression in the Soviet union started immediately. Trying to control the economy from the centre requires individuals give up choice not just in what they buy, but where they work. As troksky said "In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat." Who gets to decide what is allocated to whom? Giving these starting conditions it's no wonder in every single attempt at this has resulted in a death toll in the millions. Nothing the USA did from the outside forced these countries to starve, imprison and murder their own people. Why didn't this happen in the USA? Or the rest of the west? Why only in regimes that tried to control more aspects of an individuals life then ever attempted before? Most of the argument I am making is a poor rehash of "the road to serfdom". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299215.The_Road_to_Serfdom https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299215.The_Road_to_Serfd... Blaming the west for the terrors of Soviet Russia is as mistaken as blaming the allies for what the Nazis did in Europe.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Wasn't the rise of fascism in Germany directly caused by crippling and humiliating terms levied at Versailles
    - bennysomething 5y ago
      But hardly an excuse to try to exterminate an entire groups of people and invade other countries. Don't think anyone argues Hitler national socialism would have been fine if it wasn't for the allies. But they do argue communism might have worked of it wasnt for the USA.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Don't think anyone argues Hitler national socialism would have been fine if it wasn't for the allies. I’d be surprised if there aren't neo-Nazis that argue exactly that, just as modern Leninists argue that Soviet Communism might have worked out great for everyone if it wasn't for the USA.

goodpoint 5y ago

> Free markets allow us to express our values at an individual level rather than having an authority deciding what to value. This is not correct. The authority is there, it's just less visible. Market forces are extremely unequal: a small percentage of humanity, e.g. 0.1% influence 90% of the value of the housing market in all popular cities in developed countries.

bennysomething 5y ago
Where is that figure from? What does influence mean in this context?