Economic Planning and Technological Dynamism

[NewSocialist]

Geoffrey M. Hodgson is a Social Democratic British economist sympathetic to market socialism. Recently, I read an essay he wrote for the Economy and Society journal entitled 'Socialism Against Markets? A Critique of Two Recent Proposals (http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.info/user/image/socagmkt.pdf)' (which was later republished in his book, Economics and Utopia). In the article, Hodgson critiques the participatory planning theory proposed by Devine, Adaman, Albert and Hahnel, as well as Paul Cockshott's theory of planning.

Hodgson's overriding criticism seems to be that when juxtaposed with capitalism, such planning models will result in a net loss of technological dynamism. This isn't necessarily because of the lack of a profit motive, but rather because there exists no mechanism to ensure the easy introduction and adoption of new consumer products, technologies and/or methods of production.

Devine and Adaman responded to this critique, to which Hodgson replied in his essay 'The Limits to Participatory Planning: A Reply to Adaman and Devine (http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.info/user/image/particplanning.pdf).'

How much weight does this criticism actually hold? Are there methods of planning which don't suffer from the defects Hodgson points out?

*Please don't respond unless you've actually read the pdf.

[Die Neue Zeit]

His argument against excessive committee participation (Devine, Albert/Hahnel) is fine, but I don't buy his criticism of the computer planning model. He says that there is a lack of technological dynamism even with computer planning, but just look historically at the Soviet military-industrial complex, and that's without computer planning.

Perhaps there can be a Renaissance patron arrangement but one that is socialized for the purposes of innovation and other creative work: society has an army of researchers and developers, and other persons doing creative work, that are paid to do their thing, but then the resulting "intellectual property" is socialized.

[NewSocialist]

His argument against excessive committee participation (Devine, Albert/Hahnel) is fine, but I don't buy his criticism of the computer planning model. He says that there is a lack of technological dynamism even with computer planning, but just look historically at the Soviet military-industrial complex, and that's without computer planning.

That's true. In 'What Economic Structure for Socialism? (http://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/What_Ec_Struc_Soc_08_03.pdf)' Prof. David M. Kotz highlights the advancements in military technology the Soviet regime developed and the high quality of consumer goods the nomenklatura enjoyed--he attributes this to the high degree of efficiency firm managers were expected to deliver in those industries, as well as the state's willingness to fire inefficient managers in those firms. He also notes that Cuba hasn't seemed to have had much trouble introducing new medicines and so forth. Still, Kotz seems to favor the participatory planning method as a way forward, which is subject to Hodgson's critique.


Perhaps there can be a Renaissance patron arrangement but one that is socialized for the purposes of innovation and other creative work: society has an army of researchers and developers, and other persons doing creative work, that are paid to do their thing, but then the resulting "intellectual property" is socialized.Interesting proposal. I like the idea.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What I'd like to ask Paul Cockshott here is how can one make an effective labour transition - from something like Minsky's public-employer-of-last-resort program for consumer services to end structural and cyclical unemployment ("there would be a labour market but one much more favorable to labour, and one which in long run would not guarantee the extraction of surplus value (http://www.revleft.com/vb/state-capitalist-theories-t133820/index.html?p=1752047)") - to the abolition of labour markets (i.e., no guarantees for staying in the same job, but also no need to rely on Minsky and not Keynes or the Bastard Keynesianism / "neoclassical synthesis" to have only "frictional unemployment")?

[ELR in this case being inclusive of things like a fully nationalized temp agency system (http://www.revleft.com/vb/nationalizing-temp-casual-t144112/index.html)]

[NewSocialist]

Excellent question. It would be great if Paul could chime in here.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

That's true. In What Economic Structure for Socialism? (http://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/What_Ec_Struc_Soc_08_03.pdf) Prof. David M. Kotz highlights the advancements in military technology the Soviet regime developed and the high quality of consumer goods the nomenklatura enjoyed . . .

As much as I love nukes and Tetris,[/sarcasm] I think this nicely sums up why I don't give a flying shit about technological dynamism. Seriously, whether or not new technologies are adopted efficiently hardly seems like a priority relative to autonomy, community, etc. - those should be our "economic" priorities.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Must. Resist. Urge. To. Play. Tetris. :D

[NewSocialist]

As much as I love nukes and Tetris,[/sarcasm] I think this nicely sums up why I don't give a flying shit about technological dynamism. Seriously, whether or not new technologies are adopted efficiently hardly seems like a priority relative to autonomy, community, etc. - those should be our "economic" priorities.

I sympathize with your view here. Even if it could be argued that any form of socialism (be it market socialism, participatory planning, or what have you) was somehow less "efficient" than capitalism is--which former Marxists like Herbert Gintis love to contend--I would still favor socialism because new gadgets aren't the end all of life. Meaningful work, fulfilling personal lives, solidarity, participation, economic security, environmental protection, and so forth, are far more valuable to me than what the latest pair on jeans look like.

However, I don't think that we want to take such logic too far, lest we end up Luddites or primitivists. I think that a certain commitment to technological advancement should be upheld in a socialist society.

[NewSocialist]

Must. Resist. Urge. To. Play. Tetris. :D

Too late for me (http://www.tetrisfriends.com/)! :thumbup1:

[Hyacinth]

I didn't find the argument especially compelling, either against pareconor Cockshott and Cottrell.

Firstly, it doesn't strike me as though there is an 'easy mechanism for the introduction of new means of production' even under markets; what end up happening is that some capitalist will take the risk in introducing some new means of production, and basically whether or not it works is determined by the market. This results in considerable waste. Moreover, many technologies are redundant, in the sense of they're different means of attaining the same end (e.g., VHS vs. betamax, Bluray vs. HD-DVD, etc. just to name a few better known consumer examples). I don't see why the introduction of such technologies on the basis of participatory democracy, by asking consumer councils, or having a vote, would reduce technological dynamism. What it would result in is better directed technological development without the sort of chaos that happens in the market, where tons of redundant products are introduced, the wasted resources on which could have been put to better use elsewhere (e.g., is it really necessary to that *three* proprietary gaming platforms, when one open-sourced one would do just as well).

That being said, the model that I favor for technological innovation is what might be called the Linux model, or the open-source model; basically leave it to groups of enthusiasts and experts to compete with one another for market share, i.e., adoption share, of their technologies, and let the public decide in the end. We can allocate research budgets to people who are interested in pursuing these sorts of projects and have grants given out by committees, much in the same way that it happens now. Except, freed from capitalism, the areas that would be researched I suspect would be radically different, especially considering that most technology currently, including consumer technology, ultimately came from military R&D. Under capitalism, at least as of late, military research has driven progress, with the research being funded publicly, the profits being privatized, and ultimately the products trickling down to consumers after a few decades of development had rendered consumer-level products cheap enough.

[Kotze]

Here is the gist of the socialist calculation debate:
A: You can't really plan everything, because you don't know everything in advance.
B: Right, we need some trial and error.
A: And this is why the means of production must be in the hands of a privileged few.
B: Err, this doesn't follow. At all. Are you daft?
A: :crying: Don't be mean to me, my rich friends gave me a prize for excellence in the science of economics.

That essay by Geoffrey M. Hodgson is both really long and really dumb. Why on earth did you post it? He doesn't go into anything in-depth, he just repeats ad nauseam his claims about dead aristocrats "proving" that planning doesn't work (btw. Cottrell and Cockshott on Hayek (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/%7Ewpc/reports/hayek/hayek.html)). He doesn't seem to understand the proposal made by C&C.

"In fact, just as the computer technology emerged in the 1980s to make its intensive use in central planning possible, the tranformation of work, partly under the impetus of the new technology, made discussion of 'labour hours' increasingly obsolete." People who say that usually have a very peculiar socio-economic background and I would like to give the same advice to Hodgson here that I have given before when hearing that: You need to get out more.

He tells some anecdote from Joseph Stiglitz about how complicated the specifications of something as simple as a shirt can be ("thirty small-print pages"), but how much of that is important for the planning constraints imposed from above? What matters for the macro plan is only what goes into producing the shirts. And how do we know how popular these shirts are? -Well, that part is not very different from what we do now: We look how they sell and adjust planning accordingly. However, that admittedly does only deal with small adjustments, not with innovations.

So let's talk about innovation. Just think about how innovative our society today really is, how it fosters learning and creativity through copyright monopolies that last for 7 decades after the author kicks the bucket, shitty TV, study fees, patent monopolies, guilds that restrict access to high-income occupations, important administrative positions going to people whose main qualification is that they are born into the right families ensuring a monoculture at the top, long work hours, and the threat of unemployment that not only ruins your life but also that of your children. These are the ideal circumstances to sit back, relax, contemplate, chat with people of diverse backgrounds, and come up with really innovative stuff?

A fundamental problem with improving things is the network effect, that is when the usefulness of something is strongly dependent on its prevalence, the situation and not something inherent in the thing. Consider the common QWERTY keyboard layout. You don't need to be a genius to figure out a more efficient input method, for example by putting the vowels on the home row. A different layout can make your typing both faster and more comfortable — but for those who have used QWERTY for years, changing the layout is often a very frustrating transition with only a small improvement. On the other hand, if the alternative layout had been a common offering when learning to type, it would have been a very attractive option.

The magical spontaneous order of the "free market" doesn't work here. Testing and picking the winner as the standard does.

[Victus Mortuum]

Perhaps there can be a Renaissance patron arrangement but one that is socialized for the purposes of innovation and other creative work: society has an army of researchers and developers, and other persons doing creative work, that are paid to do their thing, but then the resulting "intellectual property" is socialized.

This is exactly how I've explained my position to others regarding 'the arts'. It would likely be a 'socialized' version of what we have now. Right now you have large scale patrons (major recording companies in music, publishing companies in authorship and poetry, etc.) and small scale patrons (a small genre-specific poetry magazine or 'indie' recording companies) that pay their "employees" (the artists) a regular amount (Usually. Some of the largest bands/artists get a lot of money, but they are the exception, not the rule) and draw profit from the sale of the product, like every other capitalist. They also draw massive "super-profit" from the intellectual property laws. You could easily set up several radically democratic "mainstream" industries that are paid socially to produce popular taste arts, as well as community or region-based smaller companies that publish genre-specific tastes based on the same funding principle, with all produced works going into the public domain.


What I'd like to ask Paul Cockshott here is how can one make an effective labour transition - from something like Minsky's public-employer-of-last-resort program for consumer services to end structural and cyclical unemployment ("there would be a labour market but one much more favorable to labour, and one which in long run would not guarantee the extraction of surplus value (http://www.revleft.com/vb/state-capitalist-theories-t133820/index.html?p=1752047)") - to the abolition of labour markets (i.e., no guarantees for staying in the same job, but also no need to rely on Minsky and not Keynes or the Bastard Keynesianism / "neoclassical synthesis" to have only "frictional unemployment")?

[ELR in this case being inclusive of things like a fully nationalized temp agency system (http://www.revleft.com/vb/nationalizing-temp-casual-t144112/index.html)]

One possible way:

- Full employment and other threshold demands (breakdown of capitalism)
- Unconditional government support of worker buyouts (birthing 'market socialism')
- Law requiring all corporations (maybe over a certain small size?) to be run and owned by workers via radical democracy (mandated pan-minimal 'market socialism')
- Worker reorganization of these individual corporations to product/labor-planned production instead of profit-planned production I'm not sure about this step... (beginnings of better-planned production (cause capitalists plan production already, just on expected profit instead of expected product/labor))
- Merging of the individual product/labor-planning corporations into a single national (perhaps even non-"governmental") RD product-planning corporation.
-Creation of a semi-money, semi-labor credit (as money is useless in production and labor values are already used throughout as a planning media)
- Mass-use of labor credits

Just a possible idea.

Edit:
Er...I guess I didn't quite answer how that leads to the end of labor markets. Oh well, interesting either way.

[Paul Cockshott]

the USSR was good at innovation in the 50s and 60s in aviation, computers, space, but started to lag after the 70s. Putting all eggs in one basket was one problem : ie standardisation on Unified Range. Duplication is not always a waste if it opens more options in design.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Standardization on Unified Range? :confused:

[Die Neue Zeit]

One possible way:

- Full employment and other threshold demands (breakdown of capitalism)
- Unconditional government support of worker buyouts (birthing 'market socialism')

Just an FYI: it's the wrong order (the buyouts come first as an immediate reform). ;)

[robbo203]

Hodgson's article suffers from the same defect as numerous other contributions to the socialist calculation debate: its myopic black-or-white view of the situation. We are asked to either accept some role for markets OR embrace a fully centralised planned economy. Rubbish!

When oh when, is the penny going to drop and people begin to realise that there is another option waiting in the wings - that is the complete rejection of the market AND central planning?

A spontaneous self-regulating non-market socialist economy

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/even-pbs-news-p1945667/index.html

The thread above discusses Cuba's biotech industry:


The Cuban biotech industry has submitted more than a thousand patent applications and been awarded more than a hundred international patents, including 45 in the United States. Raices said his country's social, rather than market-based, medical research delivers medicines designed to fight diseases in the developing world cheaply, and still makes a profit that is put back into research and development in Cuba. Cuban genetic scientists have partners in countries like Spain and Brazil working on new medicines and producing them in bulk overseas for easier shipping to markets an ocean away.

Raices says Cuba has a good record within the international regulatory world, with his country's bio-engineered medicines winning recognitions for their safety and efficacy.

It is a remarkable thing to see a country so poor achieving so much in a field that is very much a rich country's game.

[ckaihatsu]

there is another option waiting in the wings - that is the complete rejection of the market AND central planning?

A spontaneous self-regulating non-market socialist economy


(There's an active thread on that very topic....)


Do we need a planned economy?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/economics-f139/index.html

[Paul Cockshott]

I refer to the ES series of computers the Unified range built accross all of comecon, it was a clone of the 360 series and put paid to the development of the domestic designs from the Lebedev and Glushkov groupss like the BESM range.
From the adoption of the policy of the unified range, the Soviet computer industry lagged increasingly behind the west.

[Paul Cockshott]

We tried to respond to these arguments in the edition of Science and Society here
http://www.scienceandsociety.com/contents_spr02.html

[Hyacinth]

We tried to respond to these arguments in the edition of Science and Society here
http://www.scienceandsociety.com/contents_spr02.html
Do you know whether the journal is at all available online?

[RedSunRising]

After the global victory of socialism I would expect to see technology stripped back and craft personship revived in small workshops.

[Paul Cockshott]

I think that is literally a petty bourgeois reactionary Ghandian fantasy, it holds out the prospect of a life of povery and hard physical toil. To propose that is to totally discredit socialism.

[Thirsty Crow]

However, I don't think that we want to take such logic too far, lest we end up Luddites or primitivists. I think that a certain commitment to technological advancement should be upheld in a socialist society.
I'm sorry for replying without reading the PDF, but this issue has been bugging me recently so I'd like to make some general points.

I think we all know well enough that technological change ("progress", "advancement") is bound by certain categories outside of the "field" of technology itself. In capitalist society, productivity and profit are these categories.
But in a socialist society, I think that what you uphold, a "certain commitment to technological advancement", should be firmly bound to the concrete needs of society itself, and these needs may form a clear hierarchy (existential needs over "desires" - I agree with what you say abou gadgets etc.).
All in all, I'd oppose any kind of insistence on the primacy of technological progress as an end in itself (or as an indicator of "economic efficiency").

[ckaihatsu]

All in all, I'd oppose any kind of insistence on the primacy of technological progress as an end in itself (or as an indicator of "economic efficiency").


I agree with this, but this *only* from the thread so far -- it's true that technology and its advancement can't be made into a political principle the way that humanistic-minded concerns can. Technology, and its development, is relatively relative because it's a *very* blurry line as to what kinds of technology are 'healthy' and what are extravagances. (Consider that the same smartphone could save lives or enable ties of endlessly vacuous conversation.)






After the global victory of socialism I would expect to see technology stripped back and craft personship revived in small workshops.





I think that is literally a petty bourgeois reactionary Ghandian fantasy, it holds out the prospect of a life of povery and hard physical toil. To propose that is to totally discredit socialism.


While I'm the most pro-technology person I can think of, I'd actually have to agree with RSR on the *political* point that there's no reason to say that humanity couldn't live perfectly fine -- and even relatively unencumbered -- lives after scaling back many of the technological protuberances we've developed.

That said, though, I myself would *rather* have the ease and societal sophistication that the engine and microchip make possible, not to mention the digital libraries like Wikipedia that now exist for, and of, humanity.





However, I don't think that we want to take such logic too far, lest we end up Luddites or primitivists. I think that a certain commitment to technological advancement should be upheld in a socialist society.





But in a socialist society, I think that what you uphold, a "certain commitment to technological advancement", should be firmly bound to the concrete needs of society itself, and these needs may form a clear hierarchy (existential needs over "desires" -


While these are both uncontroversial and "safe" statements / positions, in reality I think we find that *basic* humane needs are quickly satisfied once dire political (hegemonic) roadblocks are out of the way -- the rest then becomes finer points of what humanity should do with itself, a vast "gray area" that may invite technological advancement, but not necessarily.





I would still favor socialism because new gadgets aren't the end all of life.





Meaningful work, fulfilling personal lives, solidarity, participation, economic security, environmental protection, and so forth, are far more valuable to me than what the latest pair on jeans look like.





I agree with what you say abou gadgets etc.).


It's easy for political people to be blithely dismissive of consumeristic-type leisure activities, since we're constantly dealing with serious issues and realities, but the standard of administration (or parenting) applies here: Administration, *for what*? Parenting, *for what*? Education, *for what?*

Just as we wouldn't promote "art for art's sake" the same applies to the oversight and preparatory modes of life listed above, and also to politics. For the individual, no one can prescribe that which is *macro* in nature -- the individual has to find *personal* self-determined meaning, even if it looks like rampant consumerism / consumption to others.


Interpersonal Meanings

http://postimage.org/image/1d5a6d1c4/


[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://postimage.org/image/1bxymkrno/

[Queercommie Girl]

1) Primitivism is reactionary. Technological progress is intrinsically a positive thing. Technological progress will never really stop in a socialist society;

2) Worker's democracy is primary, technology is secondary. Technological progress will never stop, but I wouldn't mind it slowing down somewhat sometimes. "Efficiency" in the abstract sense is not the primary objective in communism;

3) For a socialist planned economy to function effectively in the long-term, a relatively decent level of technology is necessary. If the socialist planned economy cannot function effectively, it may interfere negatively with the existence of the socialist system.

[ckaihatsu]

(Your post gives me a renewed opportunity to post yet another diagram....)


Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

http://postimage.org/image/1d4ldatxg/

[RedSunRising]

I think that is literally a petty bourgeois reactionary Ghandian fantasy, it holds out the prospect of a life of povery and hard physical toil. To propose that is to totally discredit socialism.

I said strip back technology and not abolish it all together, to have technology serve humanity rather than the other way around.

[Paul Cockshott]

I said strip back technology and not abolish it all together, to have technology serve humanity rather than the other way around.
What does strip back mean in this context?
You actually went beyond that and advocated a return to petty craft production, ie, a petty bourgeois form of production. This is a utopian fantasy since that form of production constantly regenerates bourgeois relations of production.

[Rowan Duffy]

Perhaps there can be a Renaissance patron arrangement but one that is socialized for the purposes of innovation and other creative work: society has an army of researchers and developers, and other persons doing creative work, that are paid to do their thing, but then the resulting "intellectual property" is socialized.

I think this is essentially the right way to deal with perfect public goods. I have a short post about it here: http://red-anti-state.blogspot.com/2011/03/public-goods-and-knowledge-production.html

[ckaihatsu]

Perhaps there can be a Renaissance patron arrangement but one that is socialized for the purposes of innovation and other creative work: society has an army of researchers and developers, and other persons doing creative work, that are paid to do their thing, but then the resulting "intellectual property" is socialized.





I think this is essentially the right way to deal with perfect public goods. I have a short post about it here: http://red-anti-state.blogspot.com/2011/03/public-goods-and-knowledge-production.html


I'm sorry, but I continue to find "market socialism" approaches to be lacking. While it's commendable to have socialized / collectivized property on a mass scale, we *already* know that in practice there would be small-scale *disincentives* against the actual liberation of the products of local projects.

A revolution, if it is to be called as much, needs to *at least* overcome the tyranny of the local unit and provide a practical organizational politics that is structually level over vast scales.

My concern is with the use of *any* kind of abstracted monetary values so that people may be "paid to do their thing", because such a system inherently encourages private accumulation and privatization. While many products may easily find their way out into the public domain, the retention of a monetary system implies a parallel, private-sector-type economic environment that will simply wind up re-asserting *its* aggregate interest in maintaining itself and growing, at the expense of the more-collective public sector. This, then, is barely different from what we have today under capitalism.


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://postimage.org/image/35ru6ztic/

[Paul Cockshott]

My concern is with the use of *any* kind of abstracted monetary values so that people may be "paid to do their thing", because such a system inherently encourages private accumulation and privatization. While many products may easily find their way out into the public domain, the retention of a monetary system implies a parallel, private-sector-type economic environment that will simply wind up re-asserting *its* aggregate interest in maintaining itself and growing, at the expense of the more-collective public sector. This, then, is barely different from what we have today under capitalism.

Labour credits that are held electronically and not transferable between individuals would not be a monetary system.

[ckaihatsu]

Labour credits that are held electronically and not transferable between individuals would not be a monetary system.


I appreciate this, and am mostly in support of it. I only mean to address the *finer* points here, in the interest of "troubleshooting" with foresight. My concern is with the political *elitism* that this labor voucher method could possibly give rise to.

The downside of having a *non*-circulating labor voucher system is that it could very well be even more opaque than this current monetary system of capitalism. Unless the political aspect ensured full transparency and/or some type of verifiability of accounting, the opportunities for abuse and corruption could quickly multiply.

I'd welcome any information about this model that details more about how mass (industrial) public policy decision-making would be done, particularly that which pertains to the various pay rates of labor vouchers for various kinds of work done.