Why are capitalists against a planned economy?

[promethean]

I have never understood what the capitalists have against a planned economy. Common sense tells us that an economy where resources are managed and used according to a plan is the best economy. What is the real reason why capitalists are against this?

[Revolution starts with U]

They're not. They're against an economy planned by the people. Watch Wall Street, those meetings of the business and banker elites are an everyday thing. Capitalists plan the economy every day.

[Revolutionair]

I do not really understand your question but I will give it a shot.

These 1:
I'd say because in a planned economy you can't "value" the way things are run.
In a capitalist society, the socially necessary labor time disciplines us. If something has higher costs than benefits, then that business will go bankrupt. This way only the 'profitable' businesses remain.

If you produce purple rubber ducks. Two people will maybe buy them. But nobody else. So unless those two people are willing to make the manufacturing of purple rubber ducks profitable, it won't get produced.

In the end this is why capitalism is so much more productive than any other mode of production.

These 2:
In a central planned economy, the bureaucracy is the highest authority. While in a corporatist society, the capitalists themselves are able to buy the government and become the highest authority.

[Revolution starts with U]

No, what I'm saying is that the idea of a capitalist economy being not centrally planned is ridiculous. It is, and always has been. The FED and the WTO were created by capitalists, and they have been being pushed for by capitalists since the beginning. Sure, some free market classical liberals are for a decentralized economy, but most owners of things prefer to have the system protecting the status quo.
Police attacking strikers (on behalf of ownership) is a planned economy. A government protecting private property (of resource, at the least) is a planned economy. These things are not exclusive of each other.
Capitalists only fear a planned economy by non-owners.

[Jazzhands]

Capitalists are against a centrally-planned economy because it implies that it will be planned by someone other than them. This is pretty obvious.

[Ocean Seal]

I have never understood what the capitalists have against a planned economy. Common sense tells us that an economy where resources are managed and used according to a plan is the best economy. What is the real reason why capitalists are against this?
A planned economy is not in the best interest of the capitalist as the capitalist makes a living off exploitation and desperation, at the very least the planned economy gets rid of desperation which would mean that the exploitation of the capitalist would not be as through.

For example, lets say I buy a house with variable interest. The interest spikes up, I need to work more hours so I take on two jobs, and at this new job I earn less because I am new. I'm working a lot of hours so my performance slows down. I get fired from my first job where I am better paid. I can't find another job. I lose my house. The bank gets my house in addition to all the money that I had paid up until that point.
So I will tell you this. Our economy is planned. It's plan is that the rich will continue to be rich at the expense of the workers.

I can conclude that if we were to use a planned economy we wouldn't have to go through this and there goes the profit for the bank :lol:.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Probably because most 'centrally-planned' (in the hands of a state bureaucracy) economies are:

- just as un-democratic (if not more so...) than the capitalist system
- usually incredibly inefficient (ex. the massive Soviet Bureaucracy)

Really, 'common sense' tells us that collectivization needs to be governed from the top down, not the bottom up - 'The Great Leap Forward' was a prime example of a 'best economy'; because there's no doubt that a bunch of armchair bureaucrats are better at planning and managing the economy than those stupid workers... And besides, 'common sense' tells us to that a 'best economy' is one where there exists both massive grain exports and mass starvation.

EDIT: I apologize for my unnecessary sectarianism...

[Revolutionair]

In what way is it productive?

It produces more? :(

[Jimmie Higgins]

They are against a centrally planned economy (in some things and at some times) because they need to have the ability to effectively compete and move money around to get the best possible edge. The anarchy of the market can allow some capitalists to capture a greater portion of profit from other sections of the economy. I don't think this system "creates" any more wealth, but it does allow capitalists to move capital around and "steal" it from each-other.

At other times they do want a centrally planned economy either for Keynesian reasons (non-market investment by the government) or the military and whatnot. In general, they do plan a lot of the economy (like how they are currently planning a massive downsizing of services and government jobs and services), but as other people said, we're not invited to participate in any of that planning :(.



- usually incredibly inefficient (ex. the massive Soviet Bureaucracy)The USSR was efficient at becoming an industrial power on the backs of the working class... they did in decades what it took the free-market centuries to do.

Ok, and those who think that the USSR was socialist in some form... here's an alternative example: Germany used central planning to modernize, Japan (the feudal rulers) used centralized planning to develop industry and a capitalist class!

So anyway, they'll use it if they have to and when it is in their interest, but they prefer not to IMO because it is less economically dynamic and while it can benefit the capitalists as a whole, it closes off some of the economy to capitalist competition (hence the less dynamic thing) which might hurt or retard capitalist growth in some individual industries or areas of the economy.

[Rousedruminations]

In a free market economy which is very decentralized, the distribution of wealth will perhaps never be equitable because capitalist will always be on the run to aggrandize their accumulate affluence, yet when tentative measures are taken to plan the economy maybe meticulously so it is centralized by one authority for the entirety of the people (working class), everything is carefully "monitored". Thus the minimization of inequalities and exploitation begins.

[Jimmie Higgins]

^I think the military and the difference between officers and grunts is a good example of why this is not the case. They claim that the hierarchy is there for the good of all, but really the function of this centrally planned industry is solely to project the power of the home-country and their ruling class abroad and protect it at home.

I am for a centrally planned economy by the way, just one subject to democratic will of the working class. So IMO, centralization or not, the important thing is who that "authority" is and what they are centralizing and planning for.

[Armchair War Criminal]

Regardless of whether or not a planned economy is less efficient than a market one, this isn't the reason capitalists oppose it, because they opposed a planned economy back when most sections of the bourgeoisie considered planned economics a viable competitor to their model. Nor is it an absolute objection, since they willingly submitted to planning (if not comprehensive planning) under Nazi Germany and in several other wartime states.

The answer that best explains this data, I think, is that no organization other than the state, or what effectively functions as one, can serve to coordinate all the firms constituting a planned economy. If that state is a democratic one, then they stand to be dissolved as a class. However, under a government that can credibly promise them a continuation of their profits - which must necessarily be a dictator, but which is certainly not all dictators - they may collectively accept a switch from market coordination of the social division of labor to state coordination of the same. (Some caveats should be thrown in about domestic vs international capital, &c.)

This may or may not be relevant to theorists of (Second World) state capitalism.

[Apoi_Viitor]

To argue against my original post, I think that, even if central planning is 'inefficient', that doesn't repudiate it in itself. I know polls suggest most Russians lament the break up of the Soviet Union, and Brezhnev is remembered with a fairly high regard.

Also, the US economic recovery during WW2 is an excellent example of central planning working effectively. As is the 'health care industries' in most European countries - they are run infinitely more efficiently than any private model.

[jingle_bombs]

A planned economy doesn't create profit for individuals, since it's based around raw demand instead of profit motive. 'Nuff said really.

[durhamleft]

Capitalists argue that the free-market allocated resources efficiently, and money provides the 'invisible hand' mechanism as described by Adam Smith, which basically makes resources be allocated efficiently. Plus theres the whole incentive thing about free-markets

[Revolution starts with U]

Armchair; you said basically what I was trying to say, but better :thumbup1:

[WeAreReborn]

It produces more? :(
What? How so? You mean how labor is lost everyday through useless bureaucratic and middleman jobs? Or how about how Capitalists destroy their product if their is too much to make supply little and price rise? Although, through the harsh conditions it shows that it decreases production in the long run. Not sure how this is at all productive. Capitalism is anti productive in the long term, but in the short term man can it make 1% of the population massively rich. So if that is what you mean by production I think we have different definitions of productive...

[Turinbaar]

They say that they're against it, but when it comes to military industrialism, especially nuclear arms, the state is the primary consumer and thereby the director of production. When it comes to national interest conservatives have no problem with state planning.

[Rakhmetov]

The Bailout was part of the planned economy. :rolleyes:

[razboz]

Theses:
Bosses are always going to enjoy being bosses.Furthermore, systems tend to produce tools that allow us to understand them in ways that are not threatening to the system as a whole, even though they may harm individual actors or groups of actors within it.

Bosses, when presented with a choice will tend to chose what they believe will allow them to continue to enjoy their power and freedom, which are things that they value highly. Any boss who does not value these things is immediately excluded and does not wield power any more. So power maybe comes from belief in power.

When presented with with a choice between a style of economy which means bosses must de-value their power, the system responds with a new set of tools, which will allow for power to be slotted into different frameworks. The 'revolutionary' idea of the centrally planned economy is an obscure example of this. Using the tools that have been provided by the system (analytical tools like dialectic materialism and more fundamentally the entire fucking academic fields of Economics, History, Sociology and all the other Sciences, social or otherwise) centrally planned economies are powerless to oust bureaucracies, and all the other power structures, explicit or otherwise. These accumulate power very quickly, even in a 'democratic' society and become paralysed by inertia, where the bosses are not empowered to rule.

Centrally planned economies are a system wide response to allow the position of 'boss' to remain relevant, but transforms that power in a way that accommodates anti-capitalist discourse. Im not saying that capitalists planned centrally planned economies, but i am saying that power structures, and specifically capitalist power structures, tend to create the kinds of ideas that produce more power structures. It is this process of constant reinvention and recuperation of radical ideas and practices which makes capitalism (or some tumerous zombi which at one point may have been capitalism) more productive than other means of thinking and producing which do not generate subsidiary power structures to sustain them.

[NecroCommie]

Because planned economy can authentically satisfy the needs of consumers. A satisfied consumer is an unprofitable consumer, as he has no reason to buy over-priced products. The pre-requisite of profit is scarcity and unreasonably large demand. IF the planned economy would bring them more money in form of profits, they would support it. But as stated, planned economy is hostile to such interests as it can actually satisfy demand.

[ZeroNowhere]

In the end this is why capitalism is so much more productive than any other mode of production.
Are you sure that this couldn't have more to do with, I don't know, machinery and the Industrial Revolution?


Because planned economy can authentically satisfy the needs of consumers. A satisfied consumer is an unprofitable consumer, as he has no reason to buy over-priced products.Commodities are often enough sold under their values, so hardly 'over-priced'.


The Bailout was part of the planned economy. http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gifShit, guys, the financial system could collapse right now, we're going to have to give a huge and unpopular bailout in order to let it survive!

This is exactly how things would work in a planned economy.

[pierrotlefou]

Dunno if this was said but Hayek would say that the economy is too chaotic to plan for so it's "better" than having a planned economy that will just hemorrhage money.

[RadioRaheem84]

The essential contention of Marxism is that anyone who says “the economy,” is stupid. To redo a well-known recent saying “it's the economy, stupid.” If you say “the economy,” you show you're stupid. There's no such thing as the economy. There is not a unity between the forces of production and the relations of production. So, you could condense the whole of the manifesto and three volumes of Das Kapital into that - the forces and relations of production are not the same. The ability to mine coal and to use that to make iron ore into steel is something that is socially in common. It's collectively done. And the mobilization for it is social but the profit goes to a small group of people, so the product of it is not shared. Thus to speak of this as an industrial revolution or a new economy is false. It's just a refinement of old patterns of exploitation for modern purposes.

You could do without this class and the same amount of production could be done. Or indeed, more could be done because there'd be no need for scarcity.

- Christopher Hitchens, Heaven on Earth, PBS

Even Hitch has it right.

[noble brown]

the people dont want it cause they're brainwashed zombies. the capitalists have turned the masses into willful participants to their own demise, and with a smile too. its sad really. and enraging all at the same time.

[Kiev Communard]

Capitalists are opposing the planned economy because the principle of planning is in inherent opposition with the market competition between the capitalist enterprises. Besides, even if one could imagine the situation where not a socialist revolution, but the "natural" development of the market (i.e. monopolization) had created the situation when all productive forces are owned by a single enterprises, the other capitalists would have opposed such a move because it would have basically deprived them of their economic independence and made them the employees (albeit privileged ones) of "One Big Trust" - the fate they wouldn't have relished.

[WendigoGuerilla]

Probably because most 'centrally-planned' (in the hands of a state bureaucracy) economies are:

- just as un-democratic (if not more so...) than the capitalist system
- usually incredibly inefficient (ex. the massive Soviet Bureaucracy)

Really, 'common sense' tells us that collectivization needs to be governed from the top down, not the bottom up - 'The Great Leap Forward' was a prime example of a 'best economy'; because there's no doubt that a bunch of armchair bureaucrats are better at planning and managing the economy than those stupid workers... And besides, 'common sense' tells us to that a 'best economy' is one where there exists both massive grain exports and mass starvation.

EDIT: I apologize for my unnecessary sectarianism...

I'm against centralization of any power because it always places power within the hands of a few to control the rest.

As a anarchist I vehemently oppose such a idea.

I personally believe in localism where local residents control the fate of their communities or societies by region where decisions are made by local communities collectively where then a multiple of regions cooperate with each other in trade, industrialism, and commercial enterprises along with military defense in that each region although would be self autonomous would still nonetheless need each other mutually in a multiplicity of economical transactions. [All of this revolving around participatory volunteerism.]

I agreed with everything else you have said.

[Notorio]

The USSR was efficient at becoming an industrial power on the backs of the working class... they did in decades what it took the free-market centuries to do.



This is certainly True

Prior to the revolutions of 1917 and the bolsheviks seizing power. Russia was mostly feudal. The large factories, industrial strength, raw materials proccessing, contruction, and other industrial strenths the USSR had were little in pre-revolutionary russia.

[gorillafuck]

Probably because most 'centrally-planned' (in the hands of a state bureaucracy) economies are:

- just as un-democratic (if not more so...) than the capitalist system
- usually incredibly inefficient (ex. the massive Soviet Bureaucracy)
Yeah, but that's not why capitalists oppose command economies. Don't be stupid.