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Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. Instead t

Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. Instead they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job. Furthermore, older socialist theories still operate under the assumption that production is the biggest economy, rather than service. You can't translate the theories since the value add of service economies are rarely bound by the "means of production"(factories) and the labor value add fluctuates wildly with skill which breaks any sense of worker solidarity.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
One can argue that all those infinitesimal signals are akin to brownian motion, if so, who better to talk about it than the man himself?
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  [flagged]
ecshafer 3y ago
Socialism isn’t a planned economy. That was one attempt, the Marx-Leninist attempt in the USSR, at socialism. Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. Or you can have more extreme radical direct democracy. There are thousands of ways to implement socialism, not all of them are the same.
- remarkEon 3y ago
  You can’t reorder society to benefit the “lowest wrung[sic]” without planning at least some extent of the economy through directed means. Yes yes, there’s a bunch of variations of this but they’re just window dressing for the underlying ideology, usually to make it more palatable for the less bureaucratically natured among us.
  - crickey 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - remarkEon 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - crickey 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - Gunax 3y ago
      If the taxes are performed to make the economy just or fairer (as opposed to finding public necessities), possibly. I understand the absurdity of it. We had taxes for a long time before socialism. And we obviously need taxes. But a long-term criticism of the welfare state has been that it co-opted taxes from being a means to fund public services to a means to reward/rebalance/rework society towards politically favoured groups.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  > Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. That is not the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism > You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. Co-ops have never operated outside the bounds of a democracy with a State. Notwithstanding, they don't appear to scale very well. The most common use case is related to agriculture, though there's a single mid-scale company in Spain that ancoms like to tout. No one wants to take on all the risk of starting a business while socializing all the profit, hence, we don't usually see these spring up. But if the model is so good for workers, naturally, you'd expect popularity to rise. They've been around a long time and we're still waiting for that to happen. > You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. That's just mixed economy, part of the fabric of Liberalism. Socialism necessitates the elimination of Capitalism.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    Capitalism is not markets. Liberalism is says nothing about social programs, liberalism is about unrestricted markets and decoupling people from castes and traditions. Did you read your link to socialism? It agrees with what I said.
    - slothtrop 3y ago
      > Capitalism is not markets. Capitalism is markets + the right to private property and gains. It's not a philosophy. > Liberalism is says nothing about social programs Social Liberalism does, which is the prevailing Liberal school of thought today. > Did you read your link to socialism? ctrl+f "lowest rung"= 0 results. Redistribution isn't just about "the lowest rung" or most impoverished, social ownership is intended to be utilitarian. Not unlike Liberalism.
      - dpig_ 3y ago
        Capitalism is private ownership. Markets are human, completely predating capitalism.
- Aunche 3y ago
  People always discover that certain things they want require centralized planning, like welfare, a strong military, or high tech goods. The problem with socialism in practice is that it always ends up being more about being anti-capitalism than pro-syndicalism or pro-direct democracy, so you always end up with a scenario where power gets more centralized to the state.
neilk 3y ago
I agree that the labor theory of value isn't useful, and pricing signals are more responsive than any command economy has yet been able to achieve. However, overproduction is also a problem in capitalism, from a lot of perspectives. The profit motive assures that surpluses are produced, sometimes absurdly bountiful surpluses, and then must be consumed. In the short term, many businesses will fail or be amalgamated if their inputs are too abundant and can no longer support a profit margin. Long term, capitalists will arrange the economy such that surpluses will be consumed by the creation of new desires, rentier capitalism on the necessities of life like housing or healthcare or education, or, failing that, wars. I'm not saying this is the only factor creating an insatiable loop; humans are pretty good at that by themselves. What's different about capitalism is that there just aren't any brakes you can apply, anywhere. Are there solutions? Well, we could go back to before capitalism, but that wasn't so great either. When Adam Smith wrote his treatises, the prevailing view among elites was that giving the poor more wealth was a bad thing. It was more important that they be obedient and content with their lot. Smith correctly saw that it mas moral to increase the general wealth, and the wealth of the people was (roll title) the wealth of the nation. So Smith's insight was an important corrective. I wouldn't want to go back to a system where elites arranged things so that I would be virtuous and poor. By many standards, I live a better life than an elite of the 18th century. But I also am part of a system that has no brakes at all, even as life becomes increasingly frantic and the externalities are piling up all around us. I'm not sure it's fair to say that it's the government's fault since capitalism has pretty much trounced good governance, at least in the countries where I live in. It's not politically possible to do things that reduce the power of capitalists, even if they are widely popular.
- ozim 3y ago
  I don’t have to be Adam Smith or elites to know how lottery winners from low end social strata end up. One cannot simply drop wealth on poor. So it should be a process. Only problem we have now is that rich are getting more rich than poor are getting wealth. Where ideally rich could get more rich as poor get out of being poor but they also should be bound by process and timelines. I think taxing any wealth that will last longer than one lifetime will be needed. But it has to be real and not that ultra rich hide wealth in bs trust funds. But it will be super hard to implement.
Matl 3y ago
> Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. The economic engine you speak of today relies on an astonishing amount of centralization, it's an illusion that it is some kind of 'organic' engine.
- Jensson 3y ago
  We have billions of literally biological brains making many economic choices every day. Our current economy is a very distributed organic engine, it wouldn't work unless everyone contributed by deciding what to buy with their money. It has central parts but the main decider in the engine is what consumers choose to buy.
  - xg15 3y ago
    Which is influenced by what products consumers can buy in the first place and what products they know and have a good impression of - which is in turn influenced by the decision of large distributors and media companies etc... This even before getting into financing and regulations.
  - wslh 3y ago
    This is a great discussion. We should define what the engine is. United States spends ~3% of the GDP in defense. Obviously this creates markets but there is a relatively centralized decision to spend that amount of money.
  - Matl 3y ago
    This assumes that people have access to accurate, up to date and unbiased information to make informed choices about what to buy. Yes they buy things, to what extent the things available/popular are the product of a free market vs established conglomerates having regulators in their pocket for example is highly debatable imo. How many of these giants would survive without a steady stream of government contracts?
- IMSAI8080 3y ago
  There's a book "The People's Republic of Walmart" that makes these arguments. Walmart is a massive company, as large as some entire countries even, that operates an internal economy based on central planning. They tell all their suppliers exactly what will be produced, in what quantities, when it will be delivered and largely what it will cost. Modern stock control systems and supplier integration make it feasible.
Gunax 3y ago
This argument is 75 years old. I take it to be less of an argument, and more like history.
xg15 3y ago
I dunno, but China seems to do pretty well economically.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
creer 3y ago
> they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job. A free economy is full of over and under production also - probably because exact production is an impossible goal. I feel the better difference is in how free and responsive all the actors can be. Free to over-sheep in a bubble. Free to copy-cat when there is demand. Free to try and exploit any perceived imbalance. Responsiveness and freedom from dogma is a more important characteristic?
- pitaj 3y ago
  > A free economy is full of over and under production also Not nearly to the same degree, especially if you take into account various distortionary government policies.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago

One can argue that all those infinitesimal signals are akin to brownian motion, if so, who better to talk about it than the man himself?

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
[flagged]

ecshafer 3y ago

Socialism isn’t a planned economy. That was one attempt, the Marx-Leninist attempt in the USSR, at socialism. Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. Or you can have more extreme radical direct democracy. There are thousands of ways to implement socialism, not all of them are the same.

remarkEon 3y ago
You can’t reorder society to benefit the “lowest wrung[sic]” without planning at least some extent of the economy through directed means. Yes yes, there’s a bunch of variations of this but they’re just window dressing for the underlying ideology, usually to make it more palatable for the less bureaucratically natured among us.
- crickey 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - remarkEon 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - crickey 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - Gunax 3y ago
    If the taxes are performed to make the economy just or fairer (as opposed to finding public necessities), possibly. I understand the absurdity of it. We had taxes for a long time before socialism. And we obviously need taxes. But a long-term criticism of the welfare state has been that it co-opted taxes from being a means to fund public services to a means to reward/rebalance/rework society towards politically favoured groups.
slothtrop 3y ago
> Socialism is the fundamental reordering of society to benefit the lowest wrung. That is not the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism > You can have socialism with markers still, which is what is done in syndicalist style socialism. Co-ops have never operated outside the bounds of a democracy with a State. Notwithstanding, they don't appear to scale very well. The most common use case is related to agriculture, though there's a single mid-scale company in Spain that ancoms like to tout. No one wants to take on all the risk of starting a business while socializing all the profit, hence, we don't usually see these spring up. But if the model is so good for workers, naturally, you'd expect popularity to rise. They've been around a long time and we're still waiting for that to happen. > You can have limited social programs as a form of socialism as per social democrats. That's just mixed economy, part of the fabric of Liberalism. Socialism necessitates the elimination of Capitalism.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ecshafer 3y ago
  Capitalism is not markets. Liberalism is says nothing about social programs, liberalism is about unrestricted markets and decoupling people from castes and traditions. Did you read your link to socialism? It agrees with what I said.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > Capitalism is not markets. Capitalism is markets + the right to private property and gains. It's not a philosophy. > Liberalism is says nothing about social programs Social Liberalism does, which is the prevailing Liberal school of thought today. > Did you read your link to socialism? ctrl+f "lowest rung"= 0 results. Redistribution isn't just about "the lowest rung" or most impoverished, social ownership is intended to be utilitarian. Not unlike Liberalism.
    - dpig_ 3y ago
      Capitalism is private ownership. Markets are human, completely predating capitalism.
Aunche 3y ago
People always discover that certain things they want require centralized planning, like welfare, a strong military, or high tech goods. The problem with socialism in practice is that it always ends up being more about being anti-capitalism than pro-syndicalism or pro-direct democracy, so you always end up with a scenario where power gets more centralized to the state.

neilk 3y ago

I agree that the labor theory of value isn't useful, and pricing signals are more responsive than any command economy has yet been able to achieve. However, overproduction is also a problem in capitalism, from a lot of perspectives. The profit motive assures that surpluses are produced, sometimes absurdly bountiful surpluses, and then must be consumed. In the short term, many businesses will fail or be amalgamated if their inputs are too abundant and can no longer support a profit margin. Long term, capitalists will arrange the economy such that surpluses will be consumed by the creation of new desires, rentier capitalism on the necessities of life like housing or healthcare or education, or, failing that, wars. I'm not saying this is the only factor creating an insatiable loop; humans are pretty good at that by themselves. What's different about capitalism is that there just aren't any brakes you can apply, anywhere. Are there solutions? Well, we could go back to before capitalism, but that wasn't so great either. When Adam Smith wrote his treatises, the prevailing view among elites was that giving the poor more wealth was a bad thing. It was more important that they be obedient and content with their lot. Smith correctly saw that it mas moral to increase the general wealth, and the wealth of the people was (roll title) the wealth of the nation. So Smith's insight was an important corrective. I wouldn't want to go back to a system where elites arranged things so that I would be virtuous and poor. By many standards, I live a better life than an elite of the 18th century. But I also am part of a system that has no brakes at all, even as life becomes increasingly frantic and the externalities are piling up all around us. I'm not sure it's fair to say that it's the government's fault since capitalism has pretty much trounced good governance, at least in the countries where I live in. It's not politically possible to do things that reduce the power of capitalists, even if they are widely popular.

ozim 3y ago
I don’t have to be Adam Smith or elites to know how lottery winners from low end social strata end up. One cannot simply drop wealth on poor. So it should be a process. Only problem we have now is that rich are getting more rich than poor are getting wealth. Where ideally rich could get more rich as poor get out of being poor but they also should be bound by process and timelines. I think taxing any wealth that will last longer than one lifetime will be needed. But it has to be real and not that ultra rich hide wealth in bs trust funds. But it will be super hard to implement.

Matl 3y ago

> Can we stop rehashing arguments for planned economies; they are terrible because they ignore the million micro signals that drive the economic engine. The economic engine you speak of today relies on an astonishing amount of centralization, it's an illusion that it is some kind of 'organic' engine.

Jensson 3y ago
We have billions of literally biological brains making many economic choices every day. Our current economy is a very distributed organic engine, it wouldn't work unless everyone contributed by deciding what to buy with their money. It has central parts but the main decider in the engine is what consumers choose to buy.
- xg15 3y ago
  Which is influenced by what products consumers can buy in the first place and what products they know and have a good impression of - which is in turn influenced by the decision of large distributors and media companies etc... This even before getting into financing and regulations.
- wslh 3y ago
  This is a great discussion. We should define what the engine is. United States spends ~3% of the GDP in defense. Obviously this creates markets but there is a relatively centralized decision to spend that amount of money.
- Matl 3y ago
  This assumes that people have access to accurate, up to date and unbiased information to make informed choices about what to buy. Yes they buy things, to what extent the things available/popular are the product of a free market vs established conglomerates having regulators in their pocket for example is highly debatable imo. How many of these giants would survive without a steady stream of government contracts?
IMSAI8080 3y ago
There's a book "The People's Republic of Walmart" that makes these arguments. Walmart is a massive company, as large as some entire countries even, that operates an internal economy based on central planning. They tell all their suppliers exactly what will be produced, in what quantities, when it will be delivered and largely what it will cost. Modern stock control systems and supplier integration make it feasible.

Gunax 3y ago

This argument is 75 years old. I take it to be less of an argument, and more like history.

xg15 3y ago

I dunno, but China seems to do pretty well economically.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

creer 3y ago

> they over and under produce just about everything because the central planners have an impossible job. A free economy is full of over and under production also - probably because exact production is an impossible goal. I feel the better difference is in how free and responsive all the actors can be. Free to over-sheep in a bubble. Free to copy-cat when there is demand. Free to try and exploit any perceived imbalance. Responsiveness and freedom from dogma is a more important characteristic?

pitaj 3y ago
> A free economy is full of over and under production also Not nearly to the same degree, especially if you take into account various distortionary government policies.