Value of commodities

[Bombay]

How do you determine the value of commodities in planned economy if we still used money? And is this really a problem in planned economy?

[Bubbles]

The same way as we do today?

[Thirsty Crow]

The same way as we do today?
By means of market mechanisms?
I hope not.

[Bubbles]

By means of market mechanisms?
I hope not.
You could just measure the social necessary labour time to produce the thing.

[Broletariat]

Uhh, if we're still producing commodity's we're still under Capitalism no? Or did I miss the point entirely

[Kotze]

Value is such a loaded term...

If the question was about value in the sense of typical selling price:

Many propose pricing based on socially necessary labour time (Marx for instance). This is quite complex and can only be solved approximately, since there is also labour involved in producing the machines that are directly involved in producing the item and in producing machines that are needed to produce these machines and then there is the training that is needed to be able to perform specific jobs that should also be taken into account. Pollution costs should be priced in as well.

If there are too few units of a certain item, the price can be raised above production costs to ration the good, so that those who need it the most get it. I know this sounds very close to capitalist propaganda, but the claim about those who need it the most getting it is more plausible in a society with a more levelled income structure and jobs for everybody. If demand for an item is low, the price gets put below production cost so the stores get rid of it. For transparency, the info about the core price (I mean the price without the demand adjustments) could also be published.

It is technically possible to have prices that are adjusted several times a day, but while you could make an argument that prices weren't flexible enough in the USSR, it is questionable how good ultra-flexible prices are. If I am excepted from traffic rules that makes life easier for me. But if nobody has to follow traffic rules, navigating traffic gets harder for everyone. It is typical that a factory owner complains about regulations that reduce his options for reacting to a given situation. The factory owner typically ignores how deregulating that doesn't only apply to him contributes to chaotic situations.

If the question was about value in the sense of how important an item is:

There is a way to determine whether an item is a need or a luxury, or rather how much it is a need or a luxury, that works as long as there are different income levels: Imagine whatever amount of electronic buying points a person receives, everybody receives the same amount of signal points. That is, you don't get the signal points separately, but they are embedded in your buying points, equally divided among them.

So if your income is low the amount of signal points per buying point is high. If your income is high the amount of signal points per buying point is low. High-income people tend to spend a higher fraction of their income on luxuries as opposed to essentials. So by looking at an item's K-Ratio (signal points divided by buying points spent by the population on a specific item) we have evidence of that item's importance. A low K-Ratio means it is probably unimportant. (K stands for Kotze, because I invented it (http://www.revleft.com/vb/luxuries-t137613/index.html?p=1789910#post1789910)).

It could be problematic to reveal this information to everybody with each individual purchase, so I would prefer the use of a cryptographic method to only reveal the ratio in an item's aggregate purchases.

There is also uniqueness:

An item's uniqueness can be determined by how much the amount you can sell changes when you change its price. If the sold amount changes a lot, apparently torrents of customers flow away from or towards other items that are similar in satisfying their needs. If the sold amount hardly changes, that's evidence the item is regarded as very different from other items.

[Psy]

You could just measure the social necessary labour time to produce the thing.
Getting there but you also need to but it in a ratio with utility. For example the value of oil as a energy would be the necessary labor value compared to the utility of producing energy from oil. Once you get a ratio you can compare utilities and made a production plan.

[Magón]

How do you determine the value of commodities in planned economy if we still used money? And is this really a problem in planned economy?

Well in Communist, Anarchist, and Socialist economies, the need for the people to have money would be a very low need, and would be useless in day to day life and shopping. As for how you determine the value of commodities in these situations, would be up to the buyer his/herself to say how much they needed this or that product to cook or get by.

[AK]

How do you determine the value of commodities in planned economy if we still used money? And is this really a problem in planned economy?
Emphasis mine.

We wouldn't. We're thinking labour vouchers in times of scarcity/for scare resources and a gift economy in times of abundance. Labour vouchers are also only a temporary measure.