Economics

[Don't Change Your Name]

Let's face it: Marxism is outdated. I mean, the idea is still "modern" but times have changed, the yankee imperialism keeps controlling the economy and governments of the rest of the world, and technology has progressed.

So, the point is, leftists lack a good, efficient economical plan that can be kept for a long time. I believe we need a good economical plan that bring equality on working conditions and wealth without sacrificing the individual freedoms, while at the same time promoting solidarity, improving education, letting people take part of the government, abolishing private property over means of production, defending the environment and creating goods for everyone, while stopping capitalism forever and for good.

But how can that be done? It seems sometimes impossible, however many have tried to create new ideas, like the Participatory Economics, but the concepts arent fully developed.

The point of this post is for each of you to try to explain how should economics work under your perfect society, and give opinions about different anti-capitalist economical systems. Please try to be as accurate as possible, do not just repeat what Marx said, just think how modern world can affect them. I am also trying to know different types of systems that could have success after a revolution.

I hope this helps to bring a basic agreement between us.

[redstar2000]

Let's face it: Marxism is outdated.

Too vague.

Certainly the economic proposals for the transition to communism proposed in the Manifesto (the ones that Leninists always like to quote) are outdated, however revolutionary they might have been in 1848.

But, in my opinion, Marx's analysis of capitalism has stood the test of time and criticism rather well...indeed, his views look stronger now than they have at any time since the 1930s.

As to post-capitalist society, the options seem to me to remain pretty clear...

1. Communism--no market, no money, no wage-slavery..."from each according to their ability to each according to their need", etc.

2. State-monopoly capitalism--the USSR, etc.

3. Pure state capitalism--publicly owned entities that compete with one another in a free market, what I have called "Socialism, Inc.".

(Options 2 and 3 could be combined, of course.)


I hope this helps to bring a basic agreement between us.

Not a chance! :lol:

http://anarchist-action.org/forums/images/smiles/redstar.gif

The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[RyeN]

So what are we using as a starting point? I can sit here and type out a fantasitcal plan for how the wolrd would work. The point is we need a specific starting point in order to explain to the people how the changes are going to take effect. Marx and Engels gave a pretty good idea of how it should run. Now what we need to do is show the people how to get from the capitolist state we are in to the communist state it could be. More on this to come but for now Im off to the club.

[Man in the White Shirt]

Comrade El Infiltr(A)do, you started a thread many of us could write a textbook on. However, Ill try to explain the way I see it as simply and concisly as I can.

As all (hopefully) know economics in a communist system bears no simulaties to the capitialist system, it is for this very reason it is hard to attract supporters, the concept is very hard to get your head around. But this is off topic, back to economics.

In a communist society all factories are nationalized. However, there is no mangement, the workers decide what and how much to produce. So instead of some senior VP in some far away city deciding how many cars and what types to produce at a factory 1000 miles away, that decision is made by the workers in that factory. If, say, a factory can make 1000 cars a year they might decide to make 200 of types A, B, C, D and E. So for one year they do this, and they ship out the cars to where they are needed. However, at the year end gala/plan for next year event, they notice very few of cars E and D are needed, but everyone wants a type A, so they might shift production to type A, not because they are required by market force in order to stay afloat, but because they are doing it to be productive members of society. They do it for their fellow man.

I think this points out an important aspect of Communism, being driven to work in order to better your fellow man. I belive people are basically good, if most people were "evil" in a capitialist society then won't most people be engaged in crime to better themselves (and no, most people are honest, even in Cpaitialism). Also I think that with the workers in direct control of what they do, aka palnning out what cars to build, that they would enjoy what they are doing a lot more. Doing something because you choose to do it out of your free will feels so much better then being forced to do somrthing.

However, in Communims, there has to be a level of inter-factory cooperation. I would envision that the workers of factories A, B and C would elect a handful of people, fellow workers, to go to a car factory meeting to discuss what there plans for the year would be. This would be to agree on plans or share info, plus remind the factories they are working together, to remeber they are not in a race.

I think this answer a bullet or two of your question, I hope to be able to answer more of it tomorrow, if anyone wants me to.

[Discontinuity]

MitWS said more or less what I was going to say, and posted just a bit faster. ;)

The problem with a communist economy, in my opinion, is centralization... In every communist system, it has lead to problems with anticipated supply and demand and so on. As MitWS said, a system of smaller 'cadres' would do nicely to prevent this... I realize that something like this should exist in a Marxist system, but I know of no situation where it has been correctly implemented. In Russia and China, it seems to have been completely arbitrary, and I would suspect it is the same in Cuba (although they seem to be doing fine, so perhaps not).

I would refer you all to the Incas' caracas system, where for a simple unit of workers there was a leader, and then for each combined group of those units another leader, and so on and so on.

Incan economics work very well in a socialist system, actually. The engineers would determine how many workers would be needed for a given project, and for how long. The example in the book I have is something like 3000 workers over 18 months. The government would then decide to raise workers from the province where the project is (logically), and inform the 2 caracas in charge of 10,000 workers. It then trickles down this whole line of representatives and worker groups, until you end with 3 out of every 100 workers going to work on said project.

So, while 3000 is quite a lot, and for a large amount of time (since they'd be working on this and nothing else), this system allows the project to be completed without affecting the normal harvests and such. Every month (or possibly every 2 months) the workers would change, meaning that it was never that much of a chore to be assigned to these projects, since you would never be there long enough for it to be tedious.

Ah, how I love my Mesoamericans.

[Man in the White Shirt]

I was thinking today about a common used arguement against Communist (namely me), and the one they always use is how to assure quailty control. And I really have devolped a, hopefully good, anwser for this question. So let me run this by you guys (yes it has to do with economics).

Contiuning with the car factory idea, lets say one steel plant makes the steel for 5 factories. Each makes different types of cars, because each factory has it's own design team. However the cars made at factory E are really crappy, no one wants them, and the cars made at factory A are really well made, everyone wants one. So the steel workers decide that they no longer want to supply factory E with steel, they do like the idea that their hard work is for naught. So they give the extra steel to factory A and factory E is disbanded, because they no longer have the steel to make cars.

This raises several questions. One, is this idea too capitialistic? The idea of using consumer-side supply and demand render moot my communist state and its ideals? Is it ok for the steel workers to leverage their position in society like that? Anyone's thoughts on this would be great. Thanks in advanced.

[Discontinuity]

The continuation of your factory scenario is quite interesting, I must say.

It sort of lends itself to each factory being a small company by itself, competing against the other factories in order to excel, receive more steel, and produce popular cars. Quite capitalist, when one looks at it.

But how do you define socialism... is the myopic centralization a necessary part, or is it only the laws in place to prevent extreme class divisions (as you can never have an entirely equal society in any system, even utopian communism)?

I would say that MitWS, the scenario works fine and seems to be the best sort of socialist system... The key to preventing steel factories from leveraging control over the car factories and for car factories is to limit the amount of power an individual cadre would have over other cadres further down the 'production line', so to speak. Yes, let them have a voice and be able to influence the decisions regarding their production, but only to a reasonable point. At some level, the state should still be able to regulate the flow of production.

And, for the record, this is why I don't believe communism is possible in an industrialized society. Agrarian, yes, but once you move away from working for the basic essentials of life, you run into problems.

[Man in the White Shirt]

So you feel that the various steel plants area of distrubating should overlap, so if one plant decides to deny steel, a car plant could go to another, and ask them to fill the void? Sort of a check and balance.

I would also like to add I see this as a way to insure quality, a problem for every single communist country to date.

And one final question, Discontinuity, how is it you see communism only working in argrian society, when Marx clearly stated that the only countries that would devolp class consienceness would be post-industrial, and this is clearly show by the collapse of communist countries that tried to move from argrian streight into communism. Not to rip on you, you seem to have smart ideas, but I see communism the other way around.

[crazy comie]

The pepole manufacturing things would also be the pepole bying the things so pepole would naturally try to make things high qulity.
The factories would be run by a works council for each factory and the factory would hav one expert in proudution to help them decide wich otions to chose.
Pepole would be run bye moral incentives to try and prouduce better ideas / prouducts than they made befor as well as having a small acpeect of competition.

[Xprewatik RED]

The pepole manufacturing things would also be the pepole bying the things so pepole would naturally try to make things high qulity.
The factories would be run by a works council for each factory and the factory would hav one expert in proudution to help them decide wich otions to chose.
Pepole would be run bye moral incentives to try and prouduce better ideas / prouducts than they made befor as well as having a small acpeect of competition.


Not true...not true, the people in the factory don't care trust me I know. With government subsidies they really don't work, they don't care cause they can't be fired. Soviet farms barely produced enough for the country, and factories turned out lousy consumer goods, lousy.

[RyeN]

Products of Capitolism are shit. Look at all the inferior products that we have in our world. Light bulbs burn out. Did you know that they burn out so you have to go buy more. In a communist ran country there would be an open network of information and technologie. No pattents saying that you cant use the correct filament in a light bulb so it wont burn out. There are countless examples of the inferiotrity of a system that releys on oppresing others.

I imagine that we all work hard for our money, still being exploited by our wages. Not only this but our wages are insuficient due the inflation price of commodities. To purchase 600ml of Iced Tea here it cost's 1.75$ from a vending machine, somtimes a toonie. The actual cost of the whole unit is somewehre around 0.21$ The whole system of the economy current is totaly wrong from what it should be.

With private buissness in control of the products and services the only way for the gouvernment to make money is by taxing the people and buissnesses. In Order to compete Globaly there are tax breaks given to large corperations. These tax breaks for the rich come back in taxes for the working. I sugest a different system where the gouvernment controls the corperations and takes all the net profit to go back to the people.

To switch to a system like this will take some time however. I think that if it were done to quick the economy would fail right away. However I think that the gouvernment should start by etting involved on the open market. Creating goods and services for the people at a lower cost while equaly treating the workers. Eventualy when the gouvernment has expanded into enough area's that it has a foothold in 65 % or more of the free market. Then we would start activley competing to eliminate capitolism.

After the start of the project and the gouvernment starts making profits that money not previously accounted for could go to pay off the huge national debt. Therefor freeing up tax money to go into social services; health care, education, security, and all the other things a society wants. Like a space program. Every year growing more into the free market. This will cause for competition and bankrupcy for the capitolist, because they wont be able to contend with the efficiently ran gouvernment projects. This in turn would cause deflation of prices for our goods, but also with the increased revenue being generated an increase in the dollar.

I live in canada and I think that it could start here like this. All the products that we export to other nations would cost close to nothing for us to make and inturn give us good barganing position for the commodities we need. Further and stronger down the road when the gouvernment was incharge of 90% or more of the market(notice I didnt us free) and the National debt was paid off we could start branching out to help other communist nations. Sending goods, money and organizational staff to Cuba. Joining with russia and china to form a Communist front to oppose Capitolism and greed.

There could also be other nationtions that would join under our banner. Eventualy with even a few other nations under the system it would become self sufficient. We could use the power to impose trade embargos on capitolists, eventualy cutting off thier profits and power to go on. Finaly the world would be united, all peoples for the common good of all. Then we could actualy start working on some of the ideas from the science forum.

The only thing left to come up with is a good name. How about the peoples republic of canada. Red maple leafs everywhere.

[Xprewatik RED]

Nice dream. its takes action. Our government controlled out products, hehe want to buy some? Soviet goods were much worse then Western ones, yet we are government regulated and had low prices.

[RyeN]

There is alot of tecnologie that gets imported from places like japan and the united states. With the profits made from exports we could easily buy the most advanced techologie. With the people being in control of the information we would be able to produce even better products to export.

[Xprewatik RED]

There is alot of tecnologie that gets imported from places like japan and the united states. With the profits made from exports we could easily buy the most advanced techologie. With the people being in control of the information we would be able to produce even better products to export.

huh? Something real please, a REAL plan

[sc4r]

I think what all you guys are missing is that economics is not merely a case of delivering the quality of product that people want. I can tell you right now that viewed in isolation this will always be 'just slightly better than the best now available'.

The economics of a society is in effect about identifying how best to allocate available resources so as to maximise overall current satisfaction and also provide investment capital for improving the balance in the future.

Its no good saying that steel workers will not supply factory E because it makes the lowest grade of product and is in least demand if in fact the total cost of Car E offset against the benefit of Car E is such that it allows resources to be better spent on some other product delivering a still higher Cost/benefit ratio, while producing more of car A will not.

You simply cannot look at the desirability of products in isolation like this, because the costs and benefits associated with each affect what else can be done.

Which means that you need some means of allowing people to express their evaluation of where the overall balance should be.

You cant just ask them because they'll have no realistic way of knowing how their own particular evaluation impacts on cost. Even if by some miracle you could imbue them with this knowlege (which would mean every one of them solving in their heads a set of simultaneous equations which are mostly beyond the abilities of trained people working full time to solve even for individual products) you would still be left with the problems that all this would provide is an average. It would not distribute the products that ended up being produced so as to maximise total benefit as seen by individuals with different preferences.

There is a mechanism that can do this dynamically. It operates by constantly forcing people to make actual choices based on a deliberately limited budget, feeding this back into the production cycle, and so continually adjusting the balance so as to approach an optimised balance. It allows people (and manufacturers) to focus on just one thing at a time rather than on everything. It is, in fact, like almost all robust large scale balance systems, an evolutionary system.

I wonder if any of youse know what such a system is called. I wonder if you know what types of such system can be conceptualised; and rather crucially I wonder if you know how the various types differ.

Economics is not the study of how to make things. Nor the study of making the 'best individual' things . Its the study of how to achieve a best overall balance. You cannot find out anything useful about such a system by considering individual products like the car factory and car quality example.

Put quite bluntly the mechanism that, more than anything else, has allowed such fantastic progress to take place over thje past few hundred years in developed Societies is the market. The nature of what can be traded in 'the market' unfortunately also produces other less desirable side effects. But without a shadow of doubt to just dump such a tool rather than modifying it to eliminate the side effects but retain the manifest benefits it facilitates is absolute madness. While we, as socialists, insist on doing so we will be regarded (rightly) as dangerously uninformed dreamers whose economic ideals would, if implemented result in a continual degradation of productive output value.

It is somewhat ironic (to me) that a Socialist or Communist Market is actually far more in line with an Anarchist attitude than with the conventional Socialist attitude and yet it is the 'Anarchists' who are usually most virulently dismissive of such an idea.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2003, 01:42 AM
Certainly the economic proposals for the transition to communism proposed in the Manifesto (the ones that Leninists always like to quote) are outdated, however revolutionary they might have been in 1848.

But, in my opinion, Marx's analysis of capitalism has stood the test of time and criticism rather well...indeed, his views look stronger now than they have at any time since the 1930s.
I never denied this. My point is, how can you explain of capitalism will be destroyed? The capitalist market relates everything with everything, and Marx never concentrated too much on that, he concentrated in the exploiter-exploited thing.

I mean that nowadays, with different news things to produce (i'm NOT talking about capitalists shit like cell phones with photo-cameras on them, but things like computers, that can help sort out a leftist order and also can entertain people on their free time), we need to find the way to decide what should be the priorities of a new economical order.

I liked some replies you all made. sc4r made some good points too.

[sc4r]

I also rather admired the fact that you can see that the essential problem is prioritisation. You are right it is.

Prioritisation problems are anything but easy to solve even with only a few variables and a single goal. Thats the point. I am delighted that you can see this. Can you also see how very much harder it becomes if the goal itself varies from individual to individual?

Can you, perhaps, also see that the standard Anarchist and Communist solutions, even if they could work in their own terms, put the onus for deciding priorities on the producer rather than the consumer. Which is self evidently arse about face.

Put another way every product has both a labour value (cost) and a use value. When I chose between consumables it is of no direct interest to me what it cost to produce, what I care about is its use value. yet the standard Anarchist models, in effect, give me even in theory, not the maximimum use value but the maximum labour value. In other words it maximised the wrong thing.

This has knock on effects too, Because some use values reflect a potential variation in consequent labour values of other products. The end result is that in satisfying the equation for 'best labour value output' you actually make future total use value stiell lower. Hence you create a vicious downward spiral where things get steadily worse and worse.

The 'steel workers wont supply to a bad manufactuer' mechanism that some suggested earlier is, if anything, even worse than this. It put the onus for determining production not on the consumer, not even on the producer, but on a supplier to the producer.

It's advocates are going to say that it works because the consumer has already expressed a preference by deciding not to aquire that car. However it fails to appreciate that :

1. This may be only because the consumer has not actually been given any reason to discern between cost as well as benefit in that model and others. All he has done is chosen the maximum use value potentially available to him without any consideration of what that use value has cost to create. It could easily be the case that he is actually choosing a use value which is less than the production/labour cost. In which the society has actually suffered a loss, its done worse than it could have done.

2. It assumes anyway that by some unspecified method the suppliers of steel actually know how many cars of type E are being aquired and/or that they understand what the true labour costs in total of Car E are. Why should they? hardly anyone really understands their own costs why on earth should they understand the costs of others.

[RyeN]

Thats where market research comes into play. There will be like crazzy commie sugested somewhere, idea factorys. Some people will have the job to figure out what people like and dislike in order to produce better products. Most people hate getting involved in market research because it is used to maipulate products to specifically position thier products to different markets. Making them in return more capitol. I think though if it could be implemented somewhere into the work week. Every Thursday afternoon you fill out market research questoinaires, that help to improve your enviroment.

If implemented over a network computer system the information could effectivley be sorted and labeld for proccessing. Then the market research nerds go into action explaing what the people want to the different industrys.

[sc4r]

No Ryen it cant be. Not without asking people to express their choices within the context of a budget.

Otherwise all they will tell you is what they would ideally want. This would take no notice of the fact that in a situation of limited resources we need to find out what they would accept given the constraint imposed by those limited resources. Constraint =Budget you know in this context.

It is not even a question of raw computing power. The solution you suggest cannot, even in principle, compute the required answer because it simply does not have the basic information to do so.

You could just employ people to make informed guesses of course. THis is what in effect a command economy is. But it neither does it as efficiently as a market nor does anything to satisfy the requirement that it is not enough to manufacture the best balance; you also have to distribute it according to peoples preferences.

If you'd be happiest with 4x and 2y and I want 4y and 2x; manaufacturing 6 of each is the correct balance. But unless we have a mechanism to allow you and I to somehow ensure we get not an equal total amount but an equal share distributed in a specific way we dont succeed in maximising satisfaction.

Theres actually even more to it than this (although in itself the above would already make a market vastly superior to anything else suggested). Discrete consolidated questionaires have the limitation that they fail to incorporate any recognition that the psychology of need is not static but dynamic itself. When (on Thursday) I have a freezer full of beer I;d tell anyone who asked that my priority was chocolate, and I'd mean it. But on a Sunday night my priority has mysteriously altered to Beer. And swings like this occur all the time. Once again a market automatically recognises and builds this aspect of need psychology into its calculations.

A market recognises reality. Other solutions attempt to simulate it. And they do so more and more badly as the number of variables (people and products) grows. Once you are talking of national or international economies the number of those variable becomes completely beyond the capacity of such simulations to deal with.

[Xprewatik RED]

You could just employ people to make informed guesses of course. THis is what in effect a command economy is. But it neither does it as efficiently as a market nor does anything to satisfy the requirement that it is not enough to manufacture the best balance; you also have to distribute it according to peoples preferences.

People's preferences change, and factories in a command economy are less likely to change for that. Thats why Ladas and Volgas ae about 15 years behind Western cars. And a Soviet Compter is like a caculator. There is no incentive to improve, people grow tired of, "for the system", idea enless you hit them into place. How would you motivate a factory manager to give a damn?

[sc4r]

Exactly.

I'm not myself too concerned about the motivational side of things. I can quite easily concieve that in theory people could be motivated by a desire to do a good job rather than simply by the promise of extra reward. But in practise , like you I think, I dont believe that such a change could be achieved overnight.

I'm damned sure that (as you imply) you'd need to provide for some differential motivation in any immediate post capitalist society no matter how much one might ideologically want not to. This still does not mean there is no alternative market to the capitalist 'free market'.

best wishes.

[Xprewatik RED]

I'm damned sure that (as you imply) you'd need to provide for some differential motivation in any immediate post capitalist society no matter how much one might ideologically want not to. This still does not mean there is no alternative market to the capitalist 'free market'.

best wishes.

Exactly but the decent must be gradual not a leap at the begining, then a dictator which likes the current system then another leap. I guess it all lies in the government, dictators might be a problem, maybe a single leader for a head is a waste.

[sc4r]

Agreed.

God its good to be able to simply say that.

go n-eiri an bothar leat.

[RyeN]

I seriously think that you have under estimated the power of market research. People go to university and study how to effectivley get information out of people without leading them. These questions are not as simple as, what products do you want? There will be specific questions relating to topics with yes or no values. Easily translated and sorted into colums for easy data processing. Each questionaire would be based on a subjets that needed further investigation or where the was a noted discrepancy with something.

[sc4r]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2003, 07:36 AM
I seriously think that you have under estimated the power of market research. People go to university and study how to effectivley get information out of people without leading them. These questions are not as simple as, what products do you want? There will be specific questions relating to topics with yes or no values. Easily translated and sorted into colums for easy data processing. Each questionaire would be based on a subjets that needed further investigation or where the was a noted discrepancy with something.
Ryen mate. I actually do know quite a bit about market research. Take a wild guess why that might be?

The problem is not anything to do with making sure the questions do not lead the respondent. It is :

1. that the information you need actually is what they would do given a budgetary constraint. You are trying to find out 'what would you do given that you cannot have everything and that different things have different costs'.

To answer this without a budget you'd have to say something like please prioritise your requirement for : 1lb of Sugar; 2lbs of Sugar, 4bs of Sugar, 5lb sugar, A low quality TV, a medium quality TV, A high quality TV, etc. You'd have to list every single product they might want AND every single quantity they might want of each products, AND Somehow find a way to describe or communicate every single quality that each could come in, AND find a way for them to express the time urgency that existed on each product; AND describe every variation on every product.

2. You would not get a sensible answer to such a huge question because people simply would not focus on such a thing; they'd be swamped by the volume and detail required.

3. And if you did you still would not know what compromises and changes to their ideal priority list people would make if the priorities were inconsistent with those of others. To see what this means consider that I'd prioritise 20 fags a day fairly high. But if the priorities of others meant that I could have only five fags a day I'd be uninterested in having any; I'd rather do without. Any analysis of that priority list would then be reflecting a priority which only existed given that something that cant be done were done. This matters. I'd prioritise having fresh fruit fairly high. But if for some reason it were not possible to have fresh fruit my priority on tined fruit would rise from near zero to very high. These sorts of dynamic 'what if' questions are solved easily by a market, but take forever to answer in a static questionaire (and dont get very well considered answers anyway).

4. The time it would take to administer defies belief. When you research pricing on a single product a typical questionaire takes about 20 mins for a respondent to complete. Imagine if this were scaled up to cover EVERY concieveable product.

5. You could get a very approximate view of an average value across society by having someone interpret partial answers to a sample survey staistically. But thats all.

6. When we do research pricing even on a single product what we do is to simulate a market anyway. We actually use the fact that people are already aware of their market priorities for other products to put the pricing of an additional one in context (and beleiev me we know that merely simulating it does not provide a totally reliable answer even then).

7. And if by a miracle you could find the time to do all this - then at the end of the day you STILL would not have answered the distribution question that an actual market solves.

Do you know what Ryen. A market actually is a market research tool anyway. It's the one that works for this sort of masive problem. Have a think about what you are suggesting. What you are saying is l'ets do away with the market and instead fulfil the same function using Market research tools'. Has is occured to you that the presence of the word 'Market' in the phrase 'Market research tools' just might indicate that such tools work to help you undertand the market? They wont achieve much without one.

You are suggesting a solution which you dont really understand all that well yourself to a problem you dont really understand either. Unsurpisingly it ends up looking ridiculous to someone who does. Try and learn that before you can offer up overview solutions you need as a minimum to understand the problems and the workings of your suggested solution. I know it is hard to withold your impatience to contribute (Yes I do know this is what you are trying to do); I have the advantage on you that I've been your age and know that one feels that what one does know is sufficient. I know that one cant wait to offer up what to you are new insights and solutions based on those insights. I know that you feel that YOU have solved the problem. But it honestly is not a solution. Almost all the types of 'solutions' offered up here have looked laughably naive to me; most have failed even to realise what the question they are trying to answer entails.

You are suggesting an extremely expensive and very approximate solution to a problem which already has a fairly cheap and very accurate solution.

Please believe me when I say that lecturing you on such things is a chore not a pleasure for me. I'm in effect trying to inform you about fairly advanced concepts in subjects to which you dont have the basic grounding. I'd rather be discussing aspects of Socialist possibilities with people who dont need such concepts explaining; because then [b[I[/b[ might learn something. This is why I get a bit angry when people who know very little launch into personal attacks. No-one likes an unwilling and unruly student.

Sorry.

[sc4r]

Here is an illustration for you :

Assume a society of just 100 people. Assume that there are only 5 products each with 2 variations, assume that 3 of those products come in continously variable volumes.

Assume that the cost of producing any given quantity of any given product is completely known (a hugely unrealistic assumption BTW).

Assume you have finite resources and that you cant simply produce whatever people ideally want.

Now try and devise a questionaire that will get anywhere near to producing an answer to the question of what to actually make.

Now remember that this illustration is absolutely massively simpler than reality and that the difficulty increases not in linear proportion with the number of variables but factorially.

[crazy comie]

First for the incentive thing you would be able to move pepole who did bad qulity work out of lazyness into jobs that will be less comfterball like sewer cleaning. Earlyer i was only thinking about the qulity control asspect.

Secondly the way i would manedge disstrubution would be by having a list of all prouducts see how many of them are being sold there for establishing the deamand then prouduce to the demand that has been established through sales figures.

The ideas factorys would come up with ideas for new prouducts based on reaserch and personal prefrence as well as any idea that seems good that pops into there hed they would then do a servay to see if pepole liked the idea then they would come up with a prouduction modle. The ideas factorys job would also be to work out the quickest and cheapst way of doing things at medium or higher qulity if it exeded the budjet of wich most pepole would spend on it then they wouldn't prouduce it or they would make it in small numbers.

[sc4r]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 19 2003, 12:49 PM
First for the incentive thing you would be able to move pepole who did bad qulity work out of lazyness into jobs that will be less comfterball like sewer cleaning. Earlyer i was only thinking about the qulity control asspect.

Secondly the way i would manedge disstrubution would be by having a list of all prouducts see how many of them are being sold there for establishing the deamand then prouduce to the demand that has been established through sales figures.

The ideas factorys would come up with ideas for new prouducts based on reaserch and personal prefrence as well as any idea that seems good that pops into there hed they would then do a servay to see if pepole liked the idea then they would come up with a prouduction modle. The ideas factorys job would also be to work out the quickest and cheapst way of doing things at medium or higher qulity if it exeded the budjet of wich most pepole would spend on it then they wouldn't prouduce it or they would make it in small numbers.

WHO would 'be able to move people out of jobs they were bad at? I thought the idea was to get rid of authority. If you do this what have you actually changed ?

Being 'sold'? for a price? then you have a market. Where does the spending budget figure for each person come from? What is the price set by ?

What you described managing is production not distribution.

You are actually describing a market economy in naive and simplistic terms. In fact you are not actually suggesting anything really. All you are doing is presenting a childlike visualisation of what we actually have today.

[Don't Change Your Name]

After all this posts, I have come to the conclussion that a typical leftist economy won't be efficient, and the only way for it to "work" is be forcing people to consume what they dont want. Now that's almost like the wage slavery.

In first place, it's clear that we dont have infinite resources, so that limits the quantity of products and also the quality.
But if we only produce one style of product, we find that people might not like it. If there are many styles of products, we could give the consumer the option of deciding which is the best, but then we have a market, which is not good either.

So...what you sc4r suggest is that such thing as giving the consumers the choice of expressing what they want necessary means that they will ask for an impossible thing. Now I believe that, although markets are a disaster, we need to know what the consumer wants. People wants TVs and cars, but that doesn't mean that such goods are a capitalist invention. Plus, what is people going to do when they are bored and not working? If you believe that they should not have free time and that they should work all day we are talking about a new way of slavery, that, although it might produce more goods for everyone, it wont make people very happy, and what are you going to give to them for doing more work? There wont be enough money for a "wage".
Back to the point, as it was already said here, we need to know what the consumer wants by asking them, and not telling them to ask for what they want, but ask what do they prefer from various available options, and then produce that. If the resulting products are seen negativelly by the people, then we can rechange them according to what they want, but according to what we have.
I think people should be given the option to pick their commodities, but with a limited "budget" and those commodities should be produce BY REQUEST. One of the problems with markets is that the companies produce what the might not sell, and they try to do so by different calculations. What a planned economy does is trying to enforce the production of a certain thing calculating how much they should produce but as the consumers don't pick between different products they pick what's needed and then it is "distributed". What we should do, imho, is asking people what they want from various options and then producing them as soon as possible. This will promote the creation of new technologies to produce faster, making jobs easier, but without creating unemployment. Then we will produce the exact amount of things, but trying to use materials according to how much of it we have. I think then we will have a good balance of what we produce and what we consume. I hope you get my point.

[sc4r]

But what you are describing IS a market. And there is nothing wrong with that. Whats wrong with the capitalist market is not its efficiency, or its power to do exactly what you are suggesting; namely 'ask people what they want, and give it to them as far as is possible'.

Thats what a market does.

A market does not imply that production is not planned. It does not imply that social control cant override market information sometimes, it does not imply companies competing for individual gain. It does not even have to imply separate companies/ businesses at all. In other words it does not have to imply 'profit centres' (although there are other benefits connected with identifying progressive improvements if there are). Please please dont make the silly mistake of see'ing the term 'profit centre' and thinking 'ahhaaa so profit is bad'. Profit just means getting more out then you put in in this context. Thats what we do want (would you want a tool that saved you no time or effort?).

What a Capitalist Society does, however, is allow rights to the means of production to be traded in the market. It's that which makes the 'free market' non socialist. All a market itself is an extremely effective method for getting answers to, not some, but all of the questions everyone here has been struggling painfully to come up with a method of solving.

Socialism which incorporates a market to solve economic supply, demand, and distribution will work. Socialism which does not, will not. It's really as simple as that.

You are BTW misunderstanding what I'm saying about people asking for the impossible. Not maliciously, and not in a silly way, but you are still not really quite seeing the point.

The point is that it is all but impossible to frame the options as a question in a static research type question. You have to have a dynamic self organising, ongoing questinaire. And another name for that sort of questionaire is a market.

[crazy comie]

The pepole who would move bad workers jobs would be the other employes they would decide by vote.

The price would be the way of rashoning things there would be so many food points dettermind by size and the same for cloths etc then there would be pleasure cards wich would be allocated equally and all health care and public transport would be free.
The price would be set by the amount of labour time inbeded in it.

[sc4r]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 20 2003, 03:23 PM
The pepole who would move bad workers jobs would be the other employes they would decide by vote.

The price would be the way of rashoning things there would be so many food points dettermind by size and the same for cloths etc then there would be pleasure cards wich would be allocated equally and all health care and public transport would be free.
The price would be set by the amount of labour time inbeded in it.
OK.

1. With regard to workers voting on the competence of other workers:

1.1 This positively asks for popularity rather than competence to be judged. It also demands that people actually understand the job pretty well. Often people dont. Often people can see a failure in one area as representative of an overall failure when it is not. What guards against this being given undue weight (either way)?

1.2 Which workers would be entitled to vote ? Anybody? Or just those who might actually appreciate whether the job was being done competently? If the latter who decides who might know?

1.3 Any vote of this sort will draw in mainly extreme views. Only those who really dont like or appreciate the subject will vote to expel. Only those who have a contrary view will vote against. Are you planning to simply take a decision based on the balance of expressed votes? Or would you see some sort of quorum being needed? If so who would determine the quorum?

1.4 Who can call for the vote? Who organises it and counts it? Who enforces the result? What guards against malicious votes being called for (believe me even calling for one against somebody will give rise to ill-feeling; dont for one second imagine it wont).

1.5 This is in any case likely to show up only the grossest of failures. It wont recognise that there is usually scope to improve overall performance by weeding out the weaker performers even if they are theoretically 'competent'. Theres also an issue here that its all but impossible to devise a mechanical procedure for deciding when uch weeding out is likely to be desirable (because it depends on an assessment of what competency is available from elsewhere).

1.6 All of the above (and more) is what professional managers do. Dont fall for the idea that they add no value; they do.

2. With regard to pricing :

2.1 You have not actually described a rationing system as it is usually understood. You have actually rationed overall benefit. And you have done so even though more benefit may be available. This is a very odd thing to regard as desirable.

2.2 you have done nothing to ensure that any particularly desirable product is itself distributed evenly or fairly. All that would happen is that anything especially desirable, but in short supply would be quickly emptied from the shelves by those fortunate enough to get there first. Then it would go onto the black market at an inflated price. Exactly in fact as did happen in the Soviet Union.

2.3 The problem you see is that by limiting total buying power, but not recognising any element of shortage in the price you encourage people to purchase best value irrespective of whether it represents best direct use value to themselves.

2.4 In fact you (ironically) create a market. But a very very bad one which neither delivers products to those who may actually need them nor provides much feedback information to influence supply adjustments.

2.5.1 Assuming that your total buying points are inline with your total price points (if they are not then you automatically create waste or conflict) then everything will always be purchased.

2.5.2 But not neccessarily in equal measure of desirability by all people. Some will get highly desirable goods; some very undesirable goods.

2.5.3 Guess what happens then? They trade. Not at your carefully calculated 'labour value' price, but at the exchange rate that reflects actual desirability (use value in other words).

2.5.4 The end result being that those priviliged few who can find a way to get the highly desirable goods at the cheap 'official price' end up getting both enough of those goods to satisfy them (which may be, in fact almost certainly will be, more than a fair share) and after trading also get a disproportionate amount of the slightly less desirable goods. Hardly what you were setting out to achieve. AND nobody ever knows officially which is which, so supply never gets adjusted - You go on turning out cheap bad clothes which only the unluckiest end up wanting (because they have little option - for them its that or nothing) and actually represent a waste of effort producing.

Sorry mate but this idea is a very bad one. Its been actually tried (god knows why coz its obvious what would happen). The socialist zeal not to have anything to do with the one system that actually works simply because it seems to conflict with a 150 yr old Dogma neber fails to amaze me.

The idea of trying to bring labour value (cost) into perfect alignment with use value is a good one. That is what I think Marx was driving at. But given that at any given time it is not it doesn't work to simply ignore that there is a difference and price things as if it were. That creates a problem, it does nothing to solve one.

And guess what? A genuine market with market determined prices would tend to solve the problem because it both rations according to overall desirability (in other words people tend to get similar use value as percieved by them), and provides feedback to allow adjustments in where labour value is being spent so as to bring Supply in line with demand or in other words Labour value in line with Use value. It doesn't create a black market (because there is no need); It does not create inequality through fortune (because everyone has the same access); it doesn't create accumulated privilige (because no one gets the chance to have an unfair share in the first place and use this as a negotiating platform). It doesn't create a market in the means of production (because you simply dont enforce any such rights no matter if they are negotiated or not), and it doesn't crate wage slavery because you dont put labour on the market if you dont want to.

I fact it has almost no drawbacks, is far cheaper to administer than alternatives, is automatically equitable, Explicitly provides for a non centralised economy, reflects people's actual choices, drives improvement, and most important of all IT WORKS IN PRACTISE. IT HAS BEEN SHOWN TO DO SO. Its almost incidental that just about every actual economics expert (even those few with Socialist leanings) agree with it. Even many bloody Anarchist intellectuals (i.e. not the ones we see here) agree that its an excellent system; they just demand that we find an alternative for some reason known only to them and cant accept that one does not exist or that if it doesn't we shoiuld go with what we do have and make the best of it.

[RyeN]

Your lack of vision is very discouraging. When we have perpetuated socialism to a comfortable level, the inner workings of a buissness will remain similar. The major problem that I see with capitolism is the uneven distribution of wealth. Many things will have to change in regards to the exploited working class, but the major focus is to have the distribution of wealth spread out to the people. Instead of another porsche for the owner, who hasnt steped in a factory his whole life.

Under Socialist rule there will still be jobs and schools. You will train for a job at school and if you arent suited to be a doctor you might just end up being a garbage man. There will still be money, however yoyu wont get taxed on it because the gouvernment is making the profits. These profits dont go to the leaders pocket though, they are used to run the country, Pay off the debt, provide education and health care.

[sc4r]

Ryen, who are you talking at ?

I doubt that there is one member of this board who does not agree that the failing of Capitalism is that it distributes wealth unevenly; Or that Hospitals, health care, education etc. should be freely available to all.

The argument mate is about what mechanism would simultaneously ensure that wealth was fairly distributed and yet not lead to an overall decrease in the available wealth. And also a mechanism to allow equal dignity and satisfaction for all people (again without equality being achieved at the price of only having a very small amount of it).

If you can come up with such a mechanism then do so. You have not done so so far.

Do you even properly understand what wealth is ?

It is nothing to do with vision. I'm not remotely suggesting we keep things as they are. That you (and others) seemingly cannot see this is, I would say, down to your lack of vision, not mine. More accurately it is down to your lack of sophistication in understanding complex self perpetuating systems. You want to lay down a static model (because these are much easier understood and expressed); but fail to realise that you are dealing with a dynamic problem which wont yield to such a model.

The lack of sophistication is brutally obvious to me. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen a 'solution' where the solver seems to totally ignore that he is not playing a god game and that the agents have self will. Or in other words the numer of times i've seen what amounts to an 'ought to be' statement when discussing realistic expectation. 'Ought to be' is a wish list statement. It may guide how you assemble your 'actually could be' proposals. bUt it does not alter what actually could be in any way. If what you wish for is impossible then its impossible and you 'ought to' change what you are wishing for. Thats the bottom line.

[RyeN]

Write wages on paper for different jobs. print and standardize that. Then use a system of training, and job performance to determine such things as raises and promotions. Standardize that, print it and send it to the masses.

All you need to do is write it down standardize. So shall it be writen so shall it be done.

[sc4r]

And how does that alter anything ? Such things are already written down. So what?

The trick is not to carry out such an exercise but to find a way to determine what should be written (and how it can be altered). This is what you have not provided any answer to at all.

Its no answer to say 'get it all perfect then implemement perfection'. The question is how (or more realitically how can perfection be at least approached).

[RyeN]

Where are such thigs writen down sc4r? there is no standardization of wages that I know of.

Of course I cant give you specific amounts right now. This is a theoritcal question and in order to determine such things I would need to know specifics, but if you really want I could spend a couple of days writing down every job there is and come up with a salary based on that.

There is and probably never will be a perfect societey for everyone. I just want something better for this world.

[sc4r]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2003, 05:50 PM
Where are such thigs writen down sc4r? there is no standardization of wages that I know of.

Of course I cant give you specific amounts right now. This is a theoritcal question and in order to determine such things I would need to know specifics, but if you really want I could spend a couple of days writing down every job there is and come up with a salary based on that.

There is and probably never will be a perfect societey for everyone. I just want something better for this world.
Really? go down to absolutely any large corporation and ask them for a job. They'll give you a Job description and a standard wage for the job.

That it isnot what you would consider a fair wage is neitjher here not there. As I aid you have not said HOW we come up with a fair one. All you've done is suggest writing down a standard.

'A couple of days to gigure out and write down very Job description and associated Salary'!!!! Oh Ryen please. Thats just too naive for words mate. You could not do the job for a medium sized company in six months.

How old are you ?

[RyeN]

Going down town and getting a job with an associated wage is not standardized wages. Standardize wages are when every truck driver regardless of company, race, age or gender makes the same ammount. I sure do feel sory for your brain sc4r if everything is so hard for you to figure out. You always make things look much more complicated than they really are. Trying to disuade people from thinking something that would upset your precious capitolist world.

The formula for figuring out equitable wages would be determined by
1. the ammount of money the gouvernment took to run the country.
2. the cost of all resources needed.
a. facility
b. resources needed
c. marketing costs
3. When the left over money is in a sum you can divide that into the representative jobs. IE laborers all make the same. supervisory staff all make the same, shipping people all make the same.

Standardized wages.

[RyeN]

How old are you ?

Does it realy come down to this? When you cant prove yourself right you question things like my age. Your discrimination is not appreciated. I dont think that age really plays and important role in this conversation does it? If you wanted to know how old I was you could click the link on my avatar that takes you to my profile and then you would know?

Why do you ask questions you have the answers to?

Sc4r is commiting hate crimes again

[crazy comie]

sc4r i explaind there would be a sort of workers council thing elected by the workers earlyer the council would then make the deccision..
I also explaind how they would know how much to prouduce.
The value of labour would have a sertain value.
the ideas factory would prouduce ideas of prouduction methods.
The workers council would als decid how to run the factory.
The ration marks would be worth the most possidle and there value would be set by the geanrel economic council as explaind by my dictatorship of the prolitarian thread.

[sc4r]

"sc4r i explaind there would be a sort of workers council thing elected by the workers earlyer the council would then make the deccision.."

OK I concede this could work. I did not recall you saying this. Management by commitee can work. You do have a plausible structure in that case. I have never said anything which would indicate I think otherwise.

I also explaind how they would know how much to produce.

Sorry mate you did not. You attempted an explanation; but not one that actually explains anything satisfactorarily (IMO).

The value of labour would have a sertain value.

Do you have any idea how daft that statement is? Labour time can be used as a measure of value but 'the value of labour' has no meaning without a referent which is unconnected to labour. It is as if you had said 'the colour of blue has a certain colour'. No shit.

the ideas factory would prouduce ideas of prouduction methods.

No shit. And ? So what? Unless you can suggest any reason at all why ideas about production methods need a single 'ideas factory' to generate them all you are saying is that R&D would be done. No bollox , really? Do you think that anyone in the world says it should not be? under ANY ideology? What do you think R&D departmemts do?

The workers council would als decid how to run the factory.

Also plausibel, and also in no way counter to anything I have ever advocated.

The ration marks would be worth the most possidle and there value would be set by the geanrel economic council as explaind by my dictatorship of the prolitarian thread.

Errrr WTF does 'the most possible' mean ? What is 'their value' evaluated against? Do you understand that a value must have a referent? Do you even understand what I am talking about when I say this? You cant just 'set a value' it is meaningless unless you are talking only about units with which to talk about a measured thing in compatrison with other measured things.

Sorry bud but I think you need a course in elementary metrics.

[sc4r]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2003, 06:15 PM
Going down town and getting a job with an associated wage is not standardized wages. Standardize wages are when every truck driver regardless of company, race, age or gender makes the same ammount. I sure do feel sory for your brain sc4r if everything is so hard for you to figure out. You always make things look much more complicated than they really are. Trying to disuade people from thinking something that would upset your precious capitolist world.

The formula for figuring out equitable wages would be determined by
1. the ammount of money the gouvernment took to run the country.
2. the cost of all resources needed.
a. facility
b. resources needed
c. marketing costs
3. When the left over money is in a sum you can divide that into the representative jobs. IE laborers all make the same. supervisory staff all make the same, shipping people all make the same.

Standardized wages.
Oh Ryen you are pricelessly naive mate.

What on earth other than your arrogance makes you think that you, and you alone can decide whether one jobis sufficiently liek another to justify calling it the same job?

You think a 'Truck driver' is a 'Truck driver' is a 'Truck Driver' do You ? Try telling the guy who drives a Long distance artic he does the same job as a local delivery man. Try telling the chap who delivers glass that his job is the same as the guy who delivers concrete. Try telling the chap whose job it is to deliver a customers furniture that he has the same job as a guy delivering frozen cxhicken wings. I could go on almost infintely.

I'm aware that if you subtract all other costs the sum left over (from what? you dont actually say) could be divided amongst those workers whose costs had not already been accounted for. This is like saying that IF A+B = C then C-B=A. Do you seriusly think the practical problems of running an economy are solved by understanding pre-school algebra?

Can you seriously imagine this is beyond my ken?

How old are you Ryen? I have the feeling you are 10-14. It is brave (some would say foolhardy) of you to volunteer your notions. I would say it is intolerably presumptious of you to discuss matters whose complexity you dont undertand at all, and really rather annoying of you to presume to lecture your elders on computations they can do in their sleep as if this explained anything.

You are 13. Correct? If you want to become an educated and enlightened adult then learn fast that you know little and understand nothing right now. I wont continue to argue with a child. Either a child listens or it argues. An arguementative child learns nothing. It is dismissed for what it is.

It's up to you sonny. I have little time or patience for flattering the egos of minors. I am not interested in their opinion and not interested in befriending them by pretending to be interested. Beware! not all are like me.

This is the last personal communication you will get from me until you learn both respect and not to try teaching your elders how to suck eggs. I sense in you at least the potential to genuinely seek understanding. But make no mistake you do not remotely have it yet. You wont get it either if you insist you already do. It's a mistake that children are often encouraged to make. But not one that I will attempt to rectify. If a child has (for whatever reason) too much arrogance it is uneducatable and has already reached its zenith of understanding.

[RyeN]

Sc4r how could you possibly understand basic algebra. I dont think that you have even the basic understanding of math. Example a person born in 1980 living in the year 2003 can be only one of two ages 23 or 22. Between 10-14 is a good guesse but it is you my friend who need to back to pre-school.

I dont want advice from you as I feel confident that I would be able to acomplish any goal better and more efficiently than you. Your arogance is rather anoying though, but I think even this can be overcome. When you realize that I am the master and you are the student

[sc4r]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2003, 12:18 AM
Sc4r how could you possibly understand basic algebra. I dont think that you have even the basic understanding of math. Example a person born in 1980 living in the year 2003 can be only one of two ages 23 or 22. Between 10-14 is a good guesse but it is you my friend who need to back to pre-school.

I dont want advice from you as I feel confident that I would be able to acomplish any goal better and more efficiently than you. Your arogance is rather anoying though, but I think even this can be overcome. When you realize that I am the master and you are the student
Example a person born in 1980 living in the year 2003 can be only one of two ages 23 or 22. Between 10-14 is a good guesse but it is you my friend who need to back to pre-school.

And your point is what exactly? I assume you are saying you were born in 1980. I've no idea why you think I would know that.

It seems I was wrong. You are not a child; merely backward.

THIS RS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A PERSONAL INSULT.

[crazy comie]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2003, 10:46 PM


I also explaind how they would know how much to produce.

Sorry mate you did not. You attempted an explanation; but not one that actually explains anything satisfactorarily (IMO).

The value of labour would have a sertain value.

Do you have any idea how daft that statement is? Labour time can be used as a measure of value but 'the value of labour' has no meaning without a referent which is unconnected to labour. It is as if you had said 'the colour of blue has a certain colour'. No shit.

[
The ration marks would be worth the most possidle and there value would be set by the geanrel economic council as explaind by my dictatorship of the prolitarian thread.

Errrr WTF does 'the most possible' mean ? What is 'their value' evaluated against? Do you understand that a value must have a referent? Do you even understand what I am talking about when I say this? You cant just 'set a value' it is meaningless unless you are talking only about units with which to talk about a measured thing in compatrison with other measured things.


On how mutch to prouduce would be bassed on the time in witch a cerrtain number of goods of wich you prouduced are sold (orderd) in this would tell you the demand. You would then suply to the deamand
Sorry i ment labour time would be used as a measure of value.
The amount a ration mark was worth would fluctuate so pepole could use as many commodities as possible.

[sc4r]

OK I commend you for trying to pursue a sensible answer. I can understand what you are suggesting. I’m afraid that as a consequence I can also see what may be wrong with it. But that, paradoxically, is a good thing. It means you have offered up a genuinely theory capable of being analysed.

It also has some interesting implications.

"On how mutch to prouduce would be bassed on the time in witch a cerrtain number of goods of wich you prouduced are sold (orderd) in this would tell you the demand. You would then suply to the deamand"

What you are doing here (whether you know it or not) is implicitly recognising that use value exists. You are measuring it not by the price people will pay in ‘ration points’ (or money or whatever) but by the time it takes for products to get snapped up. It’s not an unreasonable assumption that high use-value goods move faster than low use-value ones. But ironically you have created a market price J It’s only that this market price is calibrated against the speed at which people grab high use value items.

However. I though earlier you had indicated that you would give a definite ration of everything to everybody? Please confirm what it is that gets rationed. I also would like you to confirm whether you see consumables as being ordered, as you say at one point, or purchased from stock, as you imply at others. It makes a difference, and your ideas don’t make full sense to me if things are mainly produced to order.

ANYWAY assuming that you are giving ‘ration points’ with validity across many articles which are available ex-stock; thus providing choice, the following apply :

1). In the case of common fast moving items (especially short shelf life ones) it requires you to create very accurate time records of when things became available and when they sold. I don’t see this as an insurmountable problem in itself. But my instincts tell me there are snags, which you may not have considered (for example a fairly desirable product which arrives after all the highly desirable ones have gone may be snapped up just as fast as the very desirable one because it will be the most desirable then available).

2). Very importantly the system does nothing to prevent those quick off the mark from simply stocking up on high use value items for later trade. Which can easily translate into them gaining an inequitable share of everything.

3) You are not then directly measuring peoples need or desire; but what they think others desire. You are in fact practically inviting them to think ‘how can I exploit the system and other people?’ Not an ideal grounding for Socialism.

4). The system could reveal how desirability is ranked. But it does not tell you anything directly about the relative strength of desire. You could take an informed guess at it by comparing relative timings, but that’s all it is; an informed guess. So while you know what products to make more of you don’t really have any very good indication of how much more. Not insurmountable, but inefficient.


The amount a ration mark was worth would fluctuate so pepole could use as many commodities as possible

That still doesn’t say anything definite. Fluctuate against what? You have not said what the total of 'ration marks' equates to. Altering the standard unit won’t change anything. Whether it’s 10 ration marks or 1000 per person don’t mean anything in itself.

Now I know what the ration mark total has to be calibrated against for this idea to make sense (I've as good as told you earlier). But the question is; do you?

Conclusion :

It is a conceptually workable system. But considerably sub-optimum in a number of respects:

1. It does not provide information about how much more of a thing to produce, only about what things are more required.
2. It does not promote people achieving parity either in terms of the Labour value they end up with or (far more importantly) the total value they end up with.

As it is a market based system (with market price expressed in a very indirect way as speed of purchase) anyway; why not allow a floating market price expressed in the same unit as Labour value? This automatically promotes equality of received value, eliminates the propensity for people to set up a secondary ‘black market’, and provides some measure of info about how much more of a thing to produce.

Such a system also requires far less effort to set up and involves much less artificice when analysing it's informational output.

[crazy comie]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2003, 08:09 AM


Conclusion :

It is a conceptually workable system. But considerably sub-optimum in a number of respects:

1. It does not provide information about how much more of a thing to produce, only about what things are more required.
2. It does not promote people achieving parity either in terms of the Labour value they end up with or (far more importantly) the total value they end up with.

As it is a market based system (with market price expressed in a very indirect way as speed of purchase) anyway; why not allow a floating market price expressed in the same unit as Labour value? This automatically promotes equality of received value, eliminates the propensity for people to set up a secondary ‘black market’, and provides some measure of info about how much more of a thing to produce.

Such a system also requires far less effort to set up and involves much less artificice when analysing it's informational output.
1 you would the amount more neassecry to proudue and what we need to prouduce more of would be done on the same critereyer.
2Value would be bassed on labour value only and not use value. Use value would only determine how much to prouduce.
"floating market price expressed in the same unit as Labour value?" this is what i was trying to say
3 The ration points would be for food and clothing exclusivly and then a geanrel one for non neaccecery items. There would be a limts on how much of something you could take at a time and you would be able to resserve some prouducts there would be a limt on how big a percentedge of prouducts could be reserved at a time.