Economic calculation problem

[Atilla]

Hello, everybody

i was curious what the Marxian response is to Mises' problem. Just a few lines of counter argument I would appreciate

The argument is that:
1. Without private ownership of the means of production, no such market can exist
2. Without such market, prices for means of production cannot develop, evolve and be revealed, and finally
3. Without prices for the means of production, economic calculation - a rational decision as between alternative production modes - is impossible.

thanks guys

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

1. Without private ownership of the means of production, no such market can exist

k.


2. Without such market, prices for means of production cannot develop, evolve and be revealed, and finally

k


3. Without prices for the means of production, economic calculation - a rational decision as between alternative production modes - is impossible.

Da fak?

[Tim Cornelis]

There are many responses, most of them strawmen. Though one response, by revleft-user Paul Cockshott, appears to be accepted by some or many right-libertarians. It escapes my comprehension though.

Essentially, I believe, what he and Cotrell argue is that we will have collective ownership of means of production, macro-economic planning, and a 'market' for consumer goods (which I'd say is more akin to an artificial market as Takis Fotopolous calls it). Then there is some dazzling mathematical model to explain how economic calculation under socialism is feasible.

There's also the argument that economic calculation under capitalism is itself irrational, because investment and production decisions of economic agents are made independently, no coordination, which can lead to over-investment or over-production, and it bases these decisions on non-equilibrium prices.

[Czy]

I'll give it a shot.

To put this very simply, the so-called "calculation problem" was only a problem before the development of inexpensive computers and ubiquitous data networks. Giving goods a price is very much a lowest-common-denominator sort of solution to resource allocation. It's certainly not the preferential solution given ubiquitous data networks.

Non-market optimization is already a solved problem in computer science; markets cannot actually find optimal solutions to multimodal problems except by pure chance. The capitalist answer to multimodal optimization problems is to ignore the problem and let elites call the shots--which is not actually a solution. If we hold that socialism has a calculation problem then capitalism also has a calculation problem.

For example, there is no reason to compress economic information into prices when the entirety of the information can be provided to any interested party essentially immediately and at negligible cost. Doing so actually reduces the amount of information that economic actors have available. Even if we set aside all of the problems with price and accept the premise that changes in price actually do communicate everything people absolutely have to know to make economic decisions, you still have to acknowledge that it is at best a very rough approximation of that information.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The "Marxist" response in this case, is I think simply common sense. The premises are transparently absurd. In any case, I'm going to approach them in reverse order, since their current arrangement serves to obfuscate some of what is silly about them.


3. Without prices for the means of production, economic calculation - a rational decision as between alternative production modes - is impossible.

This starting point, that there are "rational decisions" made objectively by actors in a theoretical perfect market is ahistorical nonsense. At best, there are actors who make decisions "rationally" according to the formal logic of the market, which is, in the broader picture, profoundly irrational.


2. Without such market, prices for means of production cannot develop,evolve and be revealed, and finally

Prices aren't revealed, but, rather use and exchange values are produced. Again, this point dwells in a realm of purely quantitative fantasy, where all things are innately commodities, rather than commodified by real human activity.


1. Without private ownership of the means of production, no such market can exist.

As I've already mentioned, no "such market" ever has or ever will exist, since it is a flight of idealist fancy. One might as well elaborate a theses on ghosts starting from the point, "Without haunted houses there can be no ghosts" and proceed from there. Of course, this is foolish, since, while they would be mutually constitutive if they were real (you can't have a jar of peanut butter without a jar and peanut butter), the existence of so-called "haunted houses" (there were a few in my town) doesn't actually say anything as to the reality of ghosts.
To clarify, if we were to investigate the social character of haunted houses, the way to go about it would not be to try and understand ghosts, but to understand "haunted houses" - the real material existing structures. One could theorize ghosts in incredible detail without coming to understand creaking floorboards, suddenly shutting doors, or moaning winds on one hand, or the social activity that "creates" ghosts (for simplicity's sake: storytelling, though it's obviously more than that). The "ghosts" are real insofar as their "presence" has a real impact (see: The Winchester Mansion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mansion)), but, of course, good luck catching one.
Markets and private property need to be understood, similarly, by radical critique in the proper sense of going to the "root". Mises's problem is that his understanding proceeds in entirely the wrong direction.

[Comrade #138672]

We do not need prices. We can do our calculations based on labor-time.

[Conscript]

We do not need prices. We can do our calculations based on labor-time.

This. Capitalism's prices float around this as a commodity's exchange value. Prices are necessary for calculation when you have an economy of atomized producers. For us, it's completely irrelevant.

[Baseball]

I

For example, there is no reason to compress economic information into prices when the entirety of the information can be provided to any interested party essentially immediately and at negligible cost. Doing so actually reduces the amount of information that economic actors have available. Even if we set aside all of the problems with price and accept the premise that changes in price actually do communicate everything people absolutely have to know to make economic decisions, you still have to acknowledge that it is at best a very rough approximation of that information.

But... what other information is needed when making an economic decision?

[Tim Cornelis]

But... what other information is needed when making an economic decision?

You need to be able to compare the goods to determine which good should be produced in which quantity given that we cannot produce all goods. We cannot vote on millions of goods and many times more on combinations of goods, which are near infinite. The non-comparability of use-values, for this reason, has me convinced that, unlike many socialists, we need a price system in place in a post-capitalist society.

[Conscript]

You need to be able to compare the goods to determine which good should be produced in which quantity given that we cannot produce all goods. We cannot vote on millions of goods and many times more on combinations of goods, which are near infinite. The non-comparability of use-values, for this reason, has me convinced that, unlike many socialists, we need a price system in place in a post-capitalist society.


What makes you think we'll be voting on what goods are produced? What is this non-comparibility you speak of, and how is it a reason for comparing use values as commodities?

[Skyhilist]

Is there any "official" Marxist response really? I don't think so seeing as the initial argument by Mises in garbage to begin with and likely not even considered by many Marxists.

Why would we need prices to ensure efficiency? Obviously if the goal is post-scarcity we're going to be as efficient as possible. When demand exceeds supply it's obvious we're not being efficient enough - so we devote resources to becoming more efficient. The difference is that we're motivated by wanting post-scarcity and the abolition of onerous labor, whereas capitalist markets are motivated by profit margins, exploitation, and destruction.

[liberlict]

I am too interested in this responses to this problem. I haven't gottent through reading the ones in this thread yet but I will do.

I think this topic might have been discussed on thiis forum once or twice before, too, if anone has some links?

[Tim Cornelis]

What makes you think we'll be voting on what goods are produced? What is this non-comparibility you speak of, and how is it a reason for comparing use values as commodities?

You can't produce all goods for everyone, you need make decisions, prioritise. The labour value (the average socially necessary labour time) of a product does not determine the social utility or worth of a product. In essence, it's a question of general equilibrium.


We are churning out pencils, as another example. When do we stop churning? Pencils are useful, but the more pencils we have, the less is the value of each new one added to the pile, at least after a point. Moreover, we certainly do not want to use up so much of our labor and resources churning out pencils that we start having to forego things more desirable to us than our growing pile of pencils—say, milk. Ideally the economy will churn out each output to a point where the benefit of the last item produced was equal to the opportunity cost of producing it. To produce another of the item would occur at the same or at a bit higher opportunity cost and would have the same or a bit less social value … so that, by not producing that item we can use our productive capability to produce something else that benefits us more.

If we have a society in which we have:


100 (index) resources in terms of labour value
Consumer good A, 1 labour value per unit
Consumer good B, 1 labour value per unit
Consumer good C, 4 labour value per unit
Consumer good D, 25 labour value per unit


There are 5 citizens in this socialist society. We have determined that the aggregate demand of all 5 citizens amount to over 200 resources in labour value. In other words, there are too few resources to satisfy all demand. So we have to make choices. We can't make choices on the basis of labour values because they tell us nothing about the worth or social utility of the consumer goods. Goods A and B have the same labour value but perhaps the consumers tend to more willing to forgo on consumer good B than A (same labour value, different worth or social utility). In this imaginary socialist society, the scale is small enough to ask each individual, but in a society of millions with millions of consumer goods the only way the social utility of consumer goods can be determined is by the individual choices of consumers through a price-based rationing system using work-points or labour credits.

[Baseball]

Why would we need prices to ensure efficiency? Obviously if the goal is post-scarcity we're going to be as efficient as possible.

"efficiency" would need to be defined.


When demand exceeds supply it's obvious we're not being efficient enough - so we devote resources to becoming more efficient.

Not really-- All it might mean is that people want other goods which use the same resources


The difference is that we're motivated by wanting post-scarcity and the abolition of onerous labor, whereas capitalist markets are motivated by profit margins, exploitation, and destruction.

"Profits" describe something tangible, as do prices. The socialist can dissagree that the pursuit of profit is the best way to organize production, BUT that serves as a measuring stick for the capitalist that they are doing something correct.
How the heck does "wanting post scarcity" tell the socialist ANYTHING useful? It doesn't. "The abolition of onerous labor"-- what is that supposed to mean? The socialist community abolishes ditch digging and that "proves" the success of socialism?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Just for the record, in case my post didn't make it clear, I think "calculation" misses the point, since use value can't be calculated, being qualitative. Quantitative calculation of value of becomes necessary with the emergence of private property (distinguished from personal possessions), and the consequent alienation of labour where production is for exchange rather than use.
As far as I'm concerned, various schemes concerning labour vouchers, or whatever, while perfectly viable in the abstract (much like free markets - harhar), miss the point of a communist project, which is the end of the alienation of labour and, consequently, of production for exchange.
That's not to say that various things wouldn't change hands, since, obviously, this exists in pre-/non-market, moneyless, circumstances (even, arguably among non-human animals, who seem to manage adequately without the mediation of capital). In any case, when I say exchange, I mean specifically a "hostile" changing of hands, wherein relations are not communal, but mediated so as to maintain a "distance" between producer and consumer (ie I give you x, you give me y, and in this relationship between things, I owe you nothing, and vice versa). Precisely the relationship which communism/holding-in-common upsets.

In any case, I'm v. sad that no libertarians have made the effort to engage with my original post, and sadder still that communists want to play "What is the best means of mediating exchange?" (which, in this context, falls roughly in the same category as playing cards with a man called doc).

[Paul Cockshott]

Here is an article where I review the positions of Neurath, Mises and Kantorovich on this, arguing that in reality Kantorovich decisively refuted Mises.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6063/1/MPRA_paper_6063.pdf

Kantorovich was as close as you could get in the 50s and 60s to an official marxist respones, If I recall he won the Stalin, Lenin and Nobel prizes. There was not really an official marxist response to Mises in the pre war period. The most explicit response was from Lange who was a quite militant market socialist. On the other hand the Dutch Left communists did produce a response translated here:
http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/gik1.htm

[Baseball]

Here is an article where I review the positions of Neurath, Mises and Kantorovich on this, arguing that in reality Kantorovich decisively refuted Mises.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6063/1/MPRA_paper_6063.pdf

Kantorovich was as close as you could get in the 50s and 60s to an official marxist respones, If I recall he won the Stalin, Lenin and Nobel prizes. There was not really an official marxist response to Mises in the pre war period. The most explicit response was from Lange who was a quite militant market socialist. On the other hand the Dutch Left communists did produce a response translated here:
http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/gik1.htm

The refutation is based Egyptian pharohs and Soviet dictators who relied upon brute force and orders and commands to people to obey?

[robbo203]

You need to be able to compare the goods to determine which good should be produced in which quantity given that we cannot produce all goods. We cannot vote on millions of goods and many times more on combinations of goods, which are near infinite. The non-comparability of use-values, for this reason, has me convinced that, unlike many socialists, we need a price system in place in a post-capitalist society.

No you dont need a price system in a post capitalist society at all and your whole line of thinking is founded upon a quite erroneous assumption, Tim. The same is true of others here who advocate some form of labour time accounting in a socialist society. You are going down a dead end with this idea of labour time units for the purposes of socialist accounting . There are huge practical difficulties involved in implementing such a proposal which would render it unworkable and it will ineluctably lead to the restoration of capitalist accounting - and indeed capitalism itself - with money functioning as the universal equivalent instead of labour time units.

A far more productive route is to question the need for a universal unit of accounting altogether - as did Neurath for example. The so called problem of comparability or commensurability is really a function of market exchange and it is precisely the absence of market exchanges that defines socialism. Obviously, if you are going to exchange goods (commodities) you need some measure of value to ensure equivalence.

Contrary to what some people here seem to think, there is indeed an alternative paradigm within the Marxian tradition that renounces the use of labour time accounting in socialism and places the emphasis on calculation in kind, a self regulating system of stock control and the law of the minimum. I would maintain that this is in fact the only workable approach to the allocation of both producer and consumer goods in a socialist society.

For an overview of this perspective have a look at this link

http://socialistcommonwealth.webs.com/socialismagainstcapitalism.htm

[reb]

I'll give it a shot.

To put this very simply, the so-called "calculation problem" was only a problem before the development of inexpensive computers and ubiquitous data networks. Giving goods a price is very much a lowest-common-denominator sort of solution to resource allocation. It's certainly not the preferential solution given ubiquitous data networks.

Non-market optimization is already a solved problem in computer science; markets cannot actually find optimal solutions to multimodal problems except by pure chance. The capitalist answer to multimodal optimization problems is to ignore the problem and let elites call the shots--which is not actually a solution. If we hold that socialism has a calculation problem then capitalism also has a calculation problem.

For example, there is no reason to compress economic information into prices when the entirety of the information can be provided to any interested party essentially immediately and at negligible cost. Doing so actually reduces the amount of information that economic actors have available. Even if we set aside all of the problems with price and accept the premise that changes in price actually do communicate everything people absolutely have to know to make economic decisions, you still have to acknowledge that it is at best a very rough approximation of that information.

This isn't a marxian response, it is a technological response. Unless you think that we couldn't have communism before computers were invented.

[Czy]

This isn't a marxian response, it is a technological response. Unless you think that we couldn't have communism before computers were invented.

I'm saying computers have completely invalidated the so called 'refutation' of non-capitalist systems that the economic calculation proponents claimed to have. A technological response is not mutually exclusive to a Marxian response. My ideas are actually pretty detailed and provide a concrete way to dodge the calculation problem, much better than calculations based on labour time as Tim outlined above already.

Harnessing technology to our advantage is not an 'anti-Marxian' response, but a pragmatic response.

[Tim Cornelis]

Just for the record, in case my post didn't make it clear, I think "calculation" misses the point, since use value can't be calculated, being qualitative. Quantitative calculation of value of becomes necessary with the emergence of private property (distinguished from personal possessions), and the consequent alienation of labour where production is for exchange rather than use.
As far as I'm concerned, various schemes concerning labour vouchers, or whatever, while perfectly viable in the abstract (much like free markets - harhar), miss the point of a communist project, which is the end of the alienation of labour and, consequently, of production for exchange.
That's not to say that various things wouldn't change hands, since, obviously, this exists in pre-/non-market, moneyless, circumstances (even, arguably among non-human animals, who seem to manage adequately without the mediation of capital). In any case, when I say exchange, I mean specifically a "hostile" changing of hands, wherein relations are not communal, but mediated so as to maintain a "distance" between producer and consumer (ie I give you x, you give me y, and in this relationship between things, I owe you nothing, and vice versa). Precisely the relationship which communism/holding-in-common upsets.

In any case, I'm v. sad that no libertarians have made the effort to engage with my original post, and sadder still that communists want to play "What is the best means of mediating exchange?" (which, in this context, falls roughly in the same category as playing cards with a man called doc).

This is all nice and well, but if it's not viable, then it does not pertain to reality, and then what's the point at all?


No you dont need a price system in a post capitalist society at all and your whole line of thinking is founded upon a quite erroneous assumption, Tim. The same is true of others here who advocate some form of labour time accounting in a socialist society. You are going down a dead end with this idea of labour time units for the purposes of socialist accounting . There are huge practical difficulties involved in implementing such a proposal which would render it unworkable and it will ineluctably lead to the restoration of capitalist accounting - and indeed capitalism itself - with money functioning as the universal equivalent instead of labour time units.

A far more productive route is to question the need for a universal unit of accounting altogether - as did Neurath for example. The so called problem of comparability or commensurability is really a function of market exchange and it is precisely the absence of market exchanges that defines socialism. Obviously, if you are going to exchange goods (commodities) you need some measure of value to ensure equivalence.

Contrary to what some people here seem to think, there is indeed an alternative paradigm within the Marxian tradition that renounces the use of labour time accounting in socialism and places the emphasis on calculation in kind, a self regulating system of stock control and the law of the minimum. I would maintain that this is in fact the only workable approach to the allocation of both producer and consumer goods in a socialist society.

For an overview of this perspective have a look at this link

http://socialistcommonwealth.webs.com/socialismagainstcapitalism.htm

I've already read that text a while ago, and does not address the issue I brought up. Both of you evade it. In essence you're saying "no, nope, not necessary." However, you do not address the issue of the non-comparability of consumer goods? When confronted with limited resources that cannot manufacture all demand, how do you decide which to produce in what quantity? These are rather essential questions that free-access communism cannot solve.

A "self-regulating stock control" is an absolute non-response to this, it's a logistics question, not one of economic calculation. The self-regulating stock control is essentially, 'we run out, we produce more' but this pressuposes absolute abundance. Let's say we run out of consumer good A, and we have evaluated we need to produce 100 in the next week. We also ran out of consumer good B, and we also need to produce 100 by next week. Yet we only have enough resources to produce 50 of either, or 100 of A and zero of B or vice versa, or any ratio involving a maximum of a 100 of A and B. So how do we decide which gets priority? How do we decide on the ratio? How do we reveal consumer preference? Stock control is not an answer because it ignores the existence of limited resources.

If you ask consumers, then this is possible with two. "If you consumer x amount of A, you can only have x amount of B". But if we enter thousands, or hundreds of thousands of consumer goods into the equation then "if you consume x amount of Y, then you can only consume x amount of A-Z and A1-Z1 and so forth." It only becomes solvable if there is a price-based rationing system based on work points.


Marx states that in communist society there will be a high level of development of the productive forces. This level will make it possible for mankind not to measure with necessary labour time. Yet something will be needed to study the relative importance given to one or another branch. The calculation will not be made according to the social cost of the product, but by confronting the various needs. "To everybody according to his needs," in Marx's view, does not mean that "everything" will exist "in abundance"; the notion of absolute "abundance" is itself an ideological notion and not a scientific concept There will have to be some sort of calculation and choice, not on the basis of exchange value, but on the basis of use value, of the social utility of the considered product. (Thereby the problem of "undeveloped countries" will be seen and treated in a new way.) Marx was quite clear about this in The Poverty of Philosophy

Yet the problem is that use-values are incomparable and hence cannot serve as basis for economic decision-making. Unless we can establish some criteria whereby the relative social utility of consumer goods can established without relying on prices, we need, well a price system.

[ckaihatsu]

[Cockshott] and Cotrell argue [that] we will have collective ownership of means of production, macro-economic planning, and a 'market' for consumer goods (which I'd say is more akin to an artificial market as Takis Fotopolous calls it). Then there is some dazzling mathematical model to explain how economic calculation under socialism is feasible.


I second the skepticism here, and will note that we can do better than retain the economic practice of exchanges in a 'market socialism' model.





Non-market optimization is already a solved problem in computer science; markets cannot actually find optimal solutions to multimodal problems except by pure chance.




[T]here is no reason to compress economic information into prices when the entirety of the information can be provided to any interested party essentially immediately and at negligible cost.


Agreed -- it's called 'journalism' and 'maintaining wiki pages', these days.





We do not need prices. We can do our calculations based on labor-time.


Agreed, because while all productive infrastructure can be collectivized, such a revolution would still leave unanswered the question of *whose* labor, and towards *which projects*.





You need to be able to compare the goods to determine which good should be produced in which quantity given that we cannot produce all goods. We cannot vote on millions of goods and many times more on combinations of goods, which are near infinite. The non-comparability of use-values, for this reason, has me convinced that, unlike many socialists, we need a price system in place in a post-capitalist society.


I disagree here, because all that would be required would be an individual-based *ranking* of preference / priority from among those millions of goods.

The mass-collating of those prioritized rankings lists from all individuals would reveal overall mass preferences, for both goods / services, and for political initiatives / directions. (This would amount to a *comparability of use-values*, without using prices or exchanges.)


[17] Prioritization Chart

http://s6.postimage.org/jy5fntvcd/17_Prioritization_Chart.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/jy5fntvcd/)





"efficiency" would need to be defined.


A post-capitalist 'efficiency' would be 'the least amount of liberated-labor used to fulfill a unit of demanded goods / services'





Not really-- All it might mean [when demand exceeds supply] is that people want other goods which use the same resources


Agreed -- this would be a fundamental concern related to material availability.





How the heck does "wanting post scarcity" tell the socialist ANYTHING useful? It doesn't.


It does -- it points us in the direction of fulfilling explicitly expressed qualitative (mass) demands, with the theoretical goal of providing 100% of what's demanded, for 100% fulfillment.





"The abolition of onerous labor"-- what is that supposed to mean? The socialist community abolishes ditch digging and that "proves" the success of socialism?


Yes -- eliminating all physical labor would be a politically principled goal.





Just for the record, in case my post didn't make it clear, I think "calculation" misses the point, since use value can't be calculated, being qualitative.


Agreed on the point about eschewing any and all kinds of price systems.

But I maintain that 'use values' *can* be prioritized, thus giving them individual-based objectivity *and* 'inter-subjective' *social* objectivity through quantitative-based number rankings -- preference #1, preference #2, preference #3, etc.





No you dont need a price system in a post capitalist society at all and your whole line of thinking is founded upon a quite erroneous assumption, Tim. The same is true of others here who advocate some form of labour time accounting in a socialist society.


Agreed that we don't need a price system.

But without a method for formally, consistently considering people's (liberated-)labor inputs there would be no way to express formal social acknowledgement for those who take on work roles that are above and beyond the norm. In other words, we can do better than a social order of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy'), because as long as socially-necessary *higher-risk* work roles exist there would be no guarantee that such work would be fulfilled when everyone can just individually ignore that work in favor of doing *less*-risky work roles.





You are going down a dead end with this idea of labour time units for the purposes of socialist accounting . There are huge practical difficulties involved in implementing such a proposal which would render it unworkable and it will ineluctably lead to the restoration of capitalist accounting - and indeed capitalism itself - with money functioning as the universal equivalent instead of labour time units.


I agree with this insofar as it's a critique and dismissal of 'market socialism'.

But I will assert that labor-hour-based units *can* serve as a realistic material basis for a greater political economy -- the factor of hazard and/or difficulty has to be taken into account, though. See my blog entry for an introduction to 'labor credits'.





A far more productive route is to question the need for a universal unit of accounting altogether - as did Neurath for example. The so called problem of comparability or commensurability is really a function of market exchange and it is precisely the absence of market exchanges that defines socialism. Obviously, if you are going to exchange goods (commodities) you need some measure of value to ensure equivalence.

Contrary to what some people here seem to think, there is indeed an alternative paradigm within the Marxian tradition that renounces the use of labour time accounting in socialism and places the emphasis on calculation in kind, a self regulating system of stock control and the law of the minimum. I would maintain that this is in fact the only workable approach to the allocation of both producer and consumer goods in a socialist society.


'Calculation in kind' is too localizing in practice and would predispose the system to a backsliding to a piecemeal syndicalism -- it's merely a system of *exchanges*, as seen in the market socialism that you reject, even if it doesn't use an intermediary of prices.





For an overview of this perspective have a look at this link

http://socialistcommonwealth.webs.com/socialismagainstcapitalism.htm





However, you do not address the issue of the non-comparability of consumer goods? When confronted with limited resources that cannot manufacture all demand, how do you decide which to produce in what quantity? These are rather essential questions that free-access communism cannot solve.


Prioritization. (See above.)





Stock control is not an answer because it ignores the existence of limited resources.


Agreed.





If you ask consumers, then this is possible with two. "If you consumer x amount of A, you can only have x amount of B". But if we enter thousands, or hundreds of thousands of consumer goods into the equation then "if you consume x amount of Y, then you can only consume x amount of A-Z and A1-Z1 and so forth." It only becomes solvable if there is a price-based rationing system based on work points.


I agree with your presentation of material reality, and the per-item scarcity that will always exist, as with goods that are still in-development, or services that are limited by constraints of space and time.

I again reject the intermediary of any price system.





Yet the problem is that use-values are incomparable and hence cannot serve as basis for economic decision-making. Unless we can establish some criteria whereby the relative social utility of consumer goods can established without relying on prices, we need, well a price system.


Prioritization. (See above.)

[robbo203]

I've already read that text a while ago, and does not address the issue I brought up. Both of you evade it. In essence you're saying "no, nope, not necessary." However, you do not address the issue of the non-comparability of consumer goods? When confronted with limited resources that cannot manufacture all demand, how do you decide which to produce in what quantity? These are rather essential questions that free-access communism cannot solve.


Well perhap. Tim, you might not have read the text right through because, actually, the issue that you raised was adddressed. A procedure by which one might discriminate between goods was actually outlined. In any event, this is not really strictly a question of the "comparability" of "non comparibility" of goods as such - I think you are confusing two quite separate issues here - and I stand by my earlier claim that the need for "comparability" only arise in the context oif market exchange - that is to ensure the exchange of equivalents.

It does NOT arise in a non market socialist economy in which there is no economic exchange. You dont need to compare chalk and cheese in terms of some common denominator where production is solely for use and where the use value of goods is the only consideration, not exchange value. Chalk and cheese will remain happily incommensurable or incomparable


Discriminating between goods and determining "which to produce and in what quantity" does not really have to do with the question of comparability at all and this is where I believe you go seriously astray . It is a separate matter and, as I say, the matter has been effectively dealt with in the articles linked. More anon.



A "self-regulating stock control" is an absolute non-response to this, it's a logistics question, not one of economic calculation. The self-regulating stock control is essentially, 'we run out, we produce more' but this pressuposes absolute abundance. Let's say we run out of consumer good A, and we have evaluated we need to produce 100 in the next week. We also ran out of consumer good B, and we also need to produce 100 by next week. Yet we only have enough resources to produce 50 of either, or 100 of A and zero of B or vice versa, or any ratio involving a maximum of a 100 of A and B. So how do we decide which gets priority? How do we decide on the ratio? How do we reveal consumer preference? Stock control is not an answer because it ignores the existence of limited resources.

This is often what happens when critics of free access communism focus on just one aspect or component of a communist production system and ignore the rest: they fail to see the wood for the trees. They fail to see that these different aspects are part of an interlocking whole which functions as a whole

Of course a self regulating system of stock control on it own cannot allow us to see what needs to be produced and in what quantities under conditions of relative scarcity. No one ever suggested otherwise. It gives us an idea of what people want - that is to say, it provides a dynamic and continually updated picture of the pattern of demand - and to that extent allows us to see what needs to be produced and in the quantities required - obviously since what needs to be produced is governed by demand. However, it cannot on its own enable us to determine what needs to be produced (and in what quantities) when there is not enough to go round. That is, I think, the essential point you are making which is not disputed It is then, and under such circumstances, that other aspects of a communist production system kick in - most notably the concept of a hierachy of production goals which you seem to have completely overlooked.

Now it is true that when we talk about some goods being deemed more important to society than others we seem to be engaged in a process of comparing one with the other., That would seem to immediately contradict what I earlier said about "comparability". But actually it does not. Why? Becuase we are talking here merely of the ordiinal ranking of goods as a matter of social preference. We are not taling about the cardinal ranking of goods in terms of their exchange value or their labour time content. Qualitative distinctions cannot be quantified. Chalk and cheese cannot be compared in some essential sense in a way that permit us to grasp the cheesiness or chalkiness of one in terms of the other. Acting upon our qualitative evaluatiuons has real world implications that can be quantified, certainly, but it is important not to confuse these two different things

Nevertheless, in order to decide what needs to be produced and in what quantities under these sub-optimal conditions of relative scarcity you still need to know what is available in the first place, dont you? . The very notion of relative scarcity would be meaningless otherwise. Something is scarce - that is, in short supply - in relation to the demand for it and how else does one know the extent to which something is in short supply except by measuring or quantifying what is available i.e. stock control and then measuring that against the estimated demand for the good in question.


A self regulating system of stock control thus has a very obvious and direct bearing on the question of economic calculation and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Efficiency has to do with the relationship between inputs and output. Greater efficiency means squeezing more output out your inputs To maximise output overall ones needs to economise most on, or use most sparingly, those inputs or production factors that are scarcest and use more of those alternative inputs that are relatively abundant. This is amother aspect of a comnunist production system that you overlooked - namely the law of the minimun and the role of limiting factors which present themselves as supply contraints or bottlenecks arising in the process of resourse allocation. Clearly, where such bottlenecks arise the pattern of allocation will be heavily influenced by what communist society perceives to be its production priorities - which is eminently sensible . So it will be to high prority objectives that scarce resources will be primarily allocated leaving low priority objectives to fall short of demand (and perhaps therefore to become subject to some form of ratio9ining) or to look towards other means of meeting demand such as technological substitution i.e. using more abundant alternative inputs (which, in turn, may mean reconfiguring the product in question at the design stage)

But again none of this is possible without a self regulating sytsrtem of stock control which is not to say - as I have already indicated - that a self regulating system of stock control can in all cases determines what needs to be produced and in what quantities. Under conditions of relative scarcity of particular inputs such a system on its own is inadequate for the purpose and has to be supplementeds by those other institutuional components of a communnist system which you have overlooked.

Neveretheless it remains true that without a self regulating system of control you would not have the necessary raw data upon which to effect the efficient allocation of resource. You would have no idea of the relative scarcity of different goods and and where to focus your economising efforts on



If you ask consumers, then this is possible with two. "If you consumer x amount of A, you can only have x amount of B". But if we enter thousands, or hundreds of thousands of consumer goods into the equation then "if you consume x amount of Y, then you can only consume x amount of A-Z and A1-Z1 and so forth." It only becomes solvable if there is a price-based rationing system based on work points..


No it does not. Quite the contrary what you are proposing will, I believe, prove impractical and will end up in the restoration of capitalism. I am not opposed in principle to the idea of some form of rationing coexisting alongside free access but a " price-based rationing system based on work points" is just about the worst possible model of rationing one can conceive of. You overlook the bureaucrartic complexity involved in operating such a system of rationing which is not jhust not a technological issue of surveliiance and monitoring of labvour inputs. This is to say nothing of the socially divisive repercussions that will almost certainly arise from it. More to the point, while labour time accounting does not necessarily entail a system of labour vouchers, the converse is not the case. You cannot have a system of labour vouchers, such as you advocate, without also having a system of labour time accounting . You seem to recognise this becuase you say your system will be price based meaning that goods will be "priced" in terms of their labour content.


However what you dont seem to recognise is that labour time accounting as a process faces numerous and, I would contend, insuperable technicalk obstacles that would rule it out as a useful tool of socialist planning - such as how do you weight different kinds of labour. Yes, I know Marx and Engels advoated labour time accounting quite apart from their advocacy of labour time vouchers in the lower phase of communism but I think they grossly underestimated the difficulties associated with such an approach

[argeiphontes]

I disagree here, because all that would be required would be an individual-based *ranking* of preference / priority from among those millions of goods.

The mass-collating of those prioritized rankings lists from all individuals would reveal overall mass preferences, for both goods / services, and for political initiatives / directions. (This would amount to a *comparability of use-values*, without using prices or exchanges.)


How would you eliminate a 'tyrrany of the majority' that could result if there wasn't enough labor to produce everyone's wants? In a market, I can start a collective to produce whatever I want as long as there are enough people who would be willing to buy it and hence support the collective's efforts. Furthermore, I am free to withdraw my labor from the production of other things.

How would anarchists react to this socialization of comparing use values by popular election? Why should I be subject to a mass preference at all?

edit: Also, I'm expected to rank millions of goods and services? How is someone supposed to qualitatively compare everything they consume in a reasonable amount of time?

edit2: Finally, I guess, how would expressed preferences translate into a noncoercive allocation of labor, in the absence of extra incentives. I'd rather tend to blueberry bushes than work in a dangerous and dirty steel mill, yet everyone wants cars and trains that use steel?

[Baseball]

I disagree here, because all that would be required would be an individual-based *ranking* of preference / priority from among those millions of goods.

The mass-collating of those prioritized rankings lists from all individuals would reveal overall mass preferences, for both goods / services, and for political initiatives / directions. (This would amount to a *comparability of use-values*, without using prices or exchanges.)


This suggestion, however, leaves out further adjustments. Such as:
1. Priorities changing due to changing circumstances
2. Priorities no longer being priorities IF at the cost of some other good.





A post-capitalist 'efficiency' would be 'the least amount of liberated-labor used to fulfill a unit of demanded goods / services'

Using as a little labor as possible to produce goods is also considered an area for efficiency in the capitalist community. Indeed, keeping costs low (including perhaps using as little energy as possible ect) would probably also be considered effective measure of efficiency in the post-capitalist ere as it was considered in the capitalist era.

However, it ought not be forgotten that socialists usually denounce capitalists when they seek such goals, often suggesting its nothing more than an effort to line their pockets ect.
Good to see an agreement that keeping costs low in production is a RATIONAL act, that any RATIONAL economy would seek to do the same.




It does -- it points us in the direction of fulfilling explicitly expressed qualitative (mass) demands, with the theoretical goal of providing 100% of what's demanded, for 100% fulfillment.

All it does is say 'the Arctic is north' and then just pointing north.




But without a method for formally, consistently considering people's (liberated-)labor inputs there would be no way to express formal social acknowledgement for those who take on work roles that are above and beyond the norm. In other words, we can do better than a social order of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy'), because as long as socially-necessary *higher-risk* work roles exist there would be no guarantee that such work would be fulfilled when everyone can just individually ignore that work in favor of doing *less*-risky work roles.

Well, the obvious and rational solution would be to simply pay people more to do such work. That socialism cannot offer such a solution, is of course, an example of the flaws and weakness of socialism.

[argeiphontes]

However, it ought not be forgotten that socialists usually denounce capitalists when they seek such goals, often suggesting its nothing more than an effort to line their pockets ect.


Well, because when somebody else is keeping the surplus/profit, then it is just lining their pockets.



Well, the obvious and rational solution would be to simply pay people more to do such work. That socialism cannot offer such a solution, is of course, an example of the flaws and weakness of socialism.

Not so fast... there's market socialism, which allows for variation in remuneration as long as it's a democratic decision. Ready to join the dark side, Baseball? ;)

[Baseball]

It does NOT arise in a non market socialist economy in which there is no economic exchange. You dont need to compare chalk and cheese in terms of some common denominator where production is solely for use and where the use value of goods is the only consideration, not exchange value. Chalk and cheese will remain happily incommensurable or incomparable

You are simply looking at the final product- the chalk and cheese.
But do not not both products require labor, time, energy ect ect in order to be produced? Upon what basis are those resources allocated between the cheese factory and the chalk factory?




Of course a self regulating system of stock control on it own cannot allow us to see what needs to be produced and in what quantities under conditions of relative scarcity. No one ever suggested otherwise. It gives us an idea of what people want - that is to say, it provides a dynamic and continually updated picture of the pattern of demand - and to that extent allows us to see what needs to be produced and in the quantities required -

No. It gives an idea what was demanded yesterday. It is of no assistance in determining what needs to be produced tomorrow-- beyond making a rough guess. And making a rough guess on what might be in demand tomorrow is a very poor way of making production decisions.


obviously since what needs to be produced is governed by demand.

In a rational community, yes.
However, what this means for the socialist community is that the workers cannot control the means of production. Since their actions on the factory floor need to be governed by what the consumer wants , not what those workers on the floor want.


However, it cannot on its own enable us to determine what needs to be produced (and in what quantities) when there is not enough to go round. That is, I think, the essential point you are making which is not disputed It is then, and under such circumstances, that other aspects of a communist production system kick in - most notably the concept of a hierachy of production goals which you seem to have completely overlooked.


Such a hierarchy must be a very rigid thing- the chalk factory which is ordered to produce a 100 ibs of chalk in order to satisfy the hierarchy has done its job if it produces 100 lbs of chalk.
The problem is if, for whatever reason the hieracrchy changes to 75 lbs or 125 lbs. The response to such a change simply cannot be rapid since such a change does not merely impact the workers in the chalk factory.

The other problem with the hierarchy is that it does not allow for changes within it. A person who wants both chalk and cheese may adjust his or preference if one item can be had only at the cost of another.




Nevertheless, in order to decide what needs to be produced and in what quantities under these sub-optimal conditions of relative scarcity you still need to know what is available in the first place, dont you? . The very notion of relative scarcity would be meaningless otherwise. Something is scarce - that is, in short supply - in relation to the demand for it and how else does one know the extent to which something is in short supply except by measuring or quantifying what is available i.e. stock control and then measuring that against the estimated demand for the good in question.

As above, an "estimation" is a very imprecise thing, especially when that estimation is based upon the notion of 'well they wanted 100 units of it yesterday, they will want 100 units tomorrow.'
As above (again) such "estimation" ignores people's adjustment in demand based that scarcity of that good and other goods.


Efficiency has to do with the relationship between inputs and output. Greater efficiency means squeezing more output out your inputs

Correct-- the objective is to turn a profit ie outputs exceed inputs.


To maximise output overall ones needs to economise most on, or use most sparingly, those inputs or production factors that are scarcest and use more of those alternative inputs that are relatively abundant.

More or less true--- when capitalists decamp to seek out lands where they can find labor who are willing to accept fewer "outputs" from the capitalist is an example of this. The communists would not (can not) take such a route doesn't change the soundness of the concept.


This is amother aspect of a comnunist production system that you overlooked - namely the law of the minimun and the role of limiting factors which present themselves as supply contraints or bottlenecks arising in the process of resourse allocation.

Yes-- the communist production will seek to produce goods and services at the lowest possible cost and seek to identify and remove obstacles to this objective.


Clearly, where such bottlenecks arise the pattern of allocation will be heavily influenced by what communist society perceives to be its production priorities - which is eminently sensible . So it will be to high prority objectives that scarce resources will be primarily allocated leaving low priority objectives to fall short of demand (and perhaps therefore to become subject to some form of ratio9ining) or to look towards other means of meeting demand such as technological substitution i.e. using more abundant alternative inputs (which, in turn, may mean reconfiguring the product in question at the design stage)

OK


But again none of this is possible without a self regulating sytsrtem of stock control which is not to say - as I have already indicated - that a self regulating system of stock control can in all cases determines what needs to be produced and in what quantities. Under conditions of relative scarcity of particular inputs such a system on its own is inadequate for the purpose and has to be supplementeds by those other institutuional components of a communnist system which you have overlooked.

You haven't explained what these supplements are. Simply saying they would get rid of bottlenecks truly says nothing. What tells the producer that a bottleneck exists? What is the basis of COMPARING the results of the bottleneck to that of removing the bottleneck?

[Baseball]

Not so fast... there's market socialism, which allows for variation in remuneration as long as it's a democratic decision. Ready to join the dark side, Baseball? ;)

Pay ought be determined based upon the value of the work performed, not based upon a vote, no matter how democratic it may be. Such acts result in salary controls, (unless it is based upon the former, and then what would be the point of the latter) which distort the market in a negative way.

[argeiphontes]

No. It gives an idea what was demanded yesterday. It is of no assistance in determining what needs to be produced tomorrow-- beyond making a rough guess. And making a rough guess on what might be in demand tomorrow is a very poor way of making production decisions.


But what do capitalist firms have to base their future production on besides historical sales? They also make "rough" forecasts of future demand.


Pay ought be determined based upon the value of the work performed, not based upon a vote, no matter how democratic it may be. Such acts result in salary controls, (unless it is based upon the former, and then what would be the point of the latter) which distort the market in a negative way.

Since all profits are distributed to the workers (apart from capital and social expenditures), in practice this works out as a ratio between the pay of various people, hence it takes value into account automatically, but on a firm-wide basis rather than individual. Pay differentials should be based on a normative judgment, which is the way it functions in real life. Otherwise, why would CEOs and managers make so much money--they produce no real value, only perceived value due to normative bias about the alleged value of their coordinator function, which is empirically false because worker cooperatives are more efficient than similar capitalist enterprises. So, there is no accounting for pay differentials just as there is no accounting for taste. Other than power and private ownership, of course.

edit: Profits are earned on a firm-wide basis of course. How are you going to determine who adds more or less value except by normative means?

[ckaihatsu]

You dont need to compare chalk and cheese in terms of some common denominator where production is solely for use and where the use value of goods is the only consideration, not exchange value. Chalk and cheese will remain happily incommensurable or incomparable


I agree here -- this is a good argument for going to the left of market socialism.





Now it is true that when we talk about some goods being deemed more important to society than others we seem to be engaged in a process of comparing one with the other., That would seem to immediately contradict what I earlier said about "comparability". But actually it does not. Why? Becuase we are talking here merely of the ordiinal ranking of goods as a matter of social preference. We are not taling about the cardinal ranking of goods in terms of their exchange value or their labour time content.


Agreed -- this addresses the 'demand' side of the equation, and is provided-for in my 'communist supply & demand' model:





Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





However what you dont seem to recognise is that labour time accounting as a process faces numerous and, I would contend, insuperable technicalk obstacles that would rule it out as a useful tool of socialist planning - such as how do you weight different kinds of labour. Yes, I know Marx and Engels advoated labour time accounting quite apart from their advocacy of labour time vouchers in the lower phase of communism but I think they grossly underestimated the difficulties associated with such an approach


My model can 'weight' different kinds of labor:





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





How would you eliminate a 'tyrrany of the majority' that could result if there wasn't enough labor to produce everyone's wants?


You're conflating a bourgeois-democratic *political* form with a post-capitalist *economic* one -- what a self-liberated society could *produce* wouldn't be constrained to a '50% + 1' voting paradigm.

Pragmatically, if liberated labor was insufficient to fulfill everyone's last little whim, that's just how things would be -- there'd be no 'tyranny' because there'd be no bureaucratic-collectivist (Stalinist) elite to issue production directives in a heavy-handed way, as you're implying.

Nothing could really be *disallowed* as long as some persons / people could put in the effort themselves to freely produce what they want.





Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want, with the proviso that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only -- after a certain period of disuse all personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property





In a market, I can start a collective to produce whatever I want as long as there are enough people who would be willing to buy it and hence support the collective's efforts. Furthermore, I am free to withdraw my labor from the production of other things.


If you're arguing for any kind of (hands-off, by definition) market system you're very close to defending capitalism, which is counter-revolutionary.





How would anarchists react to this socialization of comparing use values by popular election? Why should I be subject to a mass preference at all?


I'll preface my point first by noting that -- in my conception of this -- the "election" part would be for *production goals*, and not for any kind of representative personage, as we're used to seeing today in the bourgeois-democratic status quo.

You (and myself and anyone else) should be subject to a mass-preferencing because you (or I or anyone else) are a single individual amidst billions of others on this planet.





edit: Also, I'm expected to rank millions of goods and services? How is someone supposed to qualitatively compare everything they consume in a reasonable amount of time?


Well, how do you do it today -- ? (It's on the basis of available funds and wherewithal.)





Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily


Note that the ranking process would take place on a *daily* basis, with mass results continually made public, as on a website, etc. This would reveal trends continuously, such as which production initiatives got the most #1-rank-positions, which got the most #2-rank-positions, etc.

Without the market all mass productivity would have to begin with demand-based political initiatives -- if you felt you were lacking something you could make a proposal, of whatever size and scope, to kick things off, towards your goal.





edit2: Finally, I guess, how would expressed preferences translate into a noncoercive allocation of labor, in the absence of extra incentives. I'd rather tend to blueberry bushes than work in a dangerous and dirty steel mill, yet everyone wants cars and trains that use steel?


Yes -- since, by definition, a communist-type social order could not coerce labor, it would be up to the larger political economy to decide where liberated labor should go, and what should be produced (and not-produced).

My model provides for liberated-labor flexibility through the use of 'labor credits' -- a locality would have to approve an allocation of sufficient labor credits to pass onto you for your duties at tending blueberry bushes. At the same time you might be part of a political initiative that (likewise) allocates sufficient labor credits to those who would take up labor in a dangerous and dirty steel mill, for the sake of producing steel cars and trains for the common good.





Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits





Clearly, where such bottlenecks arise the pattern of allocation will be heavily influenced by what communist society perceives to be its production priorities - which is eminently sensible . So it will be to high prority objectives that scarce resources will be primarily allocated leaving low priority objectives to fall short of demand (and perhaps therefore to become subject to some form of ratio9ining) or to look towards other means of meeting demand such as technological substitution i.e. using more abundant alternative inputs (which, in turn, may mean reconfiguring the product in question at the design stage)


Agreed.





This suggestion, however, leaves out further adjustments. Such as:
1. Priorities changing due to changing circumstances


No prob -- note that the mass-prioritization process would be done daily, continuously (see above).





2. Priorities no longer being priorities IF at the cost of some other good.


I can't address issues of "cost" since the 'communist supply & demand' model does not use any kind of abstracted valuations ('price').

But -- in terms of basic material availability (assets, resources, goods, services), refinements of mass-preference might have to be done, such as a latter-round mass-prioritization of 'Plan B' over 'Plan A'.





[I]t points us in the direction of fulfilling explicitly expressed qualitative (mass) demands, with the theoretical goal of providing 100% of what's demanded, for 100% fulfillment.





All it does is say 'the Arctic is north' and then just pointing north.


Hey, I'm just one guy in the present-day. Nonetheless, it's important for one's politics to have some direction, no matter who they are.





But without a method for formally, consistently considering people's (liberated-)labor inputs there would be no way to express formal social acknowledgement for those who take on work roles that are above and beyond the norm. In other words, we can do better than a social order of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy'), because as long as socially-necessary *higher-risk* work roles exist there would be no guarantee that such work would be fulfilled when everyone can just individually ignore that work in favor of doing *less*-risky work roles.





Well, the obvious and rational solution would be to simply pay people more to do such work. That socialism cannot offer such a solution, is of course, an example of the flaws and weakness of socialism.


I'll admit that revolutionaries tend to rely too much on a 'hugs-and-smiles' placeholder instead of dealing with post-capitalist practicalities head-on, as revealed with the 'riskier-work' aspect.

Fortunately the project of socialism is *not* at a loss for answers here -- we do *not* need to revert to a market, or market socialism, when my model suitably addresses this aspect:





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





Since all profits are distributed to the workers (apart from capital and social expenditures), in practice this works out as a ratio between the pay of various people, hence it takes value into account automatically, but on a firm-wide basis rather than individual. Pay differentials should be based on a normative judgment, which is the way it functions in real life. Otherwise, why would CEOs and managers make so much money--they produce no real value, only perceived value due to normative bias about the alleged value of their coordinator function, which is empirically false because worker cooperatives are more efficient than similar capitalist enterprises. So, there is no accounting for pay differentials just as there is no accounting for taste. Other than power and private ownership, of course.

edit: Profits are earned on a firm-wide basis of course. How are you going to determine who adds more or less value except by normative means?


The problem with the market socialism approach is that it would not eliminate competition -- there would be an economic incentive, then as now, to *curtail* one's rivals and their operations in order to maximize market share and firm-wide profitability.

[reb]

I'm saying computers have completely invalidated the so called 'refutation' of non-capitalist systems that the economic calculation proponents claimed to have. A technological response is not mutually exclusive to a Marxian response. My ideas are actually pretty detailed and provide a concrete way to dodge the calculation problem, much better than calculations based on labour time as Tim outlined above already.

Harnessing technology to our advantage is not an 'anti-Marxian' response, but a pragmatic response.

This still isn't a marxian response, no matter how much you try to dress it up as being pragmatic. You haven't mentioned anything that comes close to a marxian response to the economic calculation problem.

[argeiphontes]

How would you eliminate a 'tyrrany of the majority' that could result if there wasn't enough labor to produce everyone's wants?

You're conflating a bourgeois-democratic *political* form with a post-capitalist *economic* one -- what a self-liberated society could *produce* wouldn't be constrained to a '50% + 1' voting paradigm.

Pragmatically, if liberated labor was insufficient to fulfill everyone's last little whim, that's just how things would be -- there'd be no 'tyranny' because there'd be no bureaucratic-collectivist (Stalinist) elite to issue production directives in a heavy-handed way, as you're implying.

Nothing could really be *disallowed* as long as some persons / people could put in the effort themselves to freely produce what they want.


Sorry, that was unclear. I meant that in a ranking system, there would probably be some things ranked pretty low, for which resources could not be allocated. Therefore, some people's niche wants would go unsatisfied.

Say I wanted a motorcycle, and so did 10 of my friends, and furthermore, we had the skills to produce them as long as we could obtain the parts. But, all the resources had been allocated to other things. Since we can't start our own collective, what are our options? 1) We do nothing, or 2) We try to act politically, by either convincing the district or group that motorcycles are a good thing to produce, or 3) concentrating motorcycle enthusiasts into a geographical area so that our preferences receive a higher aggregate rating.

Are there any other options? Would people start gaming the system by ranking motorcycles above bread to increase their aggregate scores? Maybe we would decide to withdraw our labor from productive activity and spend the time agitating for our pet projects, since there are no bad consequences except having to live at a minimal level of subsistence for a short period of time. Maybe some people would just steal the parts or buy them on a black market?

In the motorcycle example, it's not that bad if we don't get what we want. But, what about some important but niche product? If a group of scientists wanted to build a quantum microprocessor or a new kind of artificial heart, would they have to engage in political activity to get people to rank the parts they needed high enough to be produced? Wouldn't this be an inefficient use of their time, and a drag on technological development and the activities of 'entrepreneurship'? People could think it's all sci-fi bullshit if they don't understand the technology, so people would have to become activists and try to educate people on these points, I guess. People would have to spend time reading various proposals that other people thought were absolutely crucial to produce or develop for future use. "Make sure to rank teflon widget #5 at least at 85,000 in the next cycle because it's crucial for our artificial heart!"

Then, the size of the production community would become an issue. What if a community along Lake Michigan refused to spend time battling shore erosion because the people further inland decided the cement or rocks were better spent building additional roads or something?

However, you said people could produce what they want. So my 10 friends can somehow produce the motorcycles and the doctors can build their artificial heart. But how would that happen if all the resources had already been allocated to other things? What mechanism would enable that, and doesn't that conflict with:



Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only


So, I could, say, grow marijuana individually, but group efficiencies in these things would be out of the question. If a suitable irrigation system wasn't being produced, several people wouldn't be able to, say, cannibalize some other consumer goods to build the system, because that would be considered unlawful accumulation of capital.

----------



If you're arguing for any kind of (hands-off, by definition) market system you're very close to defending capitalism, which is counter-revolutionary.


In order to be "counter-revolutionary", I'd have to be advocating capitalism, not just markets. Or just asking hard questions with no ready answers.

I'm being realistic and trying to have a workable system to advocate that can actually be implemented, like market socialism. I'm also trying to determine whether these non-market systems have a chance of conforming to left-libertarian principles.

(I would really like to see an empirical, nontrivial test of a nonmarket economic system.)





edit: Also, I'm expected to rank millions of goods and services? How is someone supposed to qualitatively compare everything they consume in a reasonable amount of time?


Well, how do you do it today -- ? (It's on the basis of available funds and wherewithal.)


I don't have to create any kind of ranking system, I just go and buy things at the store to express my preference. As another poster suggested, how am I going to make a list of preferences for incommensurate use values? How would I rank socket LGA-775 motherboards versus toilet paper? Or computer software for modeling global weather patterns versus green tea extract pills? There would have to be a plethora of categories, some system of 'indicator prices' as in ParEcon, and eventually all I'd be doing is sitting at the computer ranking things, thinking about how to rank them, and changing my answers as my needs changed on a daily basis and indicator prices rose and fell.

These could furthermore be subject to the type of wild swings as in the stock exchanges today. People would spend time watching for their favorite items to rise and fall, like in an online auction, and change their rankings accordingly. This could result is wild swings or absurd rankings.

In general, coordinator work previously done by the producing enterprises, which only have to handle a small subset of all social goods, and which coordinate based on price signals and sales figures, would be outsourced to me and to society at large, but on the scale of having to take care of every item. Advertizing would be replaced by people having to advocate for their preferred products. Both of those would increase the nonproductive time spent, decreasing the social product. This is time that could not be spent in production or leisure. Perhaps black markets and household production of illegal products would take place as people sought out niche products that were never selected for production.

Furthermore, the idea that people are rational consumers making rational choices based on perfect information is a simplification used by economists and doesn't hold true in real life. How are all people going to become educated about the externalities and other non-labor-time costs of picking some products over others without that information being contained in some type of "objective" pricing scheme. And all of this has to be reasonably efficient.



The problem with the market socialism approach is that it would not eliminate competition -- there would be an economic incentive, then as now, to *curtail* one's rivals and their operations in order to maximize market share and firm-wide profitability.


Of course. Market socialism has a market, by definition. Maximizing market share is done by winning consumer preference by altering price or features. In a non-market system, would I also have to enumerate and rank all the desired features of each product, in addition to the products themselves? Who decides how many pockets my cargo pants have, or how many speeds a car's transmission has, or what color and materials of vinyl siding are produced? Which music and visual artists should be supported, and what kind of guitar strings should be allotted to them? How many S, M, L, XL, XXL boxer shorts should be produced, and what pattern is going to be on them? There's another level of complexity for you.

Running an economy based on planning is very complex. Think of the crappy, uniform goods available in the Eastern Bloc states. Sure, it's better than poverty, but hopefully a future economy can do better than that.

And that's why I like market socialism.... :)

[ckaihatsu]

Sorry, that was unclear. I meant that in a ranking system, there would probably be some things ranked pretty low, for which resources could not be allocated. Therefore, some people's niche wants would go unsatisfied.

Say I wanted a motorcycle, and so did 10 of my friends, and furthermore, we had the skills to produce them as long as we could obtain the parts. But, all the resources had been allocated to other things. Since we can't start our own collective, what are our options? 1) We do nothing, or 2) We try to act politically, by either convincing the district or group that motorcycles are a good thing to produce, or 3) concentrating motorcycle enthusiasts into a geographical area so that our preferences receive a higher aggregate rating.

Are there any other options? Would people start gaming the system by ranking motorcycles above bread to increase their aggregate scores? Maybe we would decide to withdraw our labor from productive activity and spend the time agitating for our pet projects, since there are no bad consequences except having to live at a minimal level of subsistence for a short period of time. Maybe some people would just steal the parts or buy them on a black market?

In the motorcycle example, it's not that bad if we don't get what we want. But, what about some important but niche product? If a group of scientists wanted to build a quantum microprocessor or a new kind of artificial heart, would they have to engage in political activity to get people to rank the parts they needed high enough to be produced? Wouldn't this be an inefficient use of their time, and a drag on technological development and the activities of 'entrepreneurship'? People could think it's all sci-fi bullshit if they don't understand the technology, so people would have to become activists and try to educate people on these points, I guess. People would have to spend time reading various proposals that other people thought were absolutely crucial to produce or develop for future use. "Make sure to rank teflon widget #5 at least at 85,000 in the next cycle because it's crucial for our artificial heart!"

Then, the size of the production community would become an issue. What if a community along Lake Michigan refused to spend time battling shore erosion because the people further inland decided the cement or rocks were better spent building additional roads or something?

However, you said people could produce what they want. So my 10 friends can somehow produce the motorcycles and the doctors can build their artificial heart. But how would that happen if all the resources had already been allocated to other things? What mechanism would enable that, and doesn't that conflict with:



So, I could, say, grow marijuana individually, but group efficiencies in these things would be out of the question. If a suitable irrigation system wasn't being produced, several people wouldn't be able to, say, cannibalize some other consumer goods to build the system, because that would be considered unlawful accumulation of capital.


I don't know how to respond here to your satisfaction -- you're putting forth 'strawman' scenarios, which you're easily knocking over with sheer pessimism.

You haven't discredited any part of the model on its merits, so I have no overall response here.

On some *technicalities*, I will say....





3) concentrating motorcycle enthusiasts into a geographical area so that our preferences receive a higher aggregate rating.


Geographical expanse wouldn't be an issue here, except for the increased logistical complexities that would result, as in getting the required motorcycle parts to where they need to be.

I conceptualize that any given political initiative would specify the geographical range involved, and would still be accessible to anyone, for possible alterations and/or alternatives in its range of coverage.

(For a schematic of this, please see the center panel of the following graphic.)


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://s6.postimage.org/ccfl07uy5/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimage.org/image/ccfl07uy5/)





Would people start gaming the system by ranking motorcycles above bread to increase their aggregate scores?


There's no 'gaming' of the system since, like the Internet itself, the sum total of the system is entirely what participants do with it.

On the 'bread' part I'd hope that such a society would have that aspect fully regularized, regardless of the daily priority lists, but that's just my own opinion.





Maybe we would decide to withdraw our labor from productive activity and spend the time agitating for our pet projects,


I don't see any either-or dichotomy here since, in a post-capitalist social order, agitating for one's pet projects may very well be 'productive activity' and also 'socially necessary'.





since there are no bad consequences except having to live at a minimal level of subsistence for a short period of time.


I'd (realistically) imagine that a post-capitalist social order based on this model would implement sufficient means to provide for everyone's basic humane living needs, regardless of actual participation rates of liberated labor -- in other words, I think a "core" of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy') would be sufficient to cover everyone's minimal level of subsistence, thanks to automated mechanical technologies.





Maybe some people would just steal the parts or buy them on a black market?


I'll admit that matters of per-item scarcity would have to be collectively administrated by such a society -- I have no ready answers to scenario specifics, since we're not actually there.

I'll return to a recent portion by Robbo:





Clearly, where such bottlenecks arise the pattern of allocation will be heavily influenced by what communist society perceives to be its production priorities - which is eminently sensible . So it will be to high prority objectives that scarce resources will be primarily allocated leaving low priority objectives to fall short of demand (and perhaps therefore to become subject to some form of ratio9ining) or to look towards other means of meeting demand such as technological substitution i.e. using more abundant alternative inputs (which, in turn, may mean reconfiguring the product in question at the design stage)





So, I could, say, grow marijuana individually, but group efficiencies in these things would be out of the question.


I don't understand this exactly, but it *sounds* like another spurious either-or dichotomy -- why would group efficiencies be "out of the question" -- ?





If a suitable irrigation system wasn't being produced, several people wouldn't be able to, say, cannibalize some other consumer goods to build the system, because that would be considered unlawful accumulation of capital.


Again, the specifics would depend on actual material availabilities.





In order to be "counter-revolutionary", I'd have to be advocating capitalism, not just markets. Or just asking hard questions with no ready answers.

I'm being realistic and trying to have a workable system to advocate that can actually be implemented, like market socialism.


Well, I appreciate your reflectiveness here, though I categorically reject any framework that retains any amount of inherent economic competition within it.





I'm also trying to determine whether these non-market systems have a chance of conforming to left-libertarian principles.

(I would really like to see an empirical, nontrivial test of a nonmarket economic system.)


Fair enough, but it's for this very reason that we need a worldwide proletarian revolution first.





I don't have to create any kind of ranking system, I just go and buy things at the store to express my preference.


That's an implicit 'ranking' according to your material priorities over time.

For the model it would just be a matter of doing the same thing, but without money -- for the sake of explanation just imagine yourself assigning dollar values to each item or project you're interested in, then sort those items according to the dollar values you've assigned them.





As another poster suggested, how am I going to make a list of preferences for incommensurate use values? How would I rank socket LGA-775 motherboards versus toilet paper?


How about on a scale of 1 to 10 -- ?

(It's the *sorting* that matters -- so, for example, the sorting could go from *low* to *high*, with rank positions #1, #2, and #3 being *better* because they have *lesser* numerical values.)





Or computer software for modeling global weather patterns versus green tea extract pills?


Surprise me.





There would have to be a plethora of categories,


Based on a gradient from humanities to applied science, I'll suggest the encapsulating main categories of art/music, drama/comedy, cooperation/competition, social science, and hard science.


Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

http://s6.postimage.org/kdlaul6nh/090923_Humanities_Technology_Chart_2_0.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/kdlaul6nh/)





some system of 'indicator prices' as in ParEcon,


Nope -- I disagree. Again, a pricing system implies profit, which implies competition, and that's contrary to the aims and spirit of communism.





and eventually all I'd be doing is sitting at the computer ranking things, thinking about how to rank them, and changing my answers as my needs changed on a daily basis and indicator prices rose and fell.


Nope -- no prices. You're conflating my model with one of market socialism, and the two are *not* compatible.





These could furthermore be subject to the type of wild swings as in the stock exchanges today. People would spend time watching for their favorite items to rise and fall, like in an online auction, and change their rankings accordingly. This could result is wild swings or absurd rankings.


This practice you're describing would be too passive for what the 'communist supply & demand' model enables -- yes, people *could* behave as you're describing, but more to the point in a post-capitalist context would be to be *politically active* for one's favorite items and projects, on whatever scale of involvement.





In general, coordinator work previously done by the producing enterprises, which only have to handle a small subset of all social goods, and which coordinate based on price signals and sales figures, would be outsourced to me and to society at large, but on the scale of having to take care of every item.


No, you're overcommitting here -- no one individual would have to take on the responsibility of monitoring and participating on *all items and projects*. In fact the *opposite* would be the case, in that any person could very well go through their entire life without particiating *at all*, because there would always be those who *do* participate actively in the political economy, in whatever combination of capacities, by whatever (fluctuating) numbers of participants.





Advertizing would be replaced by people having to advocate for their preferred products. Both of those would increase the nonproductive time spent, decreasing the social product.


This is spurious dismissiveness -- by definition, advocating for preferred products and projects would be part of 'socially necessary labor time' in a *post-capitalist* context. This would be the very backbone of the entire political economy.





This is time that could not be spent in production or leisure.


In a post-capitalist social order *all* human activity would, by definition, be 'socially necessary', since all are (potential) co-participants, and there is no longer any (class) basis for exploitation or oppression.





Perhaps black markets and household production of illegal products would take place as people sought out niche products that were never selected for production.


This is just more blithe pessimism -- I'll again refer to Robbo's portion, above.





Furthermore, the idea that people are rational consumers making rational choices based on perfect information is a simplification used by economists and doesn't hold true in real life. How are all people going to become educated about the externalities and other non-labor-time costs of picking some products over others without that information being contained in some type of "objective" pricing scheme. And all of this has to be reasonably efficient.


Again, this model does not use prices and is not compatible with market socialism.





Of course. Market socialism has a market, by definition. Maximizing market share is done by winning consumer preference by altering price or features.


Well here you're being overly *optimistic*, about a hands-off market method, by only focusing on its economic portion -- today we're critical of *capitalism's* market mechanism mostly because of its associated *political* component, imperialism -- resulting in genocide, etc.

I maintain that you're ignoring the detrimental effects of a market-based approach, namely cutthroat competition.





In a non-market system, would I also have to enumerate and rank all the desired features of each product, in addition to the products themselves?


Only if you wanted to take a more-active role in such matters. Otherwise one could just take a more-*general* approach, perhaps ranking 'Product A' over 'Product B'.





Who decides how many pockets my cargo pants have, or how many speeds a car's transmission has, or what color and materials of vinyl siding are produced? Which music and visual artists should be supported, and what kind of guitar strings should be allotted to them? How many S, M, L, XL, XXL boxer shorts should be produced, and what pattern is going to be on them? There's another level of complexity for you.


Yes -- complex, but you're also implying that complexity is necessarily unwieldy, when that's *not* necessarily the case.

All of these would begin with 'political initiatives', as provided-for in the model.

(If you like we *could* 'step-through' a sample scenario, for the sake of illustration -- you may want to take a look at something already existing though, as noted in the blog entry:





A further explanation and sample scenario can be found here:


'A world without money'

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


'Hours as a measure of labor’

tinyurl.com/yh3jr9x





Running an economy based on planning is very complex. Think of the crappy, uniform goods available in the Eastern Bloc states. Sure, it's better than poverty, but hopefully a future economy can do better than that.


Now you're conflating my model with an elitist, top-down bureaucratic collectivism, or Stalinism -- it is *not* that, because no personages or political representatives of any sort are required whatsoever.

Also, this framework is *nonlinear*, so no blueprint-like total pre-optimization is necessary upfront.





And that's why I like market socialism.... :)


Whatever.

[argeiphontes]

^ FWIW, I appreciate the time you put into your responses.

[Baseball]

Pragmatically, if liberated labor was insufficient to fulfill everyone's last little whim, that's just how things would be

This is rather arrogant views of things, isn't it? I mean, viewing somebody needs as some sort of "whim" because the system is incapable of satisfying it.
Doesn't that suggest a weakness, a flaw in the system?



Nothing could really be *disallowed* as long as some persons / people could put in the effort themselves to freely produce what they want.

You had agreed with Robbo comments that satisfying demand is the point of production.
How does the above square with this? I mean, somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters; the community is using labor, time, energy ect in doing so.
There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions?



Well, how do you do it today -- ? (It's on the basis of available funds and wherewithal.)

Capitalism. Its an option closed to the socialist.




Note that the ranking process would take place on a *daily* basis, with mass results continually made public, as on a website, etc. This would reveal trends continuously, such as which production initiatives got the most #1-rank-positions, which got the most #2-rank-positions, etc.

You keep neglecting the comparison angle of things as well as seeing only the final end of production.
The ranking system does not go deep enough.


Without the market all mass productivity would have to begin with demand-based political initiatives -- if you felt you were lacking something you could make a proposal, of whatever size and scope, to kick things off, towards your goal.

But this is not "demand-based." Its production based. And that is because even if the proposal kicks things off, there is no guarantee of success or of ranking by anyone anywhere.




Yes -- since, by definition, a communist-type social order could not coerce labor, it would be up to the larger political economy to decide where liberated labor should go, and what should be produced (and not-produced).

OK-- so the community decides where, when, and for how long to work.


My model provides for liberated-labor flexibility through the use of 'labor credits' -- a locality would have to approve an allocation of sufficient labor credits to pass onto you for your duties at tending blueberry bushes. At the same time you might be part of a political initiative that (likewise) allocates sufficient labor credits to those who would take up labor in a dangerous and dirty steel mill, for the sake of producing steel cars and trains for the common good.

OK-- so people are paid for their labor.
Now, you are not explaining how "sufficient" is determined as a criteria, or why the community (or the individual) would have to 'do anything' with respects to the blueberry bushes.









I can't address issues of "cost" since the 'communist supply & demand' model does not use any kind of abstracted valuations ('price').

Yes- it does. Labor credits paid to workers are cost, they are 'prices' (how much the workers will charge the community to pick blueberries or build trains).


But -- in terms of basic material availability (assets, resources, goods, services), refinements of mass-preference might have to be done, such as a latter-round mass-prioritization of 'Plan B' over 'Plan A'.

Again-- cost.





I'll admit that revolutionaries tend to rely too much on a 'hugs-and-smiles' placeholder instead of dealing with post-capitalist practicalities head-on, as revealed with the 'riskier-work' aspect.

Fortunately the project of socialism is *not* at a loss for answers here -- we do *not* need to revert to a market, or market socialism, when my model suitably addresses this aspect:

The proposal doesn't solve the problem:
If the purpose of work is to produce goods and services to satisfy demand (which you have agreed it does), why are we paying workers more simply because they are working in a more dangerous area? Should not labor credits be distributed based upon the value of the work to the community, as opposed to the difficulty of the work itself?
Should the contruction of trains rank near the bottom of people's prioritizaration, why should they receive greater labor credits than the people who are producing those goods which are of a higher priority as per the list?

[Baseball]

I don't know how to respond here to your satisfaction -- you're putting forth 'strawman' scenarios, which you're easily knocking over with sheer pessimism.

Those aren't strawman scenarios. The system ought be able to factor in and explain.



Geographical expanse wouldn't be an issue here, except for the increased logistical complexities that would result, as in getting the required motorcycle parts to where they need to be.

Explain the logistical complexity.




On the 'bread' part I'd hope that such a society would have that aspect fully regularized, regardless of the daily priority lists, but that's just my own opinion.

Ok--so there are goods which ought to be on the list, regardless of where they place on the list.
So how do you factor such items in? What is the basis for choosing a certain number of, say, loaves of bread over that of another number, on a regular basis?




I'd (realistically) imagine that a post-capitalist social order based on this model would implement sufficient means to provide for everyone's basic humane living needs, regardless of actual participation rates of liberated labor -- in other words, I think a "core" of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy') would be sufficient to cover everyone's minimal level of subsistence, thanks to automated mechanical technologies.

Automated mechanical technologies still must be built and maintained. This would still require *prioritizations*



I'll admit that matters of per-item scarcity would have to be collectively administrated by such a society -- I have no ready answers to scenario specifics, since we're not actually there.

Actually-- this is a massive flaw of the prioritization lists.
Simply ranking a motorcycle isn't enough. Because a motorcycle requires many other parts to function, which need to be produced in and of itself.
How are these goods prioritized?
Robbo solution doesn't solve the problem--- unless there are prices in the system. That way, it can be determined success. Otherwise, its just throwing darts... maybe you will get lucky, but...




Nope -- I disagree. Again, a pricing system implies profit, which implies competition, and that's contrary to the aims and spirit of communism.

Well, we are in agreement that in production the outputs need to exceed the inputs.
That is, after all, "profit."



This practice you're describing would be too passive for what the 'communist supply & demand' model enables -- yes, people *could* behave as you're describing, but more to the point in a post-capitalist context would be to be *politically active* for one's favorite items and projects, on whatever scale of involvement.

How could this be if:

1. The outputs have to exceed the imputs.
2. The purpose of production is satisfy somebody else;s demand.



In a post-capitalist social order *all* human activity would, by definition, be 'socially necessary', since all are (potential) co-participants, and there is no longer any (class) basis for exploitation or oppression.

Then why offer to workers who work in dangerous areas greater labor credits? By doing so you are claiming some work is more "socially neccessary" than others. And if that is true, then some work must be less neccessary than others. Maybe even completely unnecessary.

[Loony Le Fist]

1. Without private ownership of the means of production, no such market can exist
2. Without such market, prices for means of production cannot develop, evolve and be revealed, and finally
3. Without prices for the means of production, economic calculation - a rational decision as between alternative production modes - is impossible.
thanks guys

There is a built in assertion without evidence--that for a market to exist it requires private ownership of the means of production. How is a market mutually exclusive to private ownership of the means of production? Furthermore there is the additional assertion of the necessity of a market in the first place. Mises fails to demonstrate why we need a market in the first place. He also fails to demonstrate why this market's existence requires private ownership of the means of production.

[argeiphontes]

@ckaihatsu & Baseball: It seems there's also another issue here, that of displacement of competition from the economic into the political sphere. If production decisions are made politically, then people might be continually agitating for particular products. "Political" shortages could result--since people who are agitating for products are not producing, such agitation makes it even less likely that what they want will be produced, resulting in further agitation, and conflicts with people who lost products because of other people's agitation. Production/consumption equilibria (supply & demand) would become political instead of economic.

Lol, would some kind of "anti-unions" form that made sure their members went to work instead of agitating? ;) Or "product parties" that constantly promoted a certain class of products, maybe thru advertising. The "computer game party" for example. The whole scenario could result in people having to pay much more attention to inanimate objects than any kind of market-based "commodity fetishism" ever had. Objects would have political significance. Heh, personal ads could say "SWM, pro-diet soda, pro-automobile, seeks same. No anti-meat anti-gasoline hippies need apply." ;)

What about political issues taking on a production character? It would be possible for, say, anti-birth-control people to make an effort to stop producing condoms or something. Whole geographical areas could be devoid of liquor but awash in bibles. ;)

[robbo203]

No. It gives an idea what was demanded yesterday. It is of no assistance in determining what needs to be produced tomorrow-- beyond making a rough guess. And making a rough guess on what might be in demand tomorrow is a very poor way of making production decisions.


Not so. A self regulating system of of stock control gives a very good indication of what "needs to be produced tomorrow" because, quite apart from telling us what was "demanded yesterday", it also tells us the rate at which stock, which was made available yesterday, is being depleted. It is the rate of stock depletion that is the key indicator here . It is the basis upon which sensible extrapolations about future demand can be made.


And I wish people would stop interpreting the model that has been proposed here as consisting in nothing more than a "self regulating system of stock control". Stock control is only ONE aspect or component of a larger system or model consisting of several interlocking or interacting components. Please go back and read up what is actually being proposed rather than inteprose your own interpretations:

http://socialistcommonwealth.webs.com/socialismagainstcapitalism.htm


A self regulating system of stock control is only PART of the answer and not the WHOLE answer to the problem of economic calculation and no one has ever suggested otherwise. However, some folk here seem to be prone to assuming that this means it is of no use at all in assisting or enabling the efficient allocation of resources in a socialist society i.e. economic calculation. That is absurd. Without stock control , with knowing what inputs you have available, you do not have the indispensable raw data upon which to base your allocation decisions Its as simple as that.

I repeat - the efficient allocation of resources requires above all that we economise most on what is most scarce. That is a basic rule of thumb. It is through a system of stock control that we gain an idea of the relative scarcity of different inputs - that is to say the relationship between the supply of a given input and the mutifarious demands for such an input. That means we are able to identify supply bottlenecks which become the cue for bringing into play those various other components of a socialist system of production that were outlined in the link provided


No society including capitalism can dispense with a self regulating system of stock control and it associated feature of calculation in kind. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand what is meant by these things. Without calculation in kind, capitalism would collapse tomorrow. Try to imagine how such an elaborate and complex institution as a modern supermarket chain might function without constantly monitoring its stock flows in physical terms. It couldnt. Utter chaos and massive inefficiency would ensue if it did not . Pure guesswork would replace rational planning. Of course, alongside calculation in kind, you have a monetary accounting in capitalism. Socialism would get rid of the latter and the enormous socially useless structural waste (banks , insurance companies etc) that goes with operating a money economy but would most certainly retain, and make full use of, the former.







In a rational community, yes.
However, what this means for the socialist community is that the workers cannot control the means of production. Since their actions on the factory floor need to be governed by what the consumer wants , not what those workers on the floor want.


This is a ridiculous argument frankly - like your claim that if "somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters.. There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions? I mean, puhleeeeze.
Are you seriously suggesting anyone is going to keep on doggedly producing typewriters for the mere sake of producing them when there is no demand for them. Why? What would be the pointor do yoo normally have such a low opinion of human rationality as to come with such a batty idea? I think the onus is on you to substantiate your outlandish claims


To say that producers in a socialist factory will tailor production to consumner demand cannot in any reasonable interpretation be construed to mean " the workers cannot control the means of production". The workers are part of the self same community that expresses a demand for the things that the factory prpduces. They are both consunmers and producers and production is a social process (as is consumption to an extent). Making typewriters requires parts that other people produce for you. So if they satisfy your demand for the parts that make up a typewriter why cannot you obligingly follow suit and make typewriters that other people demand - if they demand it

We are not isolated atoms providing for ourselves and living in relation to the world around us in some kind of state of blissful autarky. If that is your idea of having "control of the means of the means of production" - having an absolute say as a single individual over everything you touch and lay your hands on - then you are living in a pure fantasy bubble

Control of the means of production is a relative concept and in a socialist society where the means of production are commonly owned and subject to democratic control , we will have a lot more control than we could ever have in the class-ridden authoritarian, economic dictatorship that is contemporary capitalism

[ckaihatsu]

Pragmatically, if liberated labor was insufficient to fulfill everyone's last little whim, that's just how things would be





This is rather arrogant views of things, isn't it? I mean, viewing somebody needs as some sort of "whim" because the system is incapable of satisfying it.
Doesn't that suggest a weakness, a flaw in the system?


No, you're just juxtaposing 'needs' and 'whims' here in a cheap attempt to say that the system would be a non-starter and would use excuses to cover up supposed shortcomings. You're using strawman tactics to mischaracterize the framework.

I'm not being arrogant by saying that I cannot issue a 100% guarantee -- I'm saying that real common needs would be *prioritized* over petty individualistic whims.





Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





Nothing could really be *disallowed* as long as some persons / people could put in the effort themselves to freely produce what they want.





You had agreed with Robbo comments that satisfying demand is the point of production.
How does the above square with this? I mean, somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters; the community is using labor, time, energy ect in doing so.
There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions?


Now you're erroneously implying that one person could *command* the (liberated) labor of others, which would not be the case. There is no 'community' structure in this model, and there are no hierarchies or communities aside from what the participants themselves might voluntarily decide to create.

If someone wanted to produce typewriters they could do it themselves (d.i.y.), ask others to voluntarily assist with it, or else they'd have to get a political initiative going for it as well as pool enough labor credits to pass on for the consent of sufficient liberated labor.





Note that the ranking process would take place on a *daily* basis, with mass results continually made public, as on a website, etc. This would reveal trends continuously, such as which production initiatives got the most #1-rank-positions, which got the most #2-rank-positions, etc.





You keep neglecting the comparison angle of things


If you're contending that there's a lack of *qualitative* information available, that's not the case -- all active proposals and policy packages could be discussed and debated in an ongoing way, as on a discussion board like RevLeft.





Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions


The advancing-step process for any initiatives could take on this kind of format, to either abandonment or completion:


[16] Affinity Group Workflow Tracker

http://s6.postimage.org/6spxhq1gt/16_Affinity_Group_Workflow_Tracker.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/6spxhq1gt/)





Note that the ranking process would take place on a *daily* basis, with mass results continually made public, as on a website, etc. This would reveal trends continuously, such as which production initiatives got the most #1-rank-positions, which got the most #2-rank-positions, etc.





as well as seeing only the final end of production.


Keep in mind that this is a *recursive* process, so as proposals "mature" and gain support their progress would be indicated by higher-ranking cumulative positions, over a period of days, weeks, months, and years.





The ranking system does not go deep enough.


Just because the ranking system itself shows no *qualitative* information doesn't mean that the flow of such information -- as from word-of-mouth, journalism, research, public sentiment, etc. -- would *not* be taking place.





Without the market all mass productivity would have to begin with demand-based political initiatives -- if you felt you were lacking something you could make a proposal, of whatever size and scope, to kick things off, towards your goal.





But this is not "demand-based." Its production based. And that is because even if the proposal kicks things off, there is no guarantee of success or of ranking by anyone anywhere.


Correct -- I make no guarantees because I cannot.

I disagree, though, on your semantic point -- demand necessarily precedes production.





Yes -- since, by definition, a communist-type social order could not coerce labor, it would be up to the larger political economy to decide where liberated labor should go, and what should be produced (and not-produced).





OK-- so the community decides where, when, and for how long to work.


Again, technically, no 'community' -- liberated labor makes its own decisions on an *individual* basis, with any collection of pooled labor credits serving as the instrument for the self-grouping of liberated laborers together, for whatever policy package.





Infrastructure / overhead

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits





My model provides for liberated-labor flexibility through the use of 'labor credits' -- a locality would have to approve an allocation of sufficient labor credits to pass onto you for your duties at tending blueberry bushes. At the same time you might be part of a political initiative that (likewise) allocates sufficient labor credits to those who would take up labor in a dangerous and dirty steel mill, for the sake of producing steel cars and trains for the common good.





OK-- so people are paid for their labor.


Labor credits represent future-liberated-labor organizing power -- it is *not* cash, because there's no exchangeability between labor credits and goods/services.





Now, you are not explaining how "sufficient" is determined as a criteria,


It would be determined by how much organized-demand existed (for tending blueberry bushes or whatever) -- if there was enough demand to pool enough labor credits to cover the work role of 'blueberry bush tending', for whatever number of liberated laborers, for whatever length of time (labor hours), then that would all be spelled-out in a formal policy package.

(The multiplier rate, per labor hour, for whatever work role, would be found at an index of all work roles, based on mass exit surveys over all work roles.)





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





or why the community (or the individual) would have to 'do anything' with respects to the blueberry bushes.


Right -- no guarantees.

I'd imagine that there would be some 'wiggle room' over the indexed multiplier rate, per the given actual situation -- if liberated-labor (supply) was more anxious to tend to blueberry bushes than there was demand for such, the multiplier rate would probably be lowered somewhat for the finalization of that policy package. And, obversely, if there was much demand for steel cars and trains, then the multiplier rate for labor hours spent in dangerous and dirty steel mills would probably be upped somewhat, as an incentive for liberated labor to take up the work.





I can't address issues of "cost" since the 'communist supply & demand' model does not use any kind of abstracted valuations ('price').





Yes- it does. Labor credits paid to workers are cost, they are 'prices' (how much the workers will charge the community to pick blueberries or build trains).


If you like, but there's the distinction that labor credits are not exchangeable for material goods themselves, and so are not cash.





But -- in terms of basic material availability (assets, resources, goods, services), refinements of mass-preference might have to be done, such as a latter-round mass-prioritization of 'Plan B' over 'Plan A'.





Again-- cost.


Sure -- it could be called "cost" (with the quotation marks) (of labor effort).





I'll admit that revolutionaries tend to rely too much on a 'hugs-and-smiles' placeholder instead of dealing with post-capitalist practicalities head-on, as revealed with the 'riskier-work' aspect.

Fortunately the project of socialism is *not* at a loss for answers here -- we do *not* need to revert to a market, or market socialism, when my model suitably addresses this aspect:





Determination of material values

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived





The proposal doesn't solve the problem:
If the purpose of work is to produce goods and services to satisfy demand (which you have agreed it does), why are we paying workers more simply because they are working in a more dangerous area?


The short answer is that there are no guarantees that dangerous-type work *will* be done, as a matter of course.

Also, in a post-capitalist context both the general public (localities) *and* liberated laborers would have a common, shared interest in *reducing* the hazards/difficulties of work, and the labor-hour time necessary to make production happen. This brings us back to Robbo's principle:





Clearly, where such bottlenecks arise the pattern of allocation will be heavily influenced by what communist society perceives to be its production priorities - which is eminently sensible . So it will be to high prority objectives that scarce resources will be primarily allocated leaving low priority objectives to fall short of demand (and perhaps therefore to become subject to some form of ratio9ining) or to look towards other means of meeting demand such as technological substitution i.e. using more abundant alternative inputs (which, in turn, may mean reconfiguring the product in question at the design stage)





Should not labor credits be distributed based upon the value of the work to the community, as opposed to the difficulty of the work itself?


Well, yes, it's *both* -- the more value the proposed work has for the locality/community, the more labor credits they may have to collectively pool in order to compensate the required liberated labor for its fulfillment.





Should the contruction of trains rank near the bottom of people's prioritizaration, why should they receive greater labor credits than the people who are producing those goods which are of a higher priority as per the list?


Sure -- if the construction of trains shows up as a very low collective priority, then it would probably not even happen *at all* because there would be insufficient funding of pooled labor credits for that kind of project.

However, the multiplier index for that *type* of work would remain where it is because that work is inherently dirty and dangerous.

Higher-priority production projects / runs would *not necessarily* drive up the multiplier rate for the component, requisite work roles, because as long as enough willing liberated laborers could be found to do such work at the standard multiplier rate, then that would be a 'go'.

[argeiphontes]

ckaihatsu, if labor credits are not exchangeable for goods and services, what is the purpose of anyone working for them? they have no value except perhaps prestige. in order for people to have an incentive to work jobs that have higher multipliers, the credits have to have some value to the person who gets them.

And if they do have economic value, then, you know...

robbo203, the self-regulating system of stock control is the best part of your system. The subjective points assigned to reflect cost, and the coordination bodies are problematic, however. What's to stop localities from withdrawing from the World Coordinating bodies, or a bureaucratic/coordinator class from arising? The US government is also ostensibly democratic.

Furthermore, if there is no "point in drawing up in advance the sort of detailed blueprint of industrial organization", and also a rejection of gradualism, then in a world with 8 billion people you are looking at a period of lack of resources and interruption of services, perhaps starvation and social/political strife as these things are worked out empirically after the revolution.

(People would be agitating for the return of the old system so they could eat. In the absence of a coercive state, anti-social acts, hoarding and violence would be the likely result. Local armies could arise and form mini-states for mutual self-defense and control over resources. Old political, military, and capitalistic institutions and elites could reassert themselves against the weakened and vulnerable masses of the people.)

Or, more optimistically, there could just be spontaneous reorganization into worker-controlled enterprises operating in a market system, like the soviets after the Russian revolution. There would be nothing to stop them in the absence of a state, and with a vacuum in organization, but with continuing human needs for goods and services. There's something to be said for natural, spontaneous human organization on a natural scale.

Anyway...

[ckaihatsu]

Those aren't strawman scenarios. The system ought be able to factor in and explain.


No, the scenarios that argeiphontes put forth are all damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situations -- *any* system itself can't substitute for people's conscious efforts in one direction or another.





Geographical expanse wouldn't be an issue here, except for the increased logistical complexities that would result, as in getting the required motorcycle parts to where they need to be.





Explain the logistical complexity.


I already did.





On the 'bread' part I'd hope that such a society would have that aspect fully regularized, regardless of the daily priority lists, but that's just my own opinion.





Ok--so there are goods which ought to be on the list, regardless of where they place on the list.
So how do you factor such items in? What is the basis for choosing a certain number of, say, loaves of bread over that of another number, on a regular basis?


You're *really* concerned that the denizens of a post-capitalist society might not prioritize the raising of foodstuffs for their own physical well-being -- ?!

You don't have sufficient political credentials to make a valid point out of this.





I'd (realistically) imagine that a post-capitalist social order based on this model would implement sufficient means to provide for everyone's basic humane living needs, regardless of actual participation rates of liberated labor -- in other words, I think a "core" of sheer voluntarism ('gift economy') would be sufficient to cover everyone's minimal level of subsistence, thanks to automated mechanical technologies.





Automated mechanical technologies still must be built and maintained. This would still require *prioritizations*


Yup.





I'll admit that matters of per-item scarcity would have to be collectively administrated by such a society -- I have no ready answers to scenario specifics, since we're not actually there.





Actually-- this is a massive flaw of the prioritization lists.
Simply ranking a motorcycle isn't enough. Because a motorcycle requires many other parts to function, which need to be produced in and of itself.


There's no flaw -- whoever wants motorcycles that badly would have to co-organize the production of such, including all component parts.





How are these goods prioritized?





Infrastructure / overhead

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





Robbo solution doesn't solve the problem--- unless there are prices in the system. That way, it can be determined success. Otherwise, its just throwing darts... maybe you will get lucky, but...


You *wish* that a price-based system would be the only method capable of providing sufficient overall information and feedback about mass preferences, but you're incorrect.

Robbo's *point* is that, in a post-capitalist context, situations of per-item scarcity would be a general *impetus* to additional societal cooperation and even innovation.





[I]n a post-capitalist context both the general public (localities) *and* liberated laborers would have a common, shared interest in *reducing* the hazards/difficulties of work, and the labor-hour time necessary to make production happen.





[A] pricing system implies profit, which implies competition, and that's contrary to the aims and spirit of communism.





Well, we are in agreement that in production the outputs need to exceed the inputs.


No, we're *not* -- you're forced to rely on your abstracted concept of 'price', which has no place in a non-market post-capitalist political economy.

Sure, production *generally* leverages labor and materials so that outputs are generally more qualitative and more quantitative than what came before, but one does not need to use 'price' to see that, or for it to be realized in the future.





That is, after all, "profit."


You're speaking only to yourself here.





This practice you're describing would be too passive for what the 'communist supply & demand' model enables -- yes, people *could* behave as you're describing, but more to the point in a post-capitalist context would be to be *politically active* for one's favorite items and projects, on whatever scale of involvement.





How could this be if:

1. The outputs have to exceed the imputs.


Not agreed -- in a post-capitalist context *all* efforts would be, by default, considered 'socially necessary'.





2. The purpose of production is satisfy somebody else;s demand.


This is not a problem in a communist-type post-capitalist political economy.

Participating liberated laborers are compensated with labor credits that confer liberated-labor-organizing power, going forward, and since they are right at the point of production they get 'first dibs' on anything they themselves produce:





To clarify and simplify, the labor credits system is like a cash-only economy that only works for *services* (labor), while the world of material implements, resources, and products is open-access and non-abstractable. (No financial valuations.) Given the world's current capacity for an abundance of productivity for the most essential items, there should be no doubt about producing a ready surplus of anything that's important, to satisfy every single person's basic humane needs.

[I]t would only be fair that those who put in the actual (liberated) labor to produce anything should also be able to get 'first dibs' of anything they produce.

In practice [...] everything would be pre-planned, so the workers would just factor in their own personal requirements as part of the project or production run. (Nothing would be done on a speculative or open-ended basis, the way it's done now, so all recipients and orders would be pre-determined -- it would make for minimal waste.)




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=11269





In a post-capitalist social order *all* human activity would, by definition, be 'socially necessary', since all are (potential) co-participants, and there is no longer any (class) basis for exploitation or oppression.





Then why offer to workers who work in dangerous areas greater labor credits? By doing so you are claiming some work is more "socially neccessary" than others. And if that is true, then some work must be less neccessary than others. Maybe even completely unnecessary.


Again, you're arguing outside of your own political credentials.

But, to address your point, there's no problem -- actually, you've identified the essential aspect of what a political economy *is*, which is to collectively, consciously determine social production. And that process involves prioritization.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu & Baseball: It seems there's also another issue here, that of displacement of competition from the economic into the political sphere. If production decisions are made politically, then people might be continually agitating for particular products. "Political" shortages could result--since people who are agitating for products are not producing, such agitation makes it even less likely that what they want will be produced, resulting in further agitation, and conflicts with people who lost products because of other people's agitation. Production/consumption equilibria (supply & demand) would become political instead of economic.


Yes, agreed in general, and this is the 'soft spot' in our politics that is often poked at by adversaries -- people will bring up the historic USSR as an argument about what can happen to planned mass production when the competition within a bureaucratic elite overshadows real output.

A real 'solidarity' has to take matters of material production and availability into account, and that's been a big motivation for my development of this framework that I advocate and have been explaining at this thread.





f the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





Lol, would some kind of "anti-unions" form that made sure their members [I]went to work instead of agitating? ;) Or "product parties" that constantly promoted a certain class of products, maybe thru advertising. The "computer game party" for example. The whole scenario could result in people having to pay much more attention to inanimate objects than any kind of market-based "commodity fetishism" ever had. Objects would have political significance. Heh, personal ads could say "SWM, pro-diet soda, pro-automobile, seeks same. No anti-meat anti-gasoline hippies need apply." ;)

What about political issues taking on a production character? It would be possible for, say, anti-birth-control people to make an effort to stop producing condoms or something. Whole geographical areas could be devoid of liquor but awash in bibles. ;)


Interesting light-hearted ruminations.





What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production.




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, if labor credits are not exchangeable for goods and services, what is the purpose of anyone working for them? they have no value except perhaps prestige. in order for people to have an incentive to work jobs that have higher multipliers, the credits have to have some value to the person who gets them.

And if they do have economic value, then, you know...


Yeah....





Participating liberated laborers are compensated with labor credits that confer liberated-labor-organizing power, going forward, and since they are right at the point of production they get 'first dibs' on anything they themselves produce





Infrastructure / overhead

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits




Propagation

labor [supply] -- Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[argeiphontes]

^ Sorry, I somehow misunderstood the part about the credits feeding back into production allocation. :o

That sounds promising, better than anything else I've heard. It's like "buying" things in advance, at the production level before they're produced, which makes sense.

The only criticism I can think of would be that there is nothing stopping people from taking more than they allocated credits for, and maybe that this is a kind of market (not a problem for me), but I'll stop badgering you for now. :) edit: If you ever write a book about this, I'll buy it.

[ckaihatsu]

^ Sorry, I somehow misunderstood the part about the credits feeding back into production allocation. :o


No prob -- the whole thing is a lot to take in, and is definitely a different kind of beast.





That sounds promising, better than anything else I've heard.


Thanks -- 'ppreciate it.





It's like "buying" things in advance, at the production level before they're produced, which makes sense.


Allow me to make an edit:





It's like "buying" [the liberated-labor services for] things in advance, at the production level before they're produced, which makes sense.





The only criticism I can think of would be that there is nothing stopping people from taking more than they allocated credits for,


This whole grand concept is meant to bring us more into the current context of *industrial*-based production -- many operations / production runs *greatly* leverage labor, to the point where making more of something really just means letting the machine run a little while longer.

In the model, once a project or production run has been mass-prioritized it wouldn't matter much who's 'in' on receiving its outputs, and who's not. As long as liberated labor is properly enabled with sufficient pooling of labor credits, the output could really be quite massive and the number of recipients wouldn't be of much logistical significance.

Perhaps a 'best practices' would evolve to be a liberated-laborers' general rule of thumb, that they should always produce a 10% surplus, to satisfy any post-production demand, without having to do a new production run.





and maybe that this is a kind of market (not a problem for me), but I'll stop badgering you for now. :) edit: If you ever write a book about this, I'll buy it.


No prob -- 'ppreciate the back-and-forth.

No book, though -- the material here should suffice. Tell people to come to RevLeft -- !

Take care, later, argeiphontes.

[Baseball]

Not so. A self regulating system of of stock control gives a very good indication of what "needs to be produced tomorrow" because, quite apart from telling us what was "demanded yesterday", it also tells us the rate at which stock, which was made available yesterday, is being depleted. It is the rate of stock depletion that is the key indicator here . It is the basis upon which sensible extrapolations about future demand can be made.

The rate of stock depletion is still the same thing.
It also continues to measure a particular project on its own, as against other goods which may be needed and wanted.



And I wish people would stop interpreting the model that has been proposed here as consisting in nothing more than a "self regulating system of stock control". Stock control is only ONE aspect or component of a larger system or model consisting of several interlocking or interacting components.

I can only comment as to what has been stressed-- and stick control is what has ben stressed.



It is through a system of stock control that we gain an idea of the relative scarcity of different inputs - that is to say the relationship between the supply of a given input and the mutifarious demands for such an input.

The important criteria is the VALUE people attach to that product.
Which is best measured in prices.





No society including capitalism can dispense with a self regulating system of stock control and it associated feature of calculation in kind. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand what is meant by these things. Without calculation in kind, capitalism would collapse tomorrow. Try to imagine how such an elaborate and complex institution as a modern supermarket chain might function without constantly monitoring its stock flows in physical terms.

However, a supermarket does not have infinite space. It has to make choices as to what are priorities and are not priorities.
Stock control simply says '100 apples ordered yesterday and consumed, a 100 apples to be ordered for tomorrow.
There is no relationship between choices between apples.
Far from some sort of social production, it truly leads to "atomisation."




This is a ridiculous argument frankly - like your claim that if "somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters.. There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions? I mean, puhleeeeze.
Are you seriously suggesting anyone is going to keep on doggedly producing typewriters for the mere sake of producing them when there is no demand for them. Why? What would be the pointor do yoo normally have such a low opinion of human rationality as to come with such a batty idea? I think the onus is on you to substantiate your outlandish claims

Why, in a socialist system, is it irrational for workers who like to make typewriters, to band together to produce typewriters? They are fulfilling the promise of socialism, working and doing what they love-- living the dream. Indeed, chaihatsu has already stated that ANY production is by definition social production, and thus beneficial to the community.




To say that producers in a socialist factory will tailor production to consumner demand cannot in any reasonable interpretation be construed to mean " the workers cannot control the means of production".

Sure, it does. It means the factory must be structured to best provide for the consumer. It would determine where the factory is sited, how many workers are working there at any given time, how many hours they work, how they work, compensation for work and on and on.
true-- the workers could take actions without considering the impact it has on production. Bu then the workers can't reasonably claim to be tailoring production to consumer demand.

[Baseball]

You're *really* concerned that the denizens of a post-capitalist society might not prioritize the raising of foodstuffs for their own physical well-being -- ?!

You don't have sufficient political credentials to make a valid point out of this.



There is no point in producing 100 loaves of bread, if 50 go unconsumed and moldy.
And again-- you are claiming certain items DO NOT need to be prioritised. So we are left with the community faced with the possibility of wasteful food production, or not distinguishing between filet mignon and a cup of gruel.



















There's no flaw -- whoever wants motorcycles that badly would have to co-organize the production of such, including all component parts.

Why? Somebody who likes to ride motorcycles in no way translates into liking building or repairing motocycles.
And would not those workers doing other things as well? I mean, there are surgeons enjoy riding. Why would you want the spending their time organizing the construction of motorcycles than providing medical care?



You *wish* that a price-based system would be the only method capable of providing sufficient overall information and feedback about mass preferences, but you're incorrect.

Robbo's *point* is that, in a post-capitalist context, situations of per-item scarcity would be a general *impetus* to additional societal cooperation and even innovation.

a "general impetus" and "additional societal cooperation" says nothing. It still needs to be described.
Prices, on the other hand, is a description, its a source of information which guides production and consumption.




Sure, production *generally* leverages labor and materials so that outputs are generally more qualitative and more quantitative than what came before, but one does not need to use 'price' to see that, or for it to be realized in the future.

It does so if that is the objective. Its not magic. It has to worked at.

The shoe factory which employs a 100 people and supplies the community on a regular basis with the footwear the community requires.
Is that the proof required by the socialist community as to to determine that the factory is of benefit?



Not agreed -- in a post-capitalist context *all* efforts would be, by default, considered 'socially necessary'.





This is not a problem in a communist-type post-capitalist political economy.

OK-- so in the socialist community all efforts to produce typewriters which nobody wants is considered "socially necessary."
Do results matter?

[Baseball]

Now you're erroneously implying that one person could *command* the (liberated) labor of others, which would not be the case. There is no 'community' structure in this model, and there are no hierarchies or communities aside from what the participants themselves might voluntarily decide to create.

If someone wanted to produce typewriters they could do it themselves (d.i.y.), ask others to voluntarily assist with it, or else they'd have to get a political initiative going for it as well as pool enough labor credits to pass on for the consent of sufficient liberated labor.

OK-- so the community can go apeshit and spend time, energy resources on "whims" and there are no mechanisms in place to put a brake on it.
Fine.



If you're contending that there's a lack of *qualitative* information available, that's not the case -- all active proposals and policy packages could be discussed and debated in an ongoing way, as on a discussion board like RevLeft.

But what;s the nature of the debate? If somebody likes doing something, what is there to discuss?
What is the nature of a "policy package"? Finding people who enjoy making ribbons?










Just because the ranking system itself shows no *qualitative* information doesn't mean that the flow of such information -- as from word-of-mouth, journalism, research, public sentiment, etc. -- would *not* be taking place.

WHAT information is flowing?
Price is information. You reject it. Fine.
What information replaces it?






I disagree, though, on your semantic point -- demand necessarily precedes production.

True-- but your proposals certainly do not seem to require demand.
Does the construction of typewriters require more than simply a band of workers who enjoy producing typewriters?







I'd imagine that there would be some 'wiggle room' over the indexed multiplier rate, per the given actual situation -- if liberated-labor (supply) was more anxious to tend to blueberry bushes than there was demand for such, the multiplier rate would probably be lowered somewhat for the finalization of that policy package. And, obversely, if there was much demand for steel cars and trains, then the multiplier rate for labor hours spent in dangerous and dirty steel mills would probably be upped somewhat, as an incentive for liberated labor to take up the work.

Oh-- so pay is dependent upon supply and demand.
IOW-- the price which labor charges is to do work can vary.







Well, yes, it's *both* -- the more value the proposed work has for the locality/community, the more labor credits they may have to collectively pool in order to compensate the required liberated labor for its fulfillment.

OK-- which means both parties are negotiating over the terms of pay.
It seems also to be an adversarial negotiation, since it stands to reason that the community would seek to limit its output (of labor credits so it could be used elsewhere) and the workers would need to maximise their receiving of labor credits.
I am curious about this sort of "social cooperation."




Higher-priority production projects / runs would *not necessarily* drive up the multiplier rate for the component, requisite work roles, because as long as enough willing liberated laborers could be found to do such work at the standard multiplier rate, then that would be a 'go'.

Basically this says again that the community will seek to pay liberated labor as little as possible to get the job done. The community would have to decide how much to pay liberated labor for the job, which means the community has to be able to determine to what extent the job is "worth it" to them.
All this stuff has to be measured.
BTW-- its also called 'prices' how much will labor charge, how much will the community pay, how much is the benefit to the community of the job-- its all 'prices.'
What else can you be describing?

[argeiphontes]

OK-- which means both parties are negotiating over the terms of pay.
It seems also to be an adversarial negotiation, since it stands to reason that the community would seek to limit its output (of labor credits so it could be used elsewhere) and the workers would need to maximise their receiving of labor credits.
I am curious about this sort of "social cooperation."

Basically this says again that the community will seek to pay liberated labor as little as possible to get the job done. The community would have to decide how much to pay liberated labor for the job, which means the community has to be able to determine to what extent the job is "worth it" to them.
All this stuff has to be measured.
BTW-- its also called 'prices' how much will labor charge, how much will the community pay, how much is the benefit to the community of the job-- its all 'prices.'
What else can you be describing?

A lot of these systems are recreating a market, but a politicized one. That's why market socialism makes sense. It just cuts to the chase and politicizes the allocation of capital goods, which is desirable on its own terms anyway and doesn't require any excuses.

As for the others, whether it's points or labor credits, it's all a kind of price, and the same "contradictions" between spending as little as possible and earning as much as possible will remain. Marxian econ says money prices move around the labor value of production anyway, there is no need to substitute a labor credit system or something like that. The point is to destroy the capitalist relations of having another class accumulate the surplus labor.

YMMV.

[ckaihatsu]

You're *really* concerned that the denizens of a post-capitalist society might not prioritize the raising of foodstuffs for their own physical well-being -- ?!

You don't have sufficient political credentials to make a valid point out of this.



.

There is no point in producing 100 loaves of bread, if 50 go unconsumed and moldy.
And again-- you are claiming certain items DO NOT need to be prioritised. So we are left with the community faced with the possibility of wasteful food production, or not distinguishing between filet mignon and a cup of gruel.


Look -- don't worry about this one. We got it, okay -- ?

(There's no point in addressing any arbitrary failure-scenario you may happen to think up.)





There's no flaw -- whoever wants motorcycles that badly would have to co-organize the production of such, including all component parts.



.

Why? Somebody who likes to ride motorcycles in no way translates into liking building or repairing motocycles.
And would not those workers doing other things as well? I mean, there are surgeons enjoy riding. Why would you want the spending their time organizing the construction of motorcycles than providing medical care?


No prob -- that's where the labor credits come in. Those who want the services of others, for either goods or services, would have to put up sufficient amounts of labor credits to make that happen.

Those like that who are looking to be only-consumers would still have the responsibility of *initiating* such demands / orders / requests, though, and overseeing such, since no one is going to just do it for you.





You *wish* that a price-based system would be the only method capable of providing sufficient overall information and feedback about mass preferences, but you're incorrect.

Robbo's *point* is that, in a post-capitalist context, situations of per-item scarcity would be a general *impetus* to additional societal cooperation and even innovation.



.

a "general impetus" and "additional societal cooperation" says nothing. It still needs to be described.


I'm practically doing you a favor by spelling it out here, but, to break it down, when goods-supply shelves go empty that's *information* that can automated-ly be made public, as on the Internet. Either people decide to produce more, for restocking, or else they don't. Maybe they -- or others -- decide to 'upgrade' the product, and so additional social cooperation goes into *that* effort.



.

Prices, on the other hand, is a description, its a source of information which guides production and consumption.


(Yadda-yadda.)





Sure, production *generally* leverages labor and materials so that outputs are generally more qualitative and more quantitative than what came before, but one does not need to use 'price' to see that, or for it to be realized in the future.



.

It does so if that is the objective.


Does not. Just because you're saying something doesn't make it true.



.

Its not magic. It has to worked at.


.

The shoe factory which employs a 100 people and supplies the community on a regular basis with the footwear the community requires.
Is that the proof required by the socialist community as to to determine that the factory is of benefit?


I suppose so, but I don't know what you're getting at -- the 100 people would be liberated laborers collectively determining how the shoe factory is used, so they would be under no specific obligation to produce shoes.





Not agreed -- in a post-capitalist context *all* efforts would be, by default, considered 'socially necessary'.




This is not a problem in a communist-type post-capitalist political economy.



.

OK-- so in the socialist community all efforts to produce typewriters which nobody wants is considered "socially necessary."
Do results matter?


If people want to use their time / lives to produce typewriters, then that's their prerogative, regardless of the resulting use value -- think of it as a personal hobby. In that case the 'socially necessary' aspect would be that those people are doing what they want to do.

[ckaihatsu]

Now you're erroneously implying that one person could *command* the (liberated) labor of others, which would not be the case. There is no 'community' structure in this model, and there are no hierarchies or communities aside from what the participants themselves might voluntarily decide to create.

If someone wanted to produce typewriters they could do it themselves (d.i.y.), ask others to voluntarily assist with it, or else they'd have to get a political initiative going for it as well as pool enough labor credits to pass on for the consent of sufficient liberated labor.





OK-- so the community can go apeshit and spend time, energy resources on "whims" and there are no mechanisms in place to put a brake on it.
Fine.


Gee, I'm "sorry" you don't like this implication of socialism, but it true, nonetheless -- a post-capitalist society could simply collectively decide to eat worms out of the ground and use their lifetimes to make antiquated typewriters, just for the fuck of it. No prices needed, no markets.





If you're contending that there's a lack of *qualitative* information available, that's not the case -- all active proposals and policy packages could be discussed and debated in an ongoing way, as on a discussion board like RevLeft.





But what;s the nature of the debate? If somebody likes doing something, what is there to discuss?


The debate could always be about what's the best way forward -- a 'socialist optimization of the material world', so-to-speak. Doubtlessly there'd be individuals just doing their own thing as well, away from large-scale projects-in-progress.





What is the nature of a "policy package"? Finding people who enjoy making ribbons?





Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





Just because the ranking system itself shows no *qualitative* information doesn't mean that the flow of such information -- as from word-of-mouth, journalism, research, public sentiment, etc. -- would *not* be taking place.





WHAT information is flowing?
Price is information. You reject it. Fine.
What information replaces it?


All of the policy and logistical information that's pertinent to whatever material processes are underway, like production and distribution.





I disagree, though, on your semantic point -- demand necessarily precedes production.





True-- but your proposals certainly do not seem to require demand.


If people can d.i.y. something, then that's fine -- the "demand" would be "I like to make typewriters, and so I do." No proposal necessary, unless those people would require the liberated labor (services) of others.





Does the construction of typewriters require more than simply a band of workers who enjoy producing typewriters?


I don't know myself -- it's not something I do.





I'd imagine that there would be some 'wiggle room' over the indexed multiplier rate, per the given actual situation -- if liberated-labor (supply) was more anxious to tend to blueberry bushes than there was demand for such, the multiplier rate would probably be lowered somewhat for the finalization of that policy package. And, obversely, if there was much demand for steel cars and trains, then the multiplier rate for labor hours spent in dangerous and dirty steel mills would probably be upped somewhat, as an incentive for liberated labor to take up the work.





Oh-- so pay is dependent upon supply and demand.
IOW-- the price which labor charges is to do work can vary.


Correct -- that's why I named the thing 'communist supply & demand'.

(But, on a technical note, labor is no longer commodified, and labor credits are not cash, so 'pay' and 'price' are not exactly appropriate.)





Well, yes, it's *both* -- the more value the proposed work has for the locality/community, the more labor credits they may have to collectively pool in order to compensate the required liberated labor for its fulfillment.





OK-- which means both parties are negotiating over the terms of pay.
It seems also to be an adversarial negotiation, since it stands to reason that the community would seek to limit its output (of labor credits so it could be used elsewhere) and the workers would need to maximise their receiving of labor credits.
I am curious about this sort of "social cooperation."


It is what it is, and *I* didn't make the universe, so that's just how it is -- please note from my blog entry introduction:





What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way,




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673





Higher-priority production projects / runs would *not necessarily* drive up the multiplier rate for the component, requisite work roles, because as long as enough willing liberated laborers could be found to do such work at the standard multiplier rate, then that would be a 'go'.





Basically this says again that the community will seek to pay liberated labor as little as possible to get the job done. The community would have to decide how much to pay liberated labor for the job, which means the community has to be able to determine to what extent the job is "worth it" to them.
All this stuff has to be measured.
BTW-- its also called 'prices' how much will labor charge, how much will the community pay, how much is the benefit to the community of the job-- its all 'prices.'
What else can you be describing?


Sure, I know where you're coming from, but what you're not accepting is that all assets and resources -- the means of mass production -- would be socialized, or in the public domain.

The production of goods would be *collectively* decided on -- no more commodities -- so that leaves liberated labor as the final variable, since nothing could happen without its 'services'. Hence labor credits, which only represent labor effort. No 'pay', no 'job', no 'prices'.

[ckaihatsu]

A lot of these systems are recreating a market, but a politicized one. That's why market socialism makes sense. It just cuts to the chase and politicizes the allocation of capital goods, which is desirable on its own terms anyway and doesn't require any excuses.


The problem with market-*anything*, including market socialism, is that the use of capital in the first place just invites financialization.

How would a market socialist system prevent capital goods from escaping political administration -- ? It seems like the black markets would be just a tiny step away, as for providing liquidity over time.


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://s6.postimage.org/xxj3liay5/2374201420046342459e_NEwo_V_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/xxj3liay5/)

[argeiphontes]

The problem with market-*anything*, including market socialism, is that the use of capital in the first place just invites financialization.

How would a market socialist system prevent capital goods from escaping political administration -- ? It seems like the black markets would be just a tiny step away, as for providing liquidity over time.



There aren't any capital markets, those would be eliminated. It's not possible to purchase a stake in any capital good or firm. There's no stock market or anything like that, and workers own the firms they work in.

Capital goods are collectively owned, and administered by a capital-granting institution like a "Schweickartian bank" that's subject to democratic control, including its allocation decisions. The bank just grants use of capital based on its assessment of proposals and social need, and collects a tax on the capital to account for depreciation or channel money to other programs, like a guaranteed basic income.

(Also, I don't think of it as "the" bank like a central bank but many banks, depending on the scale somebody wanted to collectivize the society, or some particular capital, at.)

edit: Yes, firms are allowed to make investments in capital goods themselves, though they are still paying the tax on that, and if the firm liquidates the capital reverts to the bank if any remains. So, they don't "own" it they've just transferred it from some other firm or something.

[ckaihatsu]

There aren't any capital markets, those would be eliminated. It's not possible to purchase a stake in any capital good or firm. There's no stock market or anything like that, and workers own the firms they work in.

Capital goods are collectively owned, and administered by a capital-granting institution like a "Schweickartian bank" that's subject to democratic control, including its allocation decisions. The bank just grants use of capital based on its assessment of proposals and social need, and collects a tax on the capital to account for depreciation or channel money to other programs, like a guaranteed basic income.

(Also, I don't think of it as "the" bank like a central bank but many banks, depending on the scale somebody wanted to collectivize the society, or some particular capital, at.)

edit: Yes, firms are allowed to make investments in capital goods themselves, though they are still paying the tax on that, and if the firm liquidates the capital reverts to the bank if any remains. So, they don't "own" it they've just transferred it from some other firm or something.


Okay, so overall it sounds like the socialization of banking, which is fine in and of itself, particularly as a 'radical reform'.

But this is definitely *not* socialism, because we're already seeing financialization creep in, as with your 'edit' part that says firms *can* make investments into capital goods. This part actually *contradicts* the first sentence that says there are no capital markets.

So once investments are underway, that's a market for finance, which will have interests in profit-making, and competition will follow, with some firms being more financially successful than others.

A state apparatus of some sort will be required to 'referee' among the firms, and that invites favoritism from the state for certain firms over others, leaving the society with corruption and cronyism -- a bureaucratic collectivist elite, in other words.

It's for reasons like these that I'm to the left of any kind of "market socialism".

[argeiphontes]

Okay, so overall it sounds like the socialization of banking, which is fine in and of itself, particularly as a 'radical reform'.

But this is definitely *not* socialism, because we're already seeing financialization creep in, as with your 'edit' part that says firms *can* make investments into capital goods. This part actually *contradicts* the first sentence that says there are no capital markets.

So once investments are underway, that's a market for finance, which will have interests in profit-making, and competition will follow, with some firms being more financially successful than others.

A state apparatus of some sort will be required to 'referee' among the firms, and that invites favoritism from the state for certain firms over others, leaving the society with corruption and cronyism -- a bureaucratic collectivist elite, in other words.

It's for reasons like these that I'm to the left of any kind of "market socialism".

Fair enough.

However, by no capital markets, I meant that there is no stock market or equity 'paper' that individuals can buy. I don't think it's financialization if these things don't exist. Every society needs capital goods, and a means of producing and allocating them.

It seems we have a fundamental disagreement about what economic systems are. For me, they are social relations of production, and are not dependent on any particular allocation mechanism like markets or planning. You can have planned capitalism like in the Soviet Union (or corporations), or market socialism. IMO of course.

(edit: Yes, there is competition between firms in market socialism. That's part of the market and it's not a goal of market socialism to eliminate that. There's no reason to referee between them.)

[ckaihatsu]

Fair enough.

However, by no capital markets, I meant that there is no stock market or equity 'paper' that individuals can buy. I don't think it's financialization if these things don't exist.


So the financial conventions currently in use (under capitalism) will not be used within your conception of 'market socialism'.

But that still leaves the fact that firms *can* make investments into capital goods -- regardless of whatever instruments are used, the *dynamic* is still intact, and that would be a practice of finance.

(Because what if one large firm was short of funds for the month and they wanted to access capital goods, just for a one-week duration -- ? Whoever is in control of those capital goods would require some kind of payment for use of that capital -- probably through a 'tax', in this concept. What measure would be used to come up with an appropriate tax rate, or 'interest' on that capital -- ? Etc.)





Every society needs capital goods, and a means of producing and allocating them.


Well, no, not necessarily -- under 'market socialism' this is a given, but -- as you know -- I have an alternative approach that dispenses with the need for capital altogether, in favor of direct mass decision-making over productivity (assets, resources, goods, and services).





It seems we have a fundamental disagreement about what economic systems are. For me, they are social relations of production,




and are not dependent on any particular allocation mechanism like markets or planning.


Your description of 'capital goods' is synonymous with 'markets'.





You can have planned capitalism like in the Soviet Union (or corporations), or market socialism. IMO of course.

[argeiphontes]

When I said all societies need capital goods, I just meant that all societies need means of production. IMO, buying these objects is not part of the dynamic of capitalism; using wage labor to work them and collecting the surplus labor for private gain is. There's nothing magical about the machines themselves.

[Baseball]

I'm practically doing you a favor by spelling it out here, but, to break it down, when goods-supply shelves go empty that's *information* that can automated-ly be made public,

Great-- shortages of goods and supplies is the key to spur production.
I guess you would need t explain why this is a superior way of social organization and production.




I suppose so, but I don't know what you're getting at -- the 100 people would be liberated laborers collectively determining how the shoe factory is used, so they would be under no specific obligation to produce shoes.

I am curious as to how success is judged.

[Baseball]

Gee, I'm "sorry" you don't like this implication of socialism,

The only implication is that socialism cannot promise its claims about itself.







If people can d.i.y. something, then that's fine -- the "demand" would be "I like to make typewriters, and so I do."

Why would "demand" be defined by what people like to do, as opposed to what people want done?



Correct -- that's why I named the thing 'communist supply & demand'.

(But, on a technical note, labor is no longer commodified, and labor credits are not cash, so 'pay' and 'price' are not exactly appropriate.)

Well, no it would remain "commodified" as the concepts are the same.




It is what it is, and *I* didn't make the universe, so that's just how it is --

Yeah-- I agree- its just the way things are.
However since we both agree that capitalist social relations and production are "just how it is" it becomes fair to question to what extent your proposals are improvements or not.
Considering the indifference for production of needed goods and services. the answer seems "not."



Sure, I know where you're coming from, but what you're not accepting is that all assets and resources -- the means of mass production -- would be socialized, or in the public domain.

It doesn't matter. A 100% decision by the people one way or the other is not realistic.
So the results are the same-- a group of producers and labor in an "adversarial" relationship-each trying to squeeze as much from the other.


The production of goods would be *collectively* decided on -- no more commodities -- so that leaves liberated labor as the final variable, since nothing could happen without its 'services'. Hence labor credits, which only represent labor effort. No 'pay', no 'job', no 'prices'.

[argeiphontes]

Why would "demand" be defined by what people like to do, as opposed to what people want done?


That's not fair, ckaihatsu clearly has a way of dealing with demand. Anyone is free to propose some production, and allocate their labor credits to anything they want to demand.

[robbo203]

The rate of stock depletion is still the same thing.
It also continues to measure a particular project on its own, as against other goods which may be needed and wanted.

I dont think youve got the hang of this at all. You keeping going off at a tangent. You said orginally about a self regulating system of stock control that "It gives an idea what was demanded yesterday. It is of no assistance in determining what needs to be produced tomorrow-- beyond making a rough guess. And making a rough guess on what might be in demand tomorrow is a very poor way of making production decisions. I refuted this claim by pointing that, actually, the rate of stock depletion provides a very good indicator of future demand . You can't absolutely say what future demand will be, of course. No society can. Certainly not capitalism. What is entrepeneurial activity under capitalism if not quesswork? I am simply saying that a self regulating system of stock control is the most reliable method available to gauge fiuture demand - by a process of extrapolation based on present stock depletion rates.


Unable to respond to this point you then shift your ground You say stock control only measures a "particular project on its own, as against other goods which may be needed and wanted" . Yeah and so what? Stock control allows us to see what the demand is in physical terms, not just for one good but for every good. It provides a bird's eye view of the totality of stock flows. It is based on calculation in kind and therefore by definition does not measure one good as against other, How do you measure tonnes of steel as against and against gallons of milk? The answer is you dont need to unless that is you want to exchange steel for milk . That is to say, unless you live in a market exchange economy. Then you need to determine their respective exchange value. But since we are talking about a free access socialist economy this is irrelevant


What you are really trying to say in your fumbling sort of manner is that stock control on its own cannot tell us what good we should produce more of to meet the demand for said good if there is some resource bottleneck down the line. We have then to chose between goods . The opportunity cost of producing more of one good may be having to produce less of another. This is what Ive been telling you umpteen times and still you seem to imagine that Im not aware of it. Of course stock control as such cannot determine how we should prioritise our production goals but I have never suggested otherwise. That is when other asoects of the socialist production system kick in , besides stock control, and it it is these other aspects youve completely ignored. All Ive said is that is stock control is absolutely indispensable in providing the raw data that enables you to make a choice . It thus has an important bearing on the whole process of resource allocation. You cannot effectively allocate resources if you dont know what resouces youve got. I would have thought that was pretty obvious





I can only comment as to what has been stressed-- and stick control is what has ben stressed.


No . Its YOU who has stressed stock control to the exclusion of anything else precisely because its suits YOU to do so - so that you can then "prove" to your own satisafactiuon that the argument I have been presenting is somehow deficient. This is arguing in bad faith on your part. You are wilfully ignoring my wider argument that stock control is but one of a number of interlocking and interacting components of a socialist production system. You are not seeing the wood for the trees.




The important criteria is the VALUE people attach to that product.
Which is best measured in prices.

This is absolute nonsernse. How is the value that a starving pauper attaches to a four square meal best measured in prices when such a person lacks what the economists call effective demand i.e. purchasing power? Are you suggesting he or she consequently does not "value" food being unable to buy it? Effective demand in relation to supply is what is supposed to determine price, remember. The so called "subjective theory of value" which you evidently endorse was long ago demolished by Nikolai Bukharin in his Economic Theory of the Leisure Class. (1927). Bukharin demonstrated that it is circular reasoning to claim that subjective preferences determine exchange value when in fact exchange value also determines subjective preferences. If you want to read up on this, here's a good link http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/bukharin-on-the-subjectiveobjective-value-debate/




However, a supermarket does not have infinite space. It has to make choices as to what are priorities and are not priorities.
Stock control simply says '100 apples ordered yesterday and consumed, a 100 apples to be ordered for tomorrow.
There is no relationship between choices between apples.
Far from some sort of social production, it truly leads to "atomisation."



I have no idea what you are talking about . What does "There is no relationship between choices between apples" actually mean? What are you trying to say?




Why, in a socialist system, is it irrational for workers who like to make typewriters, to band together to produce typewriters? They are fulfilling the promise of socialism, working and doing what they love-- living the dream. Indeed, chaihatsu has already stated that ANY production is by definition social production, and thus beneficial to the community.




You contradict yourself. If producing typewriters is beneficial to the community then presumably the community has a demand for typewriters which the workers are intent on satisfying. You earlier said if "somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters.. There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions?" Why should it be wasteful if the community benefits?




Sure, it does. It means the factory must be structured to best provide for the consumer. It would determine where the factory is sited, how many workers are working there at any given time, how many hours they work, how they work, compensation for work and on and on.
true-- the workers could take actions without considering the impact it has on production. Bu then the workers can't reasonably claim to be tailoring production to consumer demand.


In a socialist society the employee/ employer relationships disappears completely. Labour is offered/provided on a completely free voluntary basis and goods and services are made completely freely available without any kind of quid pro quo payment. Clearly, this precludes workers being told or ordered to work such and such a number of hours. It also precludes the whole idea of "compensation" i.e., pay since there wont be such a thing as "payment for work" in socialism. You are simply projecting into a future socialist society your own capitalist assumptions/prejudices about the organisation of work.

No one has suggested that work undertaken in a socialist society would not be structured or organised to meet human demands , human needs. The producers in a socialist society will also be the consumers in a socialist society and of course they would want to organise production in a way that collectively meets their needs. Your argument insofar as I can make it out that because work is not arbitrary , driven by mere whim or undetaken for the mere sake of it that therefore the workers are "not in control of the production process" - they are subject to some mysterious external force which is the pressure of consumer demand. Evidently you have bought into the "consumer is king" myth that is part and parcel of capitalist ideology. That is a frankly ludicrous argument as Ive said before because it presupposes a separation of producers and consumers - a false dichotomy- which simply would not exist. Individuals would organise production on a social basis to meet the needs of each other on a social basis. How, if they want to meet each others needs through productive activity - and indeed would have a very strong incentive to do - does that mean they are not in control of production. Explain. They would be utilising the machinery of production for the purpose
they themselves had intended. That does not sound like a loss of control. To the contrary, it signifies the very essence of control

[ckaihatsu]

When I said all societies need capital goods, I just meant that all societies need means of production. IMO, buying these objects is not part of the dynamic of capitalism; using wage labor to work them and collecting the surplus labor for private gain is. There's nothing magical about the machines themselves.


Okay -- I'll caution you to be careful with your terminology since 'capital goods' is quite a ways distant from 'means of (mass) production', as you yourself are noting.

This, then, changes the meaning of your position, from your previous post:





Every society needs capital goods, and a means of producing and allocating them.





Every society needs [the means of production], and a means of producing and allocating them.





It seems we have a fundamental disagreement about what economic systems are. For me, they are social relations of production, and are not dependent on any particular allocation mechanism like markets or planning.


You're being "agnostic" here as to the *method* of socialist-type implementation, since you're saying that a post-capitalist economics *could* be either markets or planning.

Your position on implementation is now ambiguous and possibly nonexistent.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm practically doing you a favor by spelling it out here, but, to break it down, when goods-supply shelves go empty that's *information* that can automated-ly be made public,





Great-- shortages of goods and supplies is the key to spur production.
I guess you would need t explain why this is a superior way of social organization and production.


In *practice* there'd be no logistical / technical impediment to a smooth flow of goods and supplies.

I've spelled this out in my own proposed framework:





Propagation

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may create templates of political priority lists for the sake of convenience, modifiable at any time until the date of activation -- regular, repeating orders can be submitted into an automated workflow for no interruption of service or orders




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


---





The shoe factory which employs a 100 people and supplies the community on a regular basis with the footwear the community requires.
Is that the proof required by the socialist community as to to determine that the factory is of benefit?





I suppose so, but I don't know what you're getting at -- the 100 people would be liberated laborers collectively determining how the shoe factory is used, so they would be under no specific obligation to produce shoes.





I am curious as to how success is judged.


I guess 'success' would be that everything goes relatively smoothly and that the main components of liberated labor, mass demand, and collectivist administration are all fairly well-balanced against one another.

This again:





What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way,




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673

[ckaihatsu]

The only implication is that socialism cannot promise its claims about itself.


That's only being fair -- *no one* can predict what society and individuals do in a paradigm-shifted future. That doesn't invalidate the struggle to get there, though.





If people can d.i.y. something, then that's fine -- the "demand" would be "I like to make typewriters, and so I do." No proposal necessary, unless those people would require the liberated labor (services) of others.





Why would "demand" be defined by what people like to do, as opposed to what people want done?


It's *both* -- people in such a society may demand to mostly live their own lives, and so the culture might be very individualistic, with few requirements for socialized production, or it may be *very* socialized, with every little thing being a group effort. Again, I can't predict.





(But, on a technical note, labor is no longer commodified, and labor credits are not cash, so 'pay' and 'price' are not exactly appropriate.)





Well, no it would remain "commodified" as the concepts are the same.


No, commodification requires an economy based on commodity-production, which is driven by the profit motive, and uses exchanges based on commodities.

In my 'communist supply & demand' model there is no commodification because there is no private ownership of the means of production. Anything produced uses implements from the collective commons, and is directly distributed to those who have a (formally requested) need for it.





It is what it is, and *I* didn't make the universe, so that's just how it is --





Yeah-- I agree- its just the way things are.
However since we both agree that capitalist social relations and production are "just how it is"


Nice try, but that's not what I said. Here's the blog entry yet again, for your clarification:





What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way,




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673





it becomes fair to question to what extent your proposals are improvements or not.
Considering the indifference for production of needed goods and services. the answer seems "not."


"Indifference" -- ? Really?

As though the framework exists on its own, without a global population with its own needs and desires.... I'll leave it up to the denizens of such a self-liberated revolutionary society to decide whether they're "indifferent" or not.





Sure, I know where you're coming from, but what you're not accepting is that all assets and resources -- the means of mass production -- would be socialized, or in the public domain.





It doesn't matter. A 100% decision by the people one way or the other is not realistic.


You're pulling this out of your ass -- there's no reason that every single, last person in the society would have to move in lockstep in order to effect production.

In fact production could happen at all kinds of scales, in many different locations, in concert with other locations, or not. Efficiencies of scale would be realized the larger the scale of production used.





So the results are the same--


No, the results would be quite different, because all of the means of mass production would be collectivized -- you'd rather ignore this point.





a group of producers and labor in an "adversarial" relationship-each trying to squeeze as much from the other.


'Producers' and 'liberated labor' would be one and the same thing in a post-capitalist context -- there's the difference right there.

[ckaihatsu]

Stock control allows us to see what the demand is in physical terms, not just for one good but for every good. It provides a bird's eye view of the totality of stock flows. It is based on calculation in kind and therefore by definition does not measure one good as against other, How do you measure tonnes of steel as against and against gallons of milk? The answer is you dont need to unless that is you want to exchange steel for milk . That is to say, unless you live in a market exchange economy. Then you need to determine their respective exchange value. But since we are talking about a free access socialist economy this is irrelevant


Btw, Robbo, was wondering about something here, if you would....

My understanding of 'calculation in kind' is that collectively-produced goods of one kind would be *exchanged* for a roughly equivalent amount of collectively-produced goods of another kind, as with the steel-for-milk example you're giving.

Wouldn't this be market socialism, then? Do you consider yourself to be a market socialist?

(As soon as goods are given an implicit formal value, as with this example, the practice then implies that labor is being valued *in terms of* the material goods produced, or output. All kinds of complications *could* arise with the simple barter that would necessitate an abstract layer of valuations, or commodification, and then finance.)





You are not seeing the wood for the trees.


Just f.y.i. -- the expression is 'Not seeing the *forest* for the trees.'

[robbo203]

Btw, Robbo, was wondering about something here, if you would....

My understanding of 'calculation in kind' is that collectively-produced goods of one kind would be *exchanged* for a roughly equivalent amount of collectively-produced goods of another kind, as with the steel-for-milk example you're giving.

Wouldn't this be market socialism, then? Do you consider yourself to be a market socialist?

(As soon as goods are given an implicit formal value, as with this example, the practice then implies that labor is being valued *in terms of* the material goods produced, or output. All kinds of complications *could* arise with the simple barter that would necessitate an abstract layer of valuations, or commodification, and then finance.)


No this is wrong. Although I have heard of calculation in kind sometimes being used in conjunction with barter this is not really the essence of what it means. What it means is really the absence of a general unit of accounting such as monetary prices or labour time units. Instead, the accounting is done solely with the respect to the particular kind of good in question.

So for example if 3 steel mills produce varying outputs of steel over the course of a year, one may calculate their joint output in terms of tonnes of steel by a simple process of addition just as one may calculate the demand for steel in the same terms. Subtracting the demand for steel from the supply tells you if you have a shortage or a surplus and is a further example of calculation in kind. Calculation in kind is of course integral to stock control system where you are monitoring the separate flows of possibly thousands of different iterms e.g. in a supermarket

In socialism there is no economic exchange or market process, not could there be, since the means of production are commonly owned . So in answer to your question - no I am definitely not any kind of market socialist and I cannot see any kind of role for markets in a socialist society. The need for a single universal unit of accounting in the form of money arises out of the exigencies of market exchange. Its superioity over simple barter lies in its a convenience as a means of exchange While labour time accounting does not necessarily imply a market I have serious reservations about the practicality of such a procedure and its usefulness to a socialist society



Just f.y.i. -- the expression is 'Not seeing the *forest* for the trees.'

erm, google "can't see the wood for the trees" and see for yourself

[Ledur]

robbo, I have a question: your model seems to work well for production of goods, but what about services?

[Comrade #138672]

You can't produce all goods for everyone, you need make decisions, prioritise. The labour value (the average socially necessary labour time) of a product does not determine the social utility or worth of a product. In essence, it's a question of general equilibrium.



If we have a society in which we have:


100 (index) resources in terms of labour value
Consumer good A, 1 labour value per unit
Consumer good B, 1 labour value per unit
Consumer good C, 4 labour value per unit
Consumer good D, 25 labour value per unit


There are 5 citizens in this socialist society. We have determined that the aggregate demand of all 5 citizens amount to over 200 resources in labour value. In other words, there are too few resources to satisfy all demand. So we have to make choices. We can't make choices on the basis of labour values because they tell us nothing about the worth or social utility of the consumer goods. Goods A and B have the same labour value but perhaps the consumers tend to more willing to forgo on consumer good B than A (same labour value, different worth or social utility). In this imaginary socialist society, the scale is small enough to ask each individual, but in a society of millions with millions of consumer goods the only way the social utility of consumer goods can be determined is by the individual choices of consumers through a price-based rationing system using work-points or labour credits.I disagree. I do not think that large scale production makes it impossible to ask each member of society what they want and calculate the aggregate demand. Actually, I think it is absolutely necessary to let everybody participate in this decision process, for it to be a genuine socialist society. In my opinion, a market is wasteful and inherently bourgeois, since it is a separation of the needs of society, the distribution of goods, and the production process. These need to be unified in a socialist society.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Damn, y'all seem pretty concerned with maintaining mass industrial production of consumer goods. Maybe I'm hella backward, but when I think of the "problems" of communist economics, "But how will we know how many iPods to produce?!" doesn't really enter the equation. It seems to me a reflection of bourgeois ideology to imagine "the good life" as premised on a "post-scarcity" economy in which there is no scarcity of consumer goods rather than, I dunno, bioregionally specific autonomous community production.

[ckaihatsu]

No this is wrong. Although I have heard of calculation in kind sometimes being used in conjunction with barter this is not really the essence of what it means. What it means is really the absence of a general unit of accounting such as monetary prices or labour time units. Instead, the accounting is done solely with the respect to the particular kind of good in question.


Thanks -- would you then care to elaborate on this 'accounting' -- ? I assume it would be *qualitative* (non-monetary) in nature, such as your '3 steel mills' example, or this example from another thread:





Well these days, we can gather enough information to simply determine necessary production. I'll give you an example.

A town of 1000 needs about 2 million pounds of food a year. You know your population isn't like to change significantly in the next 5 years. Given that, you'd need, very roughly, 6800 acres of arable land and x number of agricultural workers. Depending on how sophisticated your methods are, you may need only a handful of people, or the whole town, to work the land. After taking into account the number of workers needed for agriculture, you can then start deciding how to expend the excess labor.

Say there are 600 people not needed for the land. Platoons of these people can do various things.

In regards to resources, let's say you have only 10 tons of steel. You can make weapons for 300 people, using 8 tons, or you can use 5 tons to make useful tools and implements. Or perhaps you have 10,000 nails and you must decide on a small house that will use 7000 nails, or a barricade that uses 6000? If you are working with concrete numbers (accurate numbers on resources, consumption, and production and efficiency), you can plan accordingly, but it gets exponentially more difficult with very large populations.





So for example if 3 steel mills produce varying outputs of steel over the course of a year, one may calculate their joint output in terms of tonnes of steel by a simple process of addition just as one may calculate the demand for steel in the same terms. Subtracting the demand for steel from the supply tells you if you have a shortage or a surplus and is a further example of calculation in kind.


I'm not understanding the 'calculation in kind' concept / definition, then -- if it *is* simply steel-for-milk, from collective production, then, to me, that smacks of an *exchange*, which *could* contain all of the implicit problems that come with the method of exchange.

Sure, I understand that the political context would be post-capitalist, so that *would* go a long way in preventing any kind of market relations or commodification -- but I hesitate to put myself in this camp because I have reservations in that this method could *structurally* lend itself to the valuation of labor according to output, in the direction of commodification.





Calculation in kind is of course integral to stock control system where you are monitoring the separate flows of possibly thousands of different iterms e.g. in a supermarket


Yes -- I fully understand and have no differences here.





In socialism there is no economic exchange or market process, not could there be, since the means of production are commonly owned . So in answer to your question - no I am definitely not any kind of market socialist and I cannot see any kind of role for markets in a socialist society. The need for a single universal unit of accounting in the form of money arises out of the exigencies of market exchange. Its superioity over simple barter lies in its a convenience as a means of exchange




While labour time accounting does not necessarily imply a market I have serious reservations about the practicality of such a procedure and its usefulness to a socialist society


Yeah, I hear you -- it's difficult to say definitively if a post-capitalist social order would require more formality over its material accounting, or not. Of course I like to "believe", as any revolutionary does, that once capitalism is done away with, the rest would be a cinch. But I developed that 'communist supply & demand' model just to have a formal framework that's compatible with the material principles of communism.





erm, google "can't see the wood for the trees" and see for yourself


Okay, whatever -- must be a regional language difference thing.

[ckaihatsu]

Damn, y'all seem pretty concerned with maintaining mass industrial production of consumer goods. Maybe I'm hella backward, but when I think of the "problems" of communist economics, "But how will we know how many iPods to produce?!" doesn't really enter the equation. It seems to me a reflection of bourgeois ideology to imagine "the good life" as premised on a "post-scarcity" economy in which there is no scarcity of consumer goods rather than, I dunno, bioregionally specific autonomous community production.


Well, perhaps instead of looking at it in terms of a decadent consumerism we could just consider what is the most *effective* method for producing anything -- whether infrastructure, the means of production, foodstuffs, consumer items, etc.

The more time that people spend in production of one thing is time that they *can't* spend producing something else -- perhaps something higher-level -- or just in leisure, for themselves.

Since mass industrial production is the *most advanced* technology to-date for making stuff, we have to work with this method as the 'default', going forward.

[robbo203]

Thanks -- would you then care to elaborate on this 'accounting' -- ? I assume it would be *qualitative* (non-monetary) in nature, such as your '3 steel mills' example, or this example from another thread:


No, Im talking here of quantitative in-kind calculation - as in 2 tonnes of steel plus 3 tonnes of steel = 5 tonnes of steel. Thats what "in kind" means - you are basing your calculations on the same kind of thing throughout - in this case, steel. The unit of calculation in this case is tonnes. For something else it might be litres or gallons or megawatts or whatever . No doubt qualitative/evaluative techniques will also play an important role in socialist production but that is not what I was talking or what is meant by calculation in kind...








I'm not understanding the 'calculation in kind' concept / definition, then -- if it *is* simply steel-for-milk, from collective production, then, to me, that smacks of an *exchange*, which *could* contain all of the implicit problems that come with the method of exchange.



I was puzzled by your reference to "steel-for-milk" and could not understand where you got this idea from. I think your misunderstandaring may have arisen from this response of mine to Baseball:


Stock control allows us to see what the demand is in physical terms, not just for one good but for every good. It provides a bird's eye view of the totality of stock flows. It is based on calculation in kind and therefore by definition does not measure one good as against other, How do you measure tonnes of steel as against gallons of milk? The answer is you dont need to unless that is you want to exchange steel for milk . That is to say, unless you live in a market exchange economy. Then you need to determine their respective exchange value. But since we are talking about a free access socialist economy this is irrelevant


As you can see, this clearly rules out market exchange and there is no suggestion here of wanting to measure steel against milk. My point was simply that you can't in terms of calculation in kind. You can measure the one in terms of itself and the other in terms of itself but NOT the one in terms of the other. Thats what calculation in kind is about, measuring or quantifying one thing in terms of itself - though I can sort of see how you might have concluded that I was suggesting "steel-for-milk, from collective production".

My clumsy wording perhaps but there is no "something FOR something" about it in socialism. ANY form of economic exchange, or exchange related phenomena such as wage labour, implies that the means of production are not owned in common and that, consequently, socialism/communism does not exist. Exchange logically implies private (or sectional) ownership of the means of production when you think about it carefully and by private ownership I include also state ownership which is grotesquely mis-called "public ownership" by some people.

Lenin's outrageous and nonsensical claim that banks (which, of course, imply economic exchange and hence the non existence of common ownerhsip) would play an integral role in socialist society demonstrates just how far removed his conception of "socialism" was from the Marxian one. Here's the quote:

"Without big banks socialism would be impossible. The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism;..A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" (Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? October 1, 1917 Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972, pp. 87-136)

[ckaihatsu]

[T]here is no "something FOR something" about it in socialism. ANY form of economic exchange, or exchange related phenomena such as wage labour, implies that the means of production are not owned in common and that, consequently, socialism/communism does not exist.


Yup -- glad to hear you say it, then. I was also thinking it sounded more like syndicalism, but then that's not socialism, either.

However -- just thought of something -- perhaps it's the *term* 'calculation in-kind' that's misleading, since it seems to indicate a tit-for-tat exchange from whatever's produced, respectively.





Exchange logically implies private (or sectional) ownership of the means of production when you think about it carefully and by private ownership I include also state ownership which is grotesquely mis-called "public ownership" by some people.


Yup. Point well-taken.

[robbo203]

robbo, I have a question: your model seems to work well for production of goods, but what about services?

An intreresting question! I suppose in terms of the model there are certain commonalities between goods and services such as supply and demand interactions. But I think we need to be careful to be clear what we mean by goods since there are are two different kinds of goods that we have to deal with - consumer goods and producer goods

Von Mises in his Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (1920)suggested that it did not really matter whether or not there was a market for consumer goods; what mattered for the purposes of economic calculation was that there should be a market for producer goods which is precisely what Socialism lacked. This why he considered socialism to be a non-viable alternative to capitalism - fundamentally because it did not assign market prices to factors of production and was therefore unable to efficiently allocate them.


Von Mises argument was fundamentally flawed and for reasons which we need go into any great detail here. But coming back to your question you might want to consider whether services are more homologous to consumer goods or producer goods from that point of view

[Tim Cornelis]

@robbo
Simple scenario.

Consumers want 100 of product A, 100 of product B, we can only produce 100 in total of A and B. How will your system decide what the quantity of each should be?

A hierarchy of priority would involve consumers continually having to make lists of millions of goods according to desirability, then be aggregated, and thus is not feasible.

[ckaihatsu]

A hierarchy of priority would involve consumers continually having to make lists of millions of goods according to desirability, then be aggregated, and thus is not feasible.


Got to contend this one, Tim -- you're making it sound like this would be a logistical nightmare and just too technically demanding to be done.

I'll note that many people may typically reuse their grocery shopping lists from one week to the next, because not much may change on a week-to-week basis. So, likewise, if someone's list was in a text-file or spreadsheet, it would stay intact, ready to be sent along, until modified as a newly updated version.

We shouldn't hold consumers responsible for a hyper-extended grand *social planning*, which is what you're saying here with your "continually having to make lists of millions of goods". Consumers should only request what they actually *want*, on a regular shopping list, and have that be a standing order.

Now, for a post-capitalist political economy, we can *add* to this simple grocery shopping list, namely anything that's more on the *political* side of things. So, in addition to milk, we could add steel, if that person happened to be around the construction industry and had a knowledgeable opinion about necessary steel production for the surrounding area, or whatever.

Finally, aggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.





Propagation

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may create templates of political priority lists for the sake of convenience, modifiable at any time until the date of activation -- regular, repeating orders can be submitted into an automated workflow for no interruption of service or orders




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





[I]n terms of the model there are certain commonalities between goods and services such as supply and demand interactions.


Given that communism is supposed to be free-access, it makes no sense whatsoever to have any abstract valuations on goods of any sort.

So if we accept that free-access goods can only result from a liberated-labor's *services*, then that means all goods are free and the only variable left is (liberated-labor) *services*.

From my model:





Associated material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources have no quantifiable value -- are considered as attachments to the production process

labor [supply] -- Labor supply is selected and paid for with existing (or debt-based) labor credits

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Determination of material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources may be created and sourced from projects and production runs

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[argeiphontes]

My clumsy wording perhaps but there is no "something FOR something" about it in socialism. ANY form of economic exchange, or exchange related phenomena such as wage labour, implies that the means of production are not owned in common and that, consequently, socialism/communism does not exist.

Can you walk me thru the logic, I don't quite understand. Couldn't that lead to absurd results? For example, I'm able to fix somebody's computer in exchange for a dozen fresh-baked muffins, it means that socialism doesn't exist? Or different areas of the world exchanging resources like metal ores in the absence of central planning, like in an anarchism? Would only a statist centralized socialism be possible then, where everything is planned across the entire planet?

What about ckaihatsu's system where people exchange their labor in exchange for labor credits, which are then used to request consumer products, wouldn't that be a form of exchange?

[Tim Cornelis]

Got to contend this one, Tim -- you're making it sound like this would be a logistical nightmare and just too technically demanding to be done.

I'll note that many people may typically reuse their grocery shopping lists from one week to the next, because not much may change on a week-to-week basis. So, likewise, if someone's list was in a text-file or spreadsheet, it would stay intact, ready to be sent along, until modified as a newly updated version.

We shouldn't hold consumers responsible for a hyper-extended grand *social planning*, which is what you're saying here with your "continually having to make lists of millions of goods". Consumers should only request what they actually *want*, on a regular shopping list, and have that be a standing order.

Now, for a post-capitalist political economy, we can *add* to this simple grocery shopping list, namely anything that's more on the *political* side of things. So, in addition to milk, we could add steel, if that person happened to be around the construction industry and had a knowledgeable opinion about necessary steel production for the surrounding area, or whatever.

Finally, aggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.

Okay, fair enough. What quantities do we assign to each product on the basis of given priority?

[ckaihatsu]

What about ckaihatsu's system where people exchange their labor in exchange for labor credits, which are then used to request consumer products, wouldn't that be a form of exchange?


Sorry for yet-*another* post, but I have to point out that this is incorrect, argeiphontes.

My 'communist supply & demand' model does not have any exchangeability between labor credits and material goods, because communism, by definition, is free-access. Consumer products, and any other material items, would be direct-distribution after first being requested, then pre-planned, then produced.

[Ledur]

argeiphontes, it's still socialism/communism, why not? Both actors are exchanging society's commonly owned factors: tools, software, replacing parts from one side.... and ingredients, oven, muffin cases from the other side. They were avaliable before the exchange for free.

You both have exchanged services: your knowledge on how to fix computers for a special recipe. After some decades, maybe a self repairing computer will be invented, and an automatic muffin baker too, then there's no need to exchange this kind of service... these factors were integrated to the free-access society, and you both will exchange higher order services.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, fair enough. What quantities do we assign to each product on the basis of given priority?


Well, whatever's doable, basically -- the ranking information should be taken as an 'advisory' by any and all concerned with such matters, like available liberated laborers.

So, for example, if a million people put 'milk' at rank #1, and 800,000 people put 'milk' at rank #2, and 800,000 people put 'steel' at rank #1, and a million people put 'steel' at rank #2 -- guess what -- ?

Yup -- 1,800,000 people need both milk and steel, and *badly*. (grin)

From there it would just be a matter of *refinement*, where someone comes up with a formal proposal for either milk or steel. More proposals could follow, in more detail, and with alternatives, to be publicized for mass consideration with new rounds of rankings to follow.

People who wanted milk might then see alternatives for 'whole milk' or 'skim milk' on the next day's iteration, while steel might be detailed as 'iron ore' and 'stainless steel'. (Of course, once this process got fully underway it would be a regular thing, and Robbo's 'inventory stock control' would be more applicable.)

If nothing much happened after the proposals for 'whole milk', 'skim milk', 'iron ore', and 'stainless steel', then the time pressure would mount, people would get pissed, and these would soon become *demands*, with social networking and organizing becoming paramount.





A further explanation and sample scenario can be found here:


'A world without money'

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


'Hours as a measure of labor’

tinyurl.com/yh3jr9x




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[Ledur]

An intreresting question! I suppose in terms of the model there are certain commonalities between goods and services such as supply and demand interactions. But I think we need to be careful to be clear what we mean by goods since there are are two different kinds of goods that we have to deal with - consumer goods and producer goods

Von Mises in his Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (1920)suggested that it did not really matter whether or not there was a market for consumer goods; what mattered for the purposes of economic calculation was that there should be a market for producer goods which is precisely what Socialism lacked. This why he considered socialism to be a non-viable alternative to capitalism - fundamentally because it did not assign market prices to factors of production and was therefore unable to efficiently allocate them.


Von Mises argument was fundamentally flawed and for reasons which we need go into any great detail here. But coming back to your question you might want to consider whether services are more homologous to consumer goods or producer goods from that point of view

It twisted my mind :grin:

Maybe a hair stylist is like a "consumer service", and a hair cutter industry worker is a "producer service"?

[argeiphontes]

We shouldn't hold consumers responsible for a hyper-extended grand *social planning*, which is what you're saying here with your "continually having to make lists of millions of goods". Consumers should only request what they actually *want*, on a regular shopping list, and have that be a standing order.


It's not just the number of products that's complex. Consumers only set priorities, right? They don't have to know that the store is running low on toilet paper, and then go home and request it. Then how do they know what it's a priority to request, or how much labor to allocate to its production? They would have to know how to keep track of it.

They also have to know how much their lowering or raising a priority will affect future production, or else they can't make a rational decision on how to rank it. They have to know how many labor credits it takes to make the toilet paper they consume, and so on, for every product they consume. (The rankings and credits are redundant IMO.) They also have to know how much TP other people have requested, and how many labor credits have already been allocated to it (the relative scarcity) or else there's no guarantee that they'll rank it highly enough to make sure they personally get enough toilet paper. People could rank TP their highest priority, but if enough labor isn't allocated, they'll only get a small absolute amount of it, just their relative share. (An added complication is that some processes aren't linear because extra machines and what not will have to be produced in order to increase production, and some machines will sit idle if requests decrease.)

That means they have to either know the labor-credit "price" of toilet paper, and this price has to be updated continually by producers, in response to requests and their own production calculations, or else engage in some kind of iterative planning via feedback, like in ParEcon.

[Tim Cornelis]

Okay, I'm thinking out loud here.

Everyone get say, say, 10,000 scarcity points. Values each good between 0-20, with 0 meaning no intention of consuming the good, and 20, not willing to give up consumption of it in favour of another good. So the scale is a question of the willingness to give up consumption of this good in favour of another (20 being none).

But then it seems you might as well implement labour credits, which work similarly, but are more accurate.

[argeiphontes]

Sorry for yet-*another* post, but I have to point out that this is incorrect, argeiphontes.

My 'communist supply & demand' model does not have any exchangeability between labor credits and material goods, because communism, by definition, is free-access. Consumer products, and any other material items, would be direct-distribution after first being requested, then pre-planned, then produced.

Sure, I can't exchange labor credits for anybody's items, but I have to exchange with the producers, don't I? (Or society at large, or whoever is doing the producing.) To request and allocate something, you have to first earn, and then assign, some labor credits to it. So it's only a difference in semantics as I see it. Now, in capitalism, you pay for something after it's been produced, there you are paying for it before. Furthermore, even if you only have one store, you are still buying from it. You aren't going to get any of the product unless you've earned the labor credits and put them toward your desired items, are you?

It doesn't matter though, I give up.

[Ledur]

Ohhhhhhh

A software can AUTOMATICALLY track consumer's preferences and desirabilities (Google is doing it right now on every browser lol) without the need of everyone rank their preferences...

And another software can gather data from past consumption, both temporally and spatially, forecasting future consumption in a MUCH BETTER way than the price system will ever do.

Free market enthusiasts said that's impossible but COME ON, we have computers.

[Baseball]

I am simply saying that a self regulating system of stock control is the most reliable method available to gauge fiuture demand - by a process of extrapolation based on present stock depletion rates.

I understand.

However, It isn't the best way.



Unable to respond to this point you then shift your ground You say stock control only measures a "particular project on its own, as against other goods which may be needed and wanted" . Yeah and so what?

Because who cares what people wanted yesterday?


How do you measure tonnes of steel as against and against gallons of milk? The answer is you dont need to unless that is you want to exchange steel for milk . That is to say, unless you live in a market exchange economy. Then you need to determine their respective exchange value. But since we are talking about a free access socialist economy this is irrelevant

Its not irrelevent at all.
Milk and steel still require labor, fuel in order to be produced.
Why should that labor or fuel be directed toward the dairy plant as opposed to the steel plant?


All Ive said is that is stock control is absolutely indispensable in providing the raw data that enables you to make a choice . It thus has an important bearing on the whole process of resource allocation. You cannot effectively allocate resources if you dont know what resouces youve got. I would have thought that was pretty obvious

Stock control comes after the fact. You keep wanting to use it for future allocation





You contradict yourself. If producing typewriters is beneficial to the community then presumably the community has a demand for typewriters which the workers are intent on satisfying. You earlier said if "somebody wishes to place effort in producing typewriters.. There is nothing the community could do to stop such wasteful actions?" Why should it be wasteful if the community benefits?

How does the community measure if it benefits?






In a socialist society the employee/ employer relationships disappears completely. Labour is offered/provided on a completely free voluntary basis and goods and services are made completely freely available without any kind of quid pro quo payment. Clearly, this precludes workers being told or ordered to work such and such a number of hours. It also precludes the whole idea of "compensation" i.e., pay since there wont be such a thing as "payment for work" in socialism. You are simply projecting into a future socialist society your own capitalist assumptions/prejudices about the organisation of work.

I am asking how, in a socialist community, are sufficient goods provided to satisfy demand, when there is no requirement that labor work in such a manner so as to provide it?

Its not enough to simply show up to work. Actual work must be done. It doesn't make much sense to have people working, and no way to correlate with demand.

Unless the socialist community requires a unanimous vote to take action, there will ALWAYS be people who will be living and working in a situation of which they do not approve.


No one has suggested that work undertaken in a socialist society would not be structured or organised to meet human demands , human needs.

You have; "Labor is offered/provided on a completely free voluntary basis"


The producers in a socialist society will also be the consumers in a socialist society and of course they would want to organise production in a way that collectively meets their needs.

I am curious how many automobiles the average auto worker is going to consume in a day. I am quite certain it is statistically 0% of what he produces.
Producers and consumers are different people- even in the socialist community.


Individuals would organise production on a social basis to meet the needs of each other on a social basis. How, if they want to meet each others needs through productive activity - and indeed would have a very strong incentive to do - does that mean they are not in control of production. Explain.

Me explain? You haven't even explained.
Look-- the guy who freely chooses to work a few hours a day in the shoe factory has DONE HIS JOB. He has performed his SOCIAL responsiility as defined by the socialist community. He needs milk for his kids? that is somebody else's social responsibility. He can't do it all.

[argeiphontes]

However, It isn't the best way.
....
Because who cares what people wanted yesterday?
....
Stock control comes after the fact. You keep wanting to use it for future allocation


Then how is demand forecast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_forecasting) in a capitalist market? Surely by referring to historical data. Or does Walmart wait until the shelves are bare to order more stuff? Capitalist firms are running leaner and using JIT techniques, meaning that forecasting has become better. Those techniques will work in socialism too.

[Baseball]

Then how is demand forecast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_forecasting) in a capitalist market? Surely by referring to historical data. Or does Walmart wait until the shelves are bare to order more stuff? Capitalist firms are running leaner and using JIT techniques, meaning that forecasting has become better. Those techniques will work in socialism too.

Socialism is not capitalism.

[Baseball]

Now, for a post-capitalist political economy, we can *add* to this simple grocery shopping list, namely anything that's more on the *political* side of things. So, in addition to milk, we could add steel, if that person happened to be around the construction industry and had a knowledgeable opinion about necessary steel production for the surrounding area, or whatever.

OK-- so these shopping list will not just include personal wants; it will include professional wants as well?
So the steelworker needs a table for himself places a table on his list, and who also thinks the community needs 5 tons of steel also places that on his list?

[robbo203]

Can you walk me thru the logic, I don't quite understand. Couldn't that lead to absurd results? For example, I'm able to fix somebody's computer in exchange for a dozen fresh-baked muffins, it means that socialism doesn't exist? Or different areas of the world exchanging resources like metal ores in the absence of central planning, like in an anarchism? Would only a statist centralized socialism be possible then, where everything is planned across the entire planet?

What about ckaihatsu's system where people exchange their labor in exchange for labor credits, which are then used to request consumer products, wouldn't that be a form of exchange?

Perhaps I should clarify what i mean by "exchange" in this context. I mean by this obviously quid pro quo exchange - markets. In other words, I give you my apple if and only if you give me your orange (or the appropriate money denomination) There cannot be quid pro quo market exchange in a socialist society becuase the means of proction are fundamentally commonly owned. This is the basic fact of a socialist society which influence and stamps itself on everything else. The mode of distribution is contingent upon the mode of production, as Marx noted

The mere fact that different parts of the world "exchange" resources does NOT mean there is a market. It is merely a physical description of the criss cross flows of resources. What makes it a market is the commodification of these physical flows and all that that entails.

If you are familiar with the literature on a gift economy you will be aware that there is a fundamental difference between a market exchange and a gift exchange. The purpose of gift exchanges is to cement social alliances. It is to bind people together through a sense of mutual obligation . It is not about imposing quid pro quo conditions on a transaction. It is the direct opposite of market exchange which atomises and separates individuals into buyers and sellers who confront each with opposed interests, each seeking to maiximise their gain at the expense of the other. You may fix someone's computer in exchange for a dozen muffins but you wouldnt surely haggle over the amount of muffins offered or even refuse to fix that persons compiuter should no muffins be offered in exchange at all. Its called doing someone a favour and favours have a habit of being returned; we feel bad about it if we dont


In my view , from an anthropological perspective, the most apt description of a socialist society would be a system of generalised recipocity. This term captures very well the awareness that in a such society we would depend upon each to a very considerable extent. It thus implies a strong element of moral obligation towards one another arsing out of this.


Finally you mention central planning. In its classical sense of society wide planning it means a single plan encompassing every conceivable kind of input and output in the economy. I would say this is not only totally impractical but is also wholly incompatible with a socialist society for many reasons.not least becuase it ius at odds with the concept of a self regulating system of stock control which is one the lkey features of a socialist production system

Amongst other things, where von Mises went badly wrong was in automatiucaly assuming that socialism would be a centrally planned economy in the above sense. Naively he assumed that the only alternative to such an economy was a market - at least as far as large scale societies were concerned (he allowed that small scale face to face societies could operate on a communistic basis).

But in failing to consider the the possibility that a socialist society could be run on lines quite different to that of a centrally planned economy he also overlooked that such a society could very well incorporate a feedback mechanism in the shape of a self-regulating system of stock control. Knowing that would have effectively undermined his whole argument that socialism was not feasible becuase it has no way of making economic calculations

[Baseball]

That's not fair, ckaihatsu clearly has a way of dealing with demand. Anyone is free to propose some production, and allocate their labor credits to anything they want to demand.

They are free to hire somebody else to produce something they want...

Assuming the person doing the hiring has sufficient labor credits to satisfy the needs of the person who is doing the work...

[Baseball]

.

If you are familiar with the literature on a gift economy you will be aware that there is a fundamental difference between a market exchange and a gift exchange. The purpose of gift exchanges is to cement social alliances. It is to bind people together through a sense of mutual obligation . It is not about imposing quid pro quo conditions on a transaction. It is the direct opposite of market exchange which atomises and separates individuals into buyers and sellers who confront each with opposed interests, each seeking to maiximise their gain at the expense of the other. You may fix someone's computer in exchange for a dozen muffins but you wouldnt surely haggle over the amount of muffins offered or even refuse to fix that persons compiuter should no muffins be offered in exchange at all. Its called doing someone a favour and favours have a habit of being returned; we feel bad about it if we dont

You are describing a barter system. Nor are you explaining "mutual" obligation; how is "mutual" described and conceived.

[Ledur]

A gift economy, gift culture or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.[1] In contrast to a barter economy or a market economy, social norms and custom govern gift exchange, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

[Baseball]

A gift economy, gift culture or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.[1] In contrast to a barter economy or a market economy, social norms and custom govern gift exchange, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

That is very nice when it is time to celebrate Aunt Edna's birthday.
But organizing production amongst billions of people? No.

[Ledur]

That is very nice when it is time to celebrate Aunt Edna's birthday.
But organizing production amongst billions of people? No.

Why not? Capitalism and labour division do exactly that in their own way: everything is produced for a future consumption... we work expecting a wage at the end of the month, a product stays for weeks on the shelves, a building takes months to be completed. Instantly-made exchanges are rare.

[Baseball]

Why not? Capitalism and labour division do exactly that in their own way: everything is produced for a future consumption... we work expecting a wage at the end of the month, a product stays for weeks on the shelves, a building takes months to be completed. Instantly-made exchanges are rare.

Sure... you work for the month, and take your wage or salary and buy something you want with it.
And that item produced with the expectation of a return, clear return, not hypothetical, of what its value is or ought to be.
Why is your broken computer of greater significance than my broken computer so that it get the attention of the repairman?

[robbo203]

@robbo
Simple scenario.

Consumers want 100 of product A, 100 of product B, we can only produce 100 in total of A and B. How will your system decide what the quantity of each should be?

A hierarchy of priority would involve consumers continually having to make lists of millions of goods according to desirability, then be aggregated, and thus is not feasible.


The idea of consumers having to make lists of millions of goods according to desirability is clearly not feasble, as you say, and I dont think anyone has ever proposed such a thing. Nevertheless consumers do entertain some idea of what is impoirtnat and what is not, they do have a sense of priorities - even if in a very rudimentary or generalised sense such as "hospitals should take priority over hotels"


I do not believe the questions you ask can be answered aprioristically. This is not a cop out. Im simply trying to be realistic here. It depends so much on the conditions at the time. Let A in your example stand for hospitals and B for hotels - would all the inputs go to A and none to B? What if the region had 9 hospitals and 10 were required but no hotels when 20 hotels were required? A might be intrinsically more valuable than B but in this case might it not be better that all of the relevant inputs go to B?

Perhaps some whizzkid statistician may formulate some fancy algorithm using broad catergories of goods ranked in ordinal fashion that will help us out . I tend to thinking it will be a case of production units themselves muddling through, using a rough rule of thumb to allocate inputs to various end uses on a selective basis. They will be informed by the general ethos of the wider community and by knowlege of specific projects on the go that have been decided at community level. I dont think ones needs to get very formalistic about this. Let people use their own initiative. In socialism there will be no vested interests involved so by and large the kind of decisions that production units make will tend to mirror the kind of priorities that the population at large hold


The inportant thing is this - even if we cannot say for sure what resources go to what end uses and in what proportions, resources WILL be selectively allocated willy nilly and one way or another. High priority end uses will by definition receive priority over low priority end uses. As long as this is happening then this is good and sensible. You have to discriminate between end uses when there is a resource bottleneck . As I said before that does not necessarily mean low priority end uses must cut back on production - they could for example opt for technological substitution, using more abundant alternative inputs to substititie for the input in short supply.

Hoiwever we look at it there will inevitably be a degree of discrimination or selectivity in the allocation of resources and that is the main point, saying anything more than that at this point would be pure speculation as so much would depend on circumstances at the time

[Tim Cornelis]

The idea of consumers having to make lists of millions of goods according to desirability is clearly not feasble, as you say, and I dont think anyone has ever proposed such a thing. Nevertheless consumers do entertain some idea of what is impoirtnat and what is not, they do have a sense of priorities - even if in a very rudimentary or generalised sense such as "hospitals should take priority over hotels"


I do not believe the questions you ask can be answered aprioristically. This is not a cop out. Im simply trying to be realistic here. It depends so much on the conditions at the time. Let A in your example stand for hospitals and B for hotels - would all the inputs go to A and none to B? What if the region had 9 hospitals and 10 were required but no hotels when 20 hotels were required? A might be intrinsically more valuable than B but in this case might it not be better that all of the relevant inputs go to B?

Perhaps some whizzkid statistician may formulate some fancy algorithm using broad catergories of goods ranked in ordinal fashion that will help us out . I tend to thinking it will be a case of production units themselves muddling through, using a rough rule of thumb to allocate inputs to various end uses on a selective basis. They will be informed by the general ethos of the wider community and by knowlege of specific projects on the go that have been decided at community level. I dont think ones needs to get very formalistic about this. Let people use their own initiative. In socialism there will be no vested interests involved so by and large the kind of decisions that production units make will tend to mirror the kind of priorities that the population at large hold


The inportant thing is this - even if we cannot say for sure what resources go to what end uses and in what proportions, resources WILL be selectively allocated willy nilly and one way or another. High priority end uses will by definition receive priority over low priority end uses. As long as this is happening then this is good and sensible. You have to discriminate between end uses when there is a resource bottleneck . As I said before that does not necessarily mean low priority end uses must cut back on production - they could for example opt for technological substitution, using more abundant alternative inputs to substititie for the input in short supply.

Hoiwever we look at it there will inevitably be a degree of discrimination or selectivity in the allocation of resources and that is the main point, saying anything more than that at this point would be pure speculation as so much would depend on circumstances at the time

If find this explanation wholly unsatisfactory. In essence, there is no mechanism by which we can appropriately allocate limited (or scarce) resources to specific goods for end use, and under your envisioned communism it will amount to vague approximations on a vague basis -- it would be guesses, a "leap in the dark" as Von Mises called it (not that this is an issue of economic calculation as Von Mises conceptualised).

Such a system would be inferior to a system base on a work point system which would accurately reveal consumer preferences and then production can be adjusted accordingly.

Unless we can somehow establish the relative social utility of consumer goods in a higher phase of communism, it will not be a higher phase of communism.

[Ledur]

Why is your broken computer of greater significance than my broken computer so that it get the attention of the repairman?

Are you telling me that, in a market economy, the one who pays more gets more attention of the repairman?

If that's the case, well... in a gift economy this kind of incentive doesn't exist. Voluntary work is an example of how something is done without expectation of reward.

In a communist society, most work will be voluntary. Production will be in the hands of the people, and there will be a strong group cohesion... our social human nature will spread this cohesion through all society.

[Baseball]

Are you telling me that, in a market economy, the one who pays more gets more attention of the repairman?

Perhaps the person who is willing to pay more values a functioning computer more than the person willing to pay less?


If that's the case, well... in a gift economy this kind of incentive doesn't exist. Voluntary work is an example of how something is done without expectation of reward.

Sure... Aunt Edna might be willing to knit you a pair of mittens because you are her favorite relative.

It doesn't explain why she is going to knit a pair of mittens to the guy three blocks away who she never saw ahead of the guy she never saw who lives next to him.


In a communist society, most work will be voluntary.

How does one determine which work is "voluntary" and which is compulsory?
How does a "gift" economy function when there is no particular obligation to give "gifts?"


Production will be in the hands of the people, and there will be a strong group cohesion... our social human nature will spread this cohesion through all society.

No doubt that socialism has no interest in the individual...

[Ledur]

Perhaps the person who is willing to pay more values a functioning computer more than the person willing to pay less?

We don't know... ordinal preferences, in microeconomy, can't be translated to cardinal values (prices). Also, values can be distorted by different purchasing power of both.


Sure... Aunt Edna might be willing to knit you a pair of mittens because you are her favorite relative. It doesn't explain why she is going to knit a pair of mittens to the guy three blocks away who she never saw ahead of the guy she never saw who lives next to him.

For small 1-to-1 services (like a computer repair), you should expect actual voluntary work from people in your community.

But industrial scale production will rest with us. If you consider increasing automation and efficiency on production and distribution, a small group of people could run a worldwide assembly line.


How does one determine which work is "voluntary" and which is compulsory?
How does a "gift" economy function when there is no particular obligation to give "gifts?"
1. If no one wants to do unpleasant work, someone will have to do it (it's up to society to manage that), but I believe that most dangerous and dirty work would be automated sooner than others.
2. A software may tell us which production lines need more or less materials/labour, based on supply and demand.


No doubt that socialism has no interest in the individual...

Well, voluntary work and free access, giving you free time to be whatever you want, is far away from a 'dictatorship of the collective'...

IMO,a bigger community could bring us more efficiency and more options than segregated small groups, even though it could be harder to organize.

[argeiphontes]

For small 1-to-1 services (like a computer repair), you should expect actual voluntary work from people in your community.


If it's voluntary, why should I "expect" it? I'll give out the extra beer I brew, though, if I don't drink it all myself. You're welcome to come over for a few bottles. Not too often, though, cause I won't answer the doorbell anymore. Unless you offer to fix my computer. ;) Unless I'm scuba diving in Florida, of course, in which case I won't be around at all. See you later, suckers ;)



1. If no one wants to do unpleasant work, someone will have to do it (it's up to society to manage that), but I believe that most dangerous and dirty work would be automated sooner than others.


Doesn't that contradict this:



Well, voluntary work and free access, giving you free time to be whatever you want...

What do you mean "someone will have to do it"? Clearly, they won't in a voluntary society.

Seriously, the gift economy is the least workable. It's just fine for anarcho-primitivism though I would assume. And I would expect society to devolve to that level in no time.

[Ledur]

If it's voluntary, why should I "expect" it? I'll give out the extra beer I brew, though, if I don't drink it all myself. You're welcome to come over for a few bottles. Not too often, though, cause I won't answer the doorbell anymore. Unless you offer to fix my computer. ;) Unless I'm scuba diving in Florida, of course, in which case I won't be around at all. See you later, suckers ;)

It still is voluntary work, and you voluntarily give him/her some bottles of beer, isn't that perfect?


Doesn't that contradict this:

It's a problem to every single society we could imagine. You can't be "100% free", let others do the hard work and sit alone all day long, receiving the same share of the social product, that's exploitation.


Seriously, the gift economy is the least workable. It's just fine for anarcho-primitivism though I would assume. And I would expect society to devolve to that level in no time.

Anarcho-primitivism or a society with abundant means of life.

[robbo203]

I understand.

However, It isn't the best way.


Im curious. What other way is "better" at guaging future demand than a self regulating system of stock control extrapolating from present day stock depletion rates? You are not proposng to build a time machine perchance?




Because who cares what people wanted yesterday?


The people who want to have some idea of what to produce tomorrow - as opposed to waving a magic wand or travelling in a time machine:rolleyes:



Its not irrelevent at all.
Milk and steel still require labor, fuel in order to be produced.
Why should that labor or fuel be directed toward the dairy plant as opposed to the steel plant?



No it IS irrelevent and yet again you havent read what I was saying. Of course steel and milk require labour etc But this was not the point I was raising. The point I was raising was that you do not need to measure steel against milk in terms of a common unit of account - unless of course you want to exchange one with the other which is not relevant to a socialist free access system. What you are doing is confusing valuation with accounting These are two quite different and distinct things



Stock control comes after the fact. You keep wanting to use it for future allocation




This is silly. Do you understand how a system of stock control works? When a supermarket wishes to replenish its stock of baked beans this triggers a signal to the suppliers to produce/deliver more cans of baked beans. The past and the future are thus inextricably linked. How else do you know what to order in the way of cans of baked beans. Or are you going to just hazard a wild guess?




How does the community measure if it benefits?



If a demand has been expressed for typewriters and this demand has been met this is a benefit is it not? What I guess you are trying to say is how do you measure one benefit against another. My response would be simply to say you cant and you dont need to. Its a question of evaluation, of the ordinal ranking of priorities. You cannot reduce values to a question of cardinal measurement and this is another fundamental theoretical blunder on the part of the partisans of the the so called economic calculation argument. Its what Neurath called a type of pseudo-rationalisation




I am asking how, in a socialist community, are sufficient goods provided to satisfy demand, when there is no requirement that labor work in such a manner so as to provide it?

Its not enough to simply show up to work. Actual work must be done. It doesn't make much sense to have people working, and no way to correlate with demand.

Unless the socialist community requires a unanimous vote to take action, there will ALWAYS be people who will be living and working in a situation of which they do not approve.



Once again you are drifting right away from the immediate point being discussed and coming up with all manner of straw arguments and red herrings. My point was simply that the idea of workers receiving compensation i.e. payment in a socialist society was quite false. Now do you or do you not accept this point? If you do then we can move on to discuss what you think that might imply

Of course in socialism "actual was must be done". Why do you raise such a trite point? And of course such work will correlate with demand. What else. Just as in capitalism , a production unit in socialism will recieve an order for more cans of baked beans and will set about fulfilling that order. Its not going to just manufacture beans for the fun of it is it now? Ergo, its productive activity is correlated with demand




You have; "Labor is offered/provided on a completely free voluntary basis"


How is saying that "work undertaken in a socialist society would be structured or organised to meet human needs" in any way contradicted by saying that labour would be provided on a free volntary basis? Why is not possible to provide labour on a voluntary basis in order to meet human needs? Even under capitalism millions of people do this in the form of charity work




I am curious how many automobiles the average auto worker is going to consume in a day. I am quite certain it is statistically 0% of what he produces.
Producers and consumers are different people- even in the socialist community.


No. Producers as a whole and consumers as a whole are the same (ignoring here the question of dependents). The fact that A prefers to work in an auto factory and B in a shoe factory does not alter in any way the basic point being made here. We all depend on each other. A has an interest in ensuring B has a car to get to work while B has an interest in ensuring that A is suitably shoed. Our interests in a socialist society are convergent when economic competition is done away. As Marx noted the full and free development of individuals is predicated on the full and free development of everyone



Me explain? You haven't even explained.
Look-- the guy who freely chooses to work a few hours a day in the shoe factory has DONE HIS JOB. He has performed his SOCIAL responsiility as defined by the socialist community. He needs milk for his kids? that is somebody else's social responsibility. He can't do it all.


Of course he can't do it all. Who is saying otherwise? Why do you keep raising these straw argumnents?



That is very nice when it is time to celebrate Aunt Edna's birthday.
But organizing production amongst billions of people? No.

Actually the possibility of organising a gift economy on a mass basis is nicely illustrrated in the case of the internet. Millions upon millions of people interact with each other on the basis of generalised reciprocity and the sharing of information without any expectation of immediate return. You yourself are engaged in this process and as such are a striking refutation of the very dogma you espouse :)

[robbo203]

If find this explanation wholly unsatisfactory. In essence, there is no mechanism by which we can appropriately allocate limited (or scarce) resources to specific goods for end use, and under your envisioned communism it will amount to vague approximations on a vague basis -- it would be guesses, a "leap in the dark" as Von Mises called it (not that this is an issue of economic calculation as Von Mises conceptualised).

Such a system would be inferior to a system base on a work point system which would accurately reveal consumer preferences and then production can be adjusted accordingly.

Unless we can somehow establish the relative social utility of consumer goods in a higher phase of communism, it will not be a higher phase of communism.


No, I think your reasoning is flawed here. There is a mechanism and it is one that I outlined but the real issue centres on how accurately such a mechanism would be in reflecting consumer preferences


I take with a pinch of salt, frankly, Mises silly comment about socialist calculation amounting to a "leap in the dark". What is capitalist decisionmaking if not entrepeneurs constantly hazarding guesses about the market and frequently gettting it completely wrong. What are capitalist economic crises if not the result of disproportional growth between different lines of production resulting from the blind pursuit of proft at the level of enterprises each trying to expand their niche in the market at the expense of others?


What you are insisting upon is precisely the kind of "pseudo rationality" that Neurath attacked. You want everything cut and dried and nicely lined up so you can precisely know exactly what to allocate, where and in what quantities. This is not realistic under any system.

Valuation is not to be confused with accounting, as I said before. It is messy, fuzzy and in a constant state of flux. It cannot be reduced to a question of cardinal measurement and it is a delusion to think otherwise

One way or another in a socialist society high prioirity end uses (however these are defined) will willy nilly receive priority in the allocation of resources - where resource bottlenecks arise - over low priority end uses (however these are defined) - one might say, by definition. This cannot but be a sensible. The difficulty comes with assessing what is a high priority good and to what extent the demand for it should be satisfied.

The process of allocating inputs will be done by the people on the ground - the production units (remember that the so called economic calculation has to do with "higher" - Mises' term - or producer goods - not final goods). They will allocate such higher goods according to certain criteria. If there is a shortage of a good in relation to the multifarious demands for it, they will have to discriminate between the different end uses and allocate the inputs in favour of higher priority end-uses. Obviously.

My argument is that they would do this in the light of the general ethos of society itself There would be no vested interest in pushing for one line of production as opposed to another. There would be no more economic competition. It is social opinion that would be the deciding factor. Mainly, I expect this was would be tacit and taken for granted. One readily assumes for example that the production of luxuries items would count rather less than the production of basic necessities. Sometimes there might well be explicit expressions of social preference that could inform the business of allocating resources by production units. For example , a community decision to build some urgently needed peice of instrastructure. Knowlege of such a decision would doubtless figure prominently in the minds of those staffing the production units in question


The important thing, and this I think is what you miss in you assessment, is that there should be in place some kind of feedback mechanism that relays after a fashion - and constantly updates - the changing preferences of consumers to the production units themselves. We see this obviously in the case of a self regulating system of stock control but it would also be true of what I call society's broad hierachy of priorities. This latter will not be something fixed and inflexible but will change according to circumstances. So for example if we can adequately meet all our demand for nutritious food then maybe this particular demand will slip down in the hierarchy somewhat and be replaced by other some other demand. As I said you cannot aprioristically determine these priorites; it depends on circumstances


What matters is not that the model actually achievess pinpoint accuracy but that it is oriented towards the achievement of accuracy and that to that end it is exposed to feedback mechanisms of various kinds that allow decisionmakers to "muddle through" and make the best decisions they can under the circumstances I can envisage some of these mechanisms - consumer surveys, stock movement analysis, consumer lobbying and so on. To paraphrase Bernstein in this context, what matters is the movement not the final goal . Providing the movement is genrally in the right direction, this is the best we can hope for. Anything else is just fanciful illusion -pursuing a will o' the wisp


And that includes your proposal too. How exactly does a work point system " accurately reveal consumer preferences"? I think this is fanciful. The point is that you cannot "establish the relative social utility of consumer goods" either in communism or in any other kind of society because the very nature of the beast - social utility - defies this spurous accuracy you want to foist in it. The obsession with accurate measurement is frankly a bourgeois preoccupation and a boruyegois way of looking at the world that "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" as Oscar Wilde once quipped. We can only ever aspire to accuracy; we can never actually achieve it. At least the model I subscribe to has the virtue of openly acknowleging this basic fact of economic reality

I would not ciriticise your work point schema on the grounds that it does not endeavour to "accurately reveal on consumer preferences" but, rather, on quite other grounds - such as that it would be socially divisive as well as prove a bureaucratic nightmare drawing away scarce resoruces from where they were really needed. That at least is my opinion

[Baseball]

I do not believe the questions you ask can be answered aprioristically. This is not a cop out. Im simply trying to be realistic here. It depends so much on the conditions at the time. Let A in your example stand for hospitals and B for hotels - would all the inputs go to A and none to B? What if the region had 9 hospitals and 10 were required but no hotels when 20 hotels were required? A might be intrinsically more valuable than B but in this case might it not be better that all of the relevant inputs go to B?

Perhaps some whizzkid statistician may formulate some fancy algorithm using broad catergories of goods ranked in ordinal fashion that will help us out . I tend to thinking it will be a case of production units themselves muddling through, using a rough rule of thumb to allocate inputs to various end uses on a selective basis. They will be informed by the general ethos of the wider community and by knowlege of specific projects on the go that have been decided at community level. I dont think ones needs to get very formalistic about this. Let people use their own initiative. In socialism there will be no vested interests involved so by and large the kind of decisions that production units make will tend to mirror the kind of priorities that the population at large hold

The algorithm that this whizzkid might develop to assist the socialist community in allocating resources--- is otherwise known as 'prices.'

How else are you determining whether its 20 or 15 or 25 hotels that are needed (after all, people using hotels are NOT from the area).

[Tim Cornelis]

While I think an advanced or higher phase of communism is feasible and superior to the capitalist mode of production, I think a lower phase of communism is superior still.


We have seen that one of the most characteristic features of the GSU (public) establishments lay in the fact that in their case the principle "to each according to his needs" is realised. Here the measure of labour-time plays no role in distribution. With the further growth of communism towards its higher stage, the incidence of this type of economic establishment becomes more and more widespread, so that it comes to include such sectors as food supply, passenger transport, housing, etc., in short: the satisfaction of consumption in general comes to stand on this economic foundation. This development is a process - a process which, at least as far as the technical side of the task is concerned, can be completed relatively rapidly. The more society develops in this direction and the greater the extent to which products are distributed according to this principle, the less does individual labour-time continue to act as the measure determining individual consumption. Although at any given moment individual labour-time does continue to fulfill this function in some degree, as the development towards communism proceeds, to an ever increasing extent does this destroy from under its feet the very ground from which it sprang.

The problem with this is, that when the food supply becomes freely available it means that perhaps consumers will, in their simultaneous desire for both, consume foodstuffs at a given rate necessitating having to forgo on some good of a different genre whose productive process has not been developed yet as to allow for the free distribution of its products. For instance, ideally I wish to consume 100 milk and 50 caviar per week as well as a new television annually. However, with labour going into the production of milk and caviar, TVs become more scarce and I can only consumer a new television bi-annually. A more optimal use of resources would have revealed that I had wanted to give up 50 milk and 5 caviar if it had meant I could consume a new TV annually. In other words, without a work point system, general equilibrium cannot be attained nor approximated.

So, a while ago, I thought maybe some system of 'transfer shadow pricing' could be applied: if you forgo on the consumption of X and Y, etc., in sufficient quantities then a good of a higher labour value would become available. But then, you can't measure what people forgo on in terms of consumption as this is near infinite. So then maybe each consumer is entitled to a definite amount of points and goods, but then this is tantamount to a work point system, except less effective. Hence my belief that a less advanced stage of communism is superior.

[Baseball]

The process of allocating inputs will be done by the people on the ground - the production units (remember that the so called economic calculation has to do with "higher" or producer goods - not final goods). They will allocate such higher goods according to certain criteria. If there is a shortage of a good in relation to the multifarious demands for it, they will have to discriminate between the different end uses and allocate the inputs in favour of higher priority end-uses. Obviously

The people on the ground can't just allocate imputs. The folks in the supermarket ordering the baked beans are dependent upon the people on the ground of the can factory, who are dependent upon the people on the ground of the metal factory, or are dependent upon the people on the ground at the iron ore pit, who are dependent upon the people on the ground at the shoe factory, who are dependent upon the people on the ground....
You get the idea.
Production decisions cannot simply occur on the level of the individual factory, group of factories, or the community. What happens at the farm impacts how the supermarket allocates baked beans versus corn.

The socialist community will absolutely need an "algorithm" to measure these sorts of production decisions amongst itself and amongst other producers and consumers of those goods for other purposes.

I mean, its not like socialism is unique here. Prices are necessary for rational production.





The important thing, and this I think is what you miss in you assessment, is that there should be in place some kind of feedback mechanism that relays after a fashion - and constantly updates - the changing preferences of consumers to the production units themselves.

feedback is prices. Thats the mechanism.


We see this obviously in the case of a self regulating system of stock control

No. Again, we just see what people wanted yesterday. It doesn't tell us about tomorrow.


but it would also be true of society's broad hierachy of priorities. This latter will not be something fixed and inflexible but will change according to circumstances. So for example if we can adequately meet all our demand for nutritious food then maybe this particular demand will slip down in the hierarchy somewhat and be replaced by other some other demand.

Yes. Priorities change all the time. Yet, besides "stock control"you are relying also upon a "general ethos" of the community for production, which would need to be unchangeable simply because it is being taken for granted.

[Baseball]

This is silly. Do you understand how a system of stock control works? When a supermarket wishes to replenish its stock of baked beans this triggers a signal to the suppliers to produce/deliver more cans of baked beans. The past and the future are thus inextricably linked. How else do you know what to order in the way of cans of baked beans. Or are you going to just hazard a wild guess?

The supermarket isn't an independent actor here.
Week 1: 100 cases beaked beans ordered.
Week 2: 100 cases aked beans consumed.
Therefore:
Week 3 100 cases baked beans ordered.
But how does the supermarket know 100 cases will be consumed week 4? It doesn't. It hazards a guess.
HOWEVER, because its not an independent actor its decisions impacts the baked bean folks, the cannery folks, the fuel people, the cleaning people ect ect ect.
Since there are no prices, there is no glue between these various lines of production, to coordinate between these various production units, all that is happening is chaos being created up and down the production line.



My point was simply that the idea of workers receiving compensation i.e. payment in a socialist society was quite false. Now do you or do you not accept this point? If you do then we can move on to discuss what you think that might imply

One of the weaknesses of this board is a result of socialists having such disagreements as to the nature of socialism.
That workers are not paid in a socialist community for work performed is certainly an area of disagreement amongst socialists.
If you are of the "no-pay' sect, that is fine.


Of course in socialism "actual was must be done". Why do you raise such a trite point? And of course such work will correlate with demand. What else. Just as in capitalism , a production unit in socialism will recieve an order for more cans of baked beans and will set about fulfilling that order. Its not going to just manufacture beans for the fun of it is it now? Ergo, its productive activity is correlated with demand

1. this means that work has to be structured to satisfy demand. Which means the workers doing the work can't just work as they choose.
This is what I mean by the claim that workers will not control the means of production in the socialist community.

2. Would workers manufacture baked beans for the fun of it? It indeed makes no sense. However, this would mean, again that workers would have to work in such a fashion that they may not approve or wish to. It also suggests that labor in the socialist community will not be the "joy" that socialists often like to think it will be.



No. Producers as a whole and consumers as a whole are the same (ignoring here the question of dependents). The fact that A prefers to work in an auto factory and B in a shoe factory does not alter in any way the basic point being made here. We all depend on each other. A has an interest in ensuring B has a car to get to work while B has an interest in ensuring that A is suitably shoed. Our interests in a socialist society are convergent when economic competition is done away.

That's nice.
Maybe the shoemaker doesn't want to drive.
The point here is simply saying interests are "convergent" in a socialist community doesn't really explain how that convergence comes about, or proves that whatever convergence occurs is the best possibe way of converging.
After all, The auto worker in the capitalist community gets paid a wage and buys a pair of shoes from the shoemaker who gets a wage also for producing those same shoes. That too, is convergence, and is satisfying the interest of both parties.

[ckaihatsu]

We shouldn't hold consumers responsible for a hyper-extended grand *social planning*, which is what you're saying here with your "continually having to make lists of millions of goods". Consumers should only request what they actually *want*, on a regular shopping list, and have that be a standing order.





It's not just the number of products that's complex. Consumers only set priorities, right? They don't have to know that the store is running low on toilet paper, and then go home and request it. Then how do they know what it's a priority to request, or how much labor to allocate to its production? They would have to know how to keep track of it.


No, they wouldn't. They're only *consumers* in that role, and wouldn't need to be concerned with the *supply* (materials, liberated labor) aspect of things.





They also have to know how much their lowering or raising a priority will affect future production, or else they can't make a rational decision on how to rank it.


No, they don't.





They have to know how many labor credits it takes to make the toilet paper they consume, and so on, for every product they consume.


No, they don't -- the function of the labor credits is to be that 'interface', or 'flexibility', between consumer demand and the function of mass production.

So if the requirements of liberated labor happened to fluctuate for the production of toilet paper, that would be fine, and sometimes consumers might have to be a little more demanding than other times, combined with having to put up somewhat more labor credits for a regular production run for the stuff.

So it's not that consumers *have* to know how many labor credits it takes, it's more that they *will* know how many labor credits it takes, from their ongoing political involvement in such, in the political economy.





(The rankings and credits are redundant IMO.)


They would probably be roughly *correlated*, but they serve different *functions*.

What if some new, hot-shit consumer device like a smartphone was making its way through R&D, and word got out -- ? Suddenly everyone's putting Hot Shit XQX at the top of their lists, but since it's not even in production yet there's *no* amount of labor credits that could put it into production just yet. (And the discretion for such would remain in the hands of liberated labor, of course.)





They also have to know how much TP other people have requested, and how many labor credits have already been allocated to it (the relative scarcity) or else there's no guarantee that they'll rank it highly enough to make sure they personally get enough toilet paper.


Okay, I can see this part -- but it's already taken care of in the model.

Let's say that toilet paper production is underway, has been provided for awhile now, and is consistently near the top of everyone's daily demand lists (along with food, etc.). That daily cumulative, sorted (mass-ranked) data would be the information needed by everyone to know that their own shipment will be forthcoming. Why? How? Because the mass demand-list item wouldn't just read 'toilet paper', it would be more detailed than that since it's a regular, repeating *policy package* that has already, formally taken mass demand into account for a given area / locality / localities.





People could rank TP their highest priority, but if enough labor isn't allocated, they'll only get a small absolute amount of it, just their relative share.


Okay, here's what fills in the gap: The active policy package *covering* toilet paper may have to undergo continuous updates, perhaps even on a *daily* basis.

So let's say that for months now the active policy package has been just fine, and all economic / material conditions around the mass production of toilet paper have been stable and steady. But, for whatever reason -- maybe not enough new college graduates are taking this up -- there's a quick decline in the number of available liberated laborers to take on the work roles for toilet paper production.

What would be the options here? Supplies are tapering off.

There would have to be a *new* political initiative, by someone, basically saying "Hey, let's get some more liberated laborers on this shit, somehow." Maybe the consumers of that area might look *afield*, to neighboring areas, for such, offering the regular rates for its production. (Maybe those neighboring localities *need* the labor credits, and would welcome the production roles.) Maybe the locality would *innovate* a less-labor-intensive way of producing toilet paper, thus making their supply chain more *efficient*. Maybe the locality would have to put up more labor credits to maintain the status quo.





(An added complication is that some processes aren't linear because extra machines and what not will have to be produced in order to increase production, and some machines will sit idle if requests decrease.)


In a post-capitalist context the production of additional means of mass production is a *good* thing, while the idleness of *superfluous* machinery is a *neutral* thing.

(I'm glad that you recognize that none of this has to be a *linear* process -- in fact it could all be *nonlinear* and "messy", just as long as there's enough overlap of production from one supply-chain node to the next to ensure continuous, uninterrupted production.)





That means they have to either know the labor-credit "price" of toilet paper, and this price has to be updated continually by producers, in response to requests and their own production calculations, or else engage in some kind of iterative planning via feedback, like in ParEcon.


I can't / won't speak to the ParEcon approach, but, yes, my 'communist supply & demand' model *is* iterative, obviously, because it's on a *daily* information cycle.

So what you're saying here is correct, and *is* part of the model's functioning -- I wouldn't call it a "complication" that the public should have continuous access to this kind of live information (about active policy packages and their respective implementations).

[ckaihatsu]

It doesn't matter though, I give up.


First off, let me just say that I appreciate your patience and interaction here, argeiphontes.


---





Sure, I can't exchange labor credits for anybody's items, but I have to exchange with the producers, don't I? (Or society at large, or whoever is doing the producing.)


Yes, *but*.

I hope to impress that it's not so much an *exchange* as it is a paying-*forward*. It's not so much an 'exchange' as it is a *leveraging* of liberated-labor, on the machinery of mass production, for the mass common good.

Also consider that it may not even be *your* (or anyone in particular's) labor credits that have to be put up. All that has to happen is for *enough* 'funders' to put forth *enough* labor credits to effect mass production that fulfills a given policy package, which may cover consumers *far beyond* the smaller subset of labor-credit funders.

Again, it's *machinery* that makes this possible -- most consumers may wind up being *only*-consumers, just putting forth their 'demands', and letting more politically-oriented types do the rest. Maybe it only takes a dozen people to work 10 hours a week to effect production of toilet paper that -- ahem -- *satisfies* the requirements of 10,000 people. (And the raw paper material itself may be a smaller part of a much-larger ongoing upstream harvesting policy practice.)





To request and allocate something, you have to first earn, and then assign, some labor credits to it. So it's only a difference in semantics as I see it.


So, to reiterate, not all consumers will necessarily need to be labor-credit *funders*. (Hence free-access.)





Now, in capitalism, you pay for something after it's been produced, there you are paying for it before. Furthermore, even if you only have one store, you are still buying from it. You aren't going to get any of the product unless you've earned the labor credits and put them toward your desired items, are you?

It doesn't matter though, I give up.


If you'll indulge me, let's *dispense* with the conventional retail store.

I would imagine that direct-distribution means a thorough blurring of what we today call 'wholesale' and 'retail' -- really it would be including the end user / consumer as a 'final node' at the end of any given supply-chain. In other words everything, at all scales, would just be direct-shipped to the next downstream node, down to the final end user.

If 'store'-like outlets are used at all they would just be warehouses of convenience, basically -- people would know that they can get such-and-such over at *this* one, or some other things at *that* one, all free-access.

[ckaihatsu]

Ohhhhhhh

A software can AUTOMATICALLY track consumer's preferences and desirabilities (Google is doing it right now on every browser lol) without the need of everyone rank their preferences...

And another software can gather data from past consumption, both temporally and spatially, forecasting future consumption in a MUCH BETTER way than the price system will ever do.

Free market enthusiasts said that's impossible but COME ON, we have computers.


I agree entirely with the latter part here -- and it's also compatible with Robbo's 'stock inventory control'.

On the *former* part, I would just say that it would be better for consumer preferences to be made *explicit*, by the consumers themselves. (Of course it could be through a web browser, or whatever other kind of technological means.)

[ckaihatsu]

Now, for a post-capitalist political economy, we can *add* to this simple grocery shopping list, namely anything that's more on the *political* side of things. So, in addition to milk, we could add steel, if that person happened to be around the construction industry and had a knowledgeable opinion about necessary steel production for the surrounding area, or whatever.





OK-- so these shopping list will not just include personal wants; it will include professional wants as well?
So the steelworker needs a table for himself places a table on his list, and who also thinks the community needs 5 tons of steel also places that on his list?


Yeah -- more or less, basically.

I'll note that everything would go through a political-demand *refinement* process, from brainstorming, to proposals, to formal policy packages. *All* mass production would require this -- to be a *political* process -- since the means of mass production are collectivized and not under any one person's personal discretion.

So if the steelworker needs a (steel) table for himself he would have to put all of the pertinent details and specifics into a formal policy package, which would be made public, and of course the steelworker would put that item up onto their own daily demand list.

Of course the obvious objection here is that that item would easily be 'swamped' among all of the other, more-common demands on any daily mass-collated collective list. All I can say in such a situation would be this:





Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





OK-- so these shopping list will not just include personal wants; it will include professional wants as well?
So the steelworker needs a table for himself places a table on his list, and who also thinks the community needs 5 tons of steel also places that on his list?


If a steelworker is actively involved as a liberated laborer they would probably be privy to certain information that indicates the locality / community happens to need 5 tons of steel, as soon as possible. So the steelworker might take the political initiative on that and by themselves, or with others, put together a formal proposal or policy package that includes all of the known specifics for such, for that point in time.

[ckaihatsu]

[A gift economy] is very nice when it is time to celebrate Aunt Edna's birthday.
But organizing production amongst billions of people? No.





Why not? Capitalism and labour division do exactly that in their own way: everything is produced for a future consumption... we work expecting a wage at the end of the month, a product stays for weeks on the shelves, a building takes months to be completed. Instantly-made exchanges are rare.





Sure... you work for the month, and take your wage or salary and buy something you want with it.
And that item produced with the expectation of a return, clear return, not hypothetical, of what its value is or ought to be.
Why is your broken computer of greater significance than my broken computer so that it get the attention of the repairman?


---





What do you mean "someone will have to do it"? Clearly, they won't in a voluntary society.

Seriously, the gift economy is the least workable. It's just fine for anarcho-primitivism though I would assume. And I would expect society to devolve to that level in no time.


While I obviously prefer the 'communist supply & demand' method, I'll note that another RevLefter, some time back, put 4 different general approaches on a *sliding scale*:


tinyurl.com/6dxc8v6


I was inspired by this enough to make a schematic illustration:


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://s6.postimage.org/ccfl07uy5/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimage.org/image/ccfl07uy5/)


---





[W]ork has to be structured to satisfy demand. Which means the workers doing the work can't just work as they choose.
This is what I mean by the claim that workers will not control the means of production in the socialist community.


This is a red herring since you're quibbling over the meaning of '[liberated] workers [controlling] the means of production' 'can't just work as they choose'.

Of course the workers will control the means of production because that's the very definition of socialism. But, in such a society, yes, there will be some give-and-take in terms of how liberated laborers can satisfy demand.

Politically speaking, we don't need everyone to be utterly individualistic, ignoring the needs of the larger society. If *many* in a post-capitalist social order *are* utterly individualistic in terms of production, that would actually be *okay*, just as long as there was *enough* cooperation over mass production to satisfy the bulk amount of common-needs interests.

[Ledur]

I agree entirely with the latter part here -- and it's also compatible with Robbo's 'stock inventory control'.

On the *former* part, I would just say that it would be better for consumer preferences to be made *explicit*, by the consumers themselves. (Of course it could be through a web browser, or whatever other kind of technological means.)

As they "buy" things, couldn't the system just rank preferences automatically?

[robbo203]

The people on the ground can't just allocate imputs. The folks in the supermarket ordering the baked beans are dependent upon the people on the ground of the can factory, who are dependent upon the people on the ground of the metal factory, or are dependent upon the people on the ground at the iron ore pit, who are dependent upon the people on the ground at the shoe factory, who are dependent upon the people on the ground....
You get the idea.
Production decisions cannot simply occur on the level of the individual factory, group of factories, or the community. What happens at the farm impacts how the supermarket allocates baked beans versus corn.

The socialist community will absolutely need an "algorithm" to measure these sorts of production decisions amongst itself and amongst other producers and consumers of those goods for other purposes.



As usual you are muddling up two quite separate issues here. Of course the store stocking baked neans is dependent on the factory canning the baked beans which is dependent on the factory manufacturing the cans and so on so forth. Thats what Ive been trying to tell you umpteen times but you make it sounds as if this is something of which i am unaware!


However saying that production is a socialised interdependent prciess does NOT mean inputs are not, or cannot be allocated by individual production units on ther ground

You say "Production decisions cannot simply occur on the level of the individual factory, group of factories, or the community." . But they do! - all the time. Individual enterprises make decisions off their own bat and no one else's. The decision by a factory to introduce a new peice of machinery, for instance, is made by the management of said factory. Not by the community or another factory or whatever. So you are quite wrong on that score.


Once again, what you say and what I think you are trying to say appear to be two quite different things altogether. What you really mean to say, I think, is that the impact of decisions made by a factory cannot be resticted to the factory itself, it has knock-on consequences for others. I agree but that does not alter the fact that the production decisions were taken by the factory and that factory alone.




I mean, its not like socialism is unique here. Prices are necessary for rational production.


Really? Under a system of market prices food is destroyed and land taken out of production while hundreds of miillions go hungry. Under a system of market prices there are millions of empty homes going to waste - 6 million in Spain (where I live) alone - while people are forced to live in the streets. And you call this system of market prices "rational" :rolleyes:






feedback is prices. Thats the mechanism.


Yes the price mechanism is a feedback mechanism I quite agree. But you are deluded if you imagine it is the ONLY form of feedback mechanhism. In fact even in capitalism we have 2 parallel systems of accounting running in tandem - calculation-in-kind and money-based accounting. These are associated, respectively , with two quite different kinds of feedback mechanisms - a self regulating system of stock control and a price mechanism. Any form of advanced modern indsutrial society depends crucually on the former, If all you relied on was the price mechanism, capitalism would not last for even so much as a single day. It would collapse in utter chaos. Socialism retains this self regulating system oof stock control obviously but dispenses completely with the price mechanism. The later implies quid pro quo economic exhanges which are, logically, totally incompatible with the key concept of common ownership of the means of wealth production




No. Again, we just see what people wanted yesterday. It doesn't tell us about tomorrow.


As I said before we cannot know absolutely for certain what people might want tomorrow because there is always going to be an element of unpredictability. Nevertheless, I maintain that a self regulating system of stock control which extrapolates future demand trends from existing rates of stock depletion is the best and most reliable method for guesstimating what people might want tomorrow., It is based on actual practice - what people do rather than just what they say. If you know of another method that matches a system of stock control in that regard then lets hear . So far you have been very coy about explaining what this other method is





Yes. Priorities change all the time. Yet, besides "stock control"you are relying also upon a "general ethos" of the community for production, which would need to be unchangeable simply because it is being taken for granted.

I dont quite follow what you are trying to say here. A broad hierarchy of production goals which guides the allocation of resoruces in bottleneck situations emanates precisely from, or is rooted in,the general ethos of the community. Thats is to say the values people hold. Unlike Tim who seems to think "social utility" is something you can accurately measure, I contend that utility is subjective and varies from one person to the next and it is pie in the sky to believe that it is something you can accurate measure. You can only rank things in an ordinal scale to express preferences. You cannot scientifically measure such preferences on a cardinal scale. That is mumbo jumbo economics which, incredibly enough some economists did actually try to do in terms of a so called "hedonistic calculus" (Bentham's idea originally). Even if conceivably you could demonstrate that you prefer ice cream 20% more than choclate cake, how are you going aggregate your preferences with those of millions of other consumers? Its ridiculous. The irony is that bourgeois marginalist economics is itself grounded in a subjective theory of value. The economists are right to emphasise the subjectivity of the concept of utility but are dead wrong to link it with the question of price formation. Sure commodities have use value (utility) but that does not mean prices can be explianed in terms of use value. To anyone who seriously believes prices reflect utlity , I once again bring up the simple but devastating example of the hungry pauper - are we seriously to believe that the pauper goes without food becuase he or she attaches little or no utility to the consumption of food? I mean, come on.

How society prioritises its production goals in socialism, how it values the different end uses of resouce allocation is an emergent property. It is a function of social interactions and material conditions. If the production of food figured near the top of broad hierarchy of production goals - that is, food production got preferental treatment in the allocation of resources - and if enough food was then being produced to meet the demand for it, then conceivably some other end use - perhaps sanitation , say - would take priority over food production in the allocation of resources. What I mean by this is that should a resource bottleneck arise and you are faced with a choice of allocating a resource to food production or sanitation, you would tend to allocate more of it to the latter precisely because the perceived need for sanitation is greater at the time


It is the people on the ground who would do the actual allocating - who else? Im talking about the production units in question. They would allocate resouces according to how they understand society's broad hierarchy of production goals to be. That, is to say they will essentially use their own initiative in the matter. Of course this does not preclude the possibility of being directed by a specific community-based decisions concerning projects that the community itself wants to embark upon. However, you cannot issue some priority list to production units in the locality, containing each and every singe conceivable good arranged in strict hierachical order after widespread public consultation. This was Tim's ridiculous interpretation of what was meant by a hierarchy of production goals - that consumers owuld have to decide on some megalist containing millions of different goods or end uses. Thats patently absurd and no one has ever suggested such a thing, That is why I say by and large decisions concerning the allocation of inputs would and should be left to the production units. The production units themselves would not be faced with a choice of millions of different end uses . In a proximate sense they would actually be facing a choice between relatively small number of end uses for the particular input or resource which the particular production unit in question is producing or making available to others.

This may sound all a bit hit and miss - the process of applying society's sense of priorities to the allocation of resoruces - and in sense it is. However what you and others fail to understand is that we are talking a dynamic process of trial and error. Providing you have the feedback of public opinion affecting what production units do - and I have explained how this might function - it is no big deal if "mistakes" are committed occasionally and resources are "misallocated" from the point of view of society's own priorities. These mistakes will be made known to the production units via the channels I have outlined. Point being that in a socialist society there will be every incentive to to get things right in terms of what society values

The important thing is to ensure the orientation of the production system in such a way as to reflect as far far as possible , society's priorities and this is I believe that I have shownb canm be done Ensuring 100% accracy in every case, while it would be very nice, is not a realistic expectation.

[robbo203]

The supermarket isn't an independent actor here.
Week 1: 100 cases beaked beans ordered.
Week 2: 100 cases aked beans consumed.
Therefore:
Week 3 100 cases baked beans ordered.
But how does the supermarket know 100 cases will be consumed week 4? It doesn't. It hazards a guess.
HOWEVER, because its not an independent actor its decisions impacts the baked bean folks, the cannery folks, the fuel people, the cleaning people ect ect ect.
Since there are no prices, there is no glue between these various lines of production, to coordinate between these various production units, all that is happening is chaos being created up and down the production line.



Yes and no. The supermarket is an independent actor in the sense that it itself takes the decision to restock with baked beans and no one else. It does not depend on anyone else to make that decision in other words; it makes it itself. You more or less accept this when you say " its " decisions impacts the baked bean folks by which you mean the decision of the supermarket

But the supermarket is also not independent in the sense that it can make decisions without regard to others. It affects others and is affected by others. Again I dont disagree. This is pretty basic and obvious stuff


But then you make an astounding claim - that there is no "glue" between the various lines of porpduction other than prices (which are not available to a socialist society) having just demonstrated how, in physical terms, cordination between these different lines of prpduction isachieved!!!

In week 1 , the socialist distribution store orders 100 cases of baked beansand these are consumed in week 2. Presumably these 100 cases did not just materialise out of thin air. They were produced by the suppliers or manifacturers of baked beans responding to the demands of the store. Those suppliers presumably in turn placed orders with the farmers to deliver more beans. And so on and so forth.

In terms of your very own example there is thus coordination and not chaos as you claim. Youve just shot yourself in the foot, in other words and not for the first time.

Maybe the store doesnt know exactly how many cases of baked beans will be consumed in week 4 but by extrapolating from past trends it will have a shrewd idea. It will also have a buffer of stock to play with to accomodate unexpeceted changes in the pattern of demand which is one of the principles of sound stock control management. At any rate there will be nothing like the "chaos" you melodramatically predict should the demand for baked beans suddenly rise from 100 cases to 103 cases per week . Just a temporary shortage which would translate into an increase in the bulk order ot baked beans next time round





One of the weaknesses of this board is a result of socialists having such disagreements as to the nature of socialism.
That workers are not paid in a socialist community for work performed is certainly an area of disagreement amongst socialists.
If you are of the "no-pay' sect, that is fine.


You are dealing with me and not with the advocates of "paying people" in "socialism" so unless you want to ignore what I am saying you have to deal with the arguments I present



1. this means that work has to be structured to satisfy demand. Which means the workers doing the work can't just work as they choose.
This is what I mean by the claim that workers will not control the means of production in the socialist community.

2. Would workers manufacture baked beans for the fun of it? It indeed makes no sense. However, this would mean, again that workers would have to work in such a fashion that they may not approve or wish to. It also suggests that labor in the socialist community will not be the "joy" that socialists often like to think it will be.


You still dont get it do you? It has been said to you several times not just by me but by others here too - there is absolutely no contraidction in saying that work needs to be strucutred to meet social demand and workers chosing to do the work that they will do Why is it not possible for you to grasp the quite simple point that workers can chose to do work that is "strucured to satsify demand". Why do you automatucally assume that becuase work is "structured to satsify demand". this is soemnthing which workers will "not approve of" or "not wish to do". Isnt gratifying other peoples' needs a fundamental motive in human beings? If it wasnt there would be no such thing as charity for example

.


That's nice.
Maybe the shoemaker doesn't want to drive.
The point here is simply saying interests are "convergent" in a socialist community doesn't really explain how that convergence comes about, or proves that whatever convergence occurs is the best possibe way of converging.
After all, The auto worker in the capitalist community gets paid a wage and buys a pair of shoes from the shoemaker who gets a wage also for producing those same shoes. That too, is convergence, and is satisfying the interest of both parties.


No you have misunderstood the point completely - as per usual. The point was well summed up by Marx thus

Within communist society, the only society in which the genuine and free development of individuals ceases to be a mere phrase, this development is determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the free development of all, and, finally, in the universal character of the activity of individuals on the basis of the existing productive forces. We are, therefore, here concerned with individuals at a definite historical stage of development and by no means merely with individuals chosen at random, even disregarding the indispensable communist revolution, which itself is a general condition for their free development. The individuals’ consciousness of their mutual relations will, of course, likewise be completely changed, and, therefore, will no more be the “principle of love” or dévoûment than it will be egoism. (The German Ideology ch 3)

The "convergence" comes about becuase the means of production are owned in common. Only then do we have a genuine interest in promoting the interests of everyone around us becuase our own wellbeing is inextricably bound up with theirs.


In capitalism this is not the case. Not only do capitalists compete with capitalists and workers with fellow workers but, above all, capitalists with workers. This is a recipe for divergence not convergence and the fact that an auto workers gets to wear the shoes fashoned by the shoe maker does in no way alter this basic fact

[Baseball]

Okay, here's what fills in the gap: The active policy package *covering* toilet paper may have to undergo continuous updates, perhaps even on a *daily* basis.

So let's say that for months now the active policy package has been just fine, and all economic / material conditions around the mass production of toilet paper have been stable and steady. But, for whatever reason -- maybe not enough new college graduates are taking this up -- there's a quick decline in the number of available liberated laborers to take on the work roles for toilet paper production.

What would be the options here? Supplies are tapering off.

There would have to be a *new* political initiative, by someone, basically saying "Hey, let's get some more liberated laborers on this shit, somehow." Maybe the consumers of that area might look *afield*, to neighboring areas, for such, offering the regular rates for its production. (Maybe those neighboring localities *need* the labor credits, and would welcome the production roles.) Maybe the locality would *innovate* a less-labor-intensive way of producing toilet paper, thus making their supply chain more *efficient*. Maybe the locality would have to put up more labor credits to maintain the status quo.


Its not just the toilet paper folks themselves that will face these types of problems, its also the people who provide the parts necessary for the production of toilet paper-- whether it the paper people, the wood people, the energy people ect. An economy is not stationary. the problem described is not an aberration, but a standard feature of production which any community, including yours, will face.

And your suggestions to solve the problem make perfect sense and are quite rational.

And you are also describing the capitalist mode of production. Which also makes sense as capitalism is the rational mode of production.

[Baseball]

You say "Production decisions cannot simply occur on the level of the individual factory, group of factories, or the community." . But they do! - all the time. Individual enterprises make decisions off their own bat and no one else's. The decision by a factory to introduce a new peice of machinery, for instance, is made by the management of said factory. Not by the community or another factory or whatever. So you are quite wrong on that score.

You keep insisting upon a 'social' mode of production, yet when you get down to describing things, you get into 'atomising' things.
Yes-- the workers can decide to get a particular piece of machinery-- they can decide to work 6 hours per day as opposed to 5, they can decide to structure the workspace however they wish.
BUT-- the desire to get the machine is in response to the actions of others outside the factory; the decision to work 6 hours instead of 5 is in response to the actions of others outside the factory.
Or at least SHOULD be.



Once again, what you say and what I think you are trying to say appear to be two quite different things altogether. What you really mean to say, I think, is that the impact of decisions made by a factory cannot be resticted to the factory itself, it has knock-on consequences for others. I agree but that does not alter the fact that the production decisions were taken by the factory and that factory alone.

As above-- not simply for others, but the actions of others control the decisions made by the original factory.




Really? Under a system of market prices food is destroyed and land taken out of production while hundreds of miillions go hungry. Under a system of market prices there are millions of empty homes going to waste - 6 million in Spain (where I live) alone - while people are forced to live in the streets. And you call this system of market prices "rational" :rolleyes:

Yep. Because again, the issue isn't simply 'homes.'








As I said before we cannot know absolutely for certain what people might want tomorrow because there is always going to be an element of unpredictability. Nevertheless, I maintain that a self regulating system of stock control which extrapolates future demand trends from existing rates of stock depletion is the best and most reliable method for guesstimating what people might want tomorrow., It is based on actual practice - what people do rather than just what they say. If you know of another method that matches a system of stock control in that regard then lets hear . So far you have been very coy about explaining what this other method is

Prices





I dont quite follow what you are trying to say here. A broad hierarchy of production goals which guides the allocation of resoruces in bottleneck situations emanates precisely from, or is rooted in,the general ethos of the community.

I am suggesting that the broad "ethos" is not going to be constant.



It is the people on the ground who would do the actual allocating - who else? Im talking about the production units in question. They would allocate resouces according to how they understand society's broad hierarchy of production goals to be.

Ok-- so "food" is the hierarchy. Within the framework the local production uniits decide upon steak, chicken, corn, carrots, poptato chips ect ect?


However, you cannot issue some priority list to production units in the locality, containing each and every singe conceivable good arranged in strict hierachical order after widespread public consultation. This was Tim's ridiculous interpretation of what was meant by a hierarchy of production goals - that consumers owuld have to decide on some megalist containing millions of different goods or end uses. Thats patently absurd and no one has ever suggested such a thing,

ckhaiatsu has.




This may sound all a bit hit and miss - the process of applying society's sense of priorities to the allocation of resoruces - and in sense it is. However what you and others fail to understand is that we are talking a dynamic process of trial and error.



Providing you have the feedback of public opinion affecting what production units do - and I have explained how this might function - it is no big deal if "mistakes" are committed occasionally and resources are "misallocated" from the point of view of society's own priorities. These mistakes will be made known to the production units via the channels I have outlined. Point being that in a socialist society there will be every incentive to to get things right in terms of what society values

I am seeing a situation of more 'miss' than 'hit.'

[Baseball]

Yes and no. The supermarket is an independent actor in the sense that it itself takes the decision to restock with baked beans and no one else. It does not depend on anyone else to make that decision in other words; it makes it itself. You more or less accept this when you say " its " decisions impacts the baked bean folks by which you mean the decision of the supermarket

But the supermarket is also not independent in the sense that it can make decisions without regard to others. It affects others and is affected by others. Again I dont disagree. This is pretty basic and obvious stuff


But then you make an astounding claim - that there is no "glue" between the various lines of porpduction other than prices (which are not available to a socialist society) having just demonstrated how, in physical terms, cordination between these different lines of prpduction isachieved!!!

It coordinates what was wanted yesterday, not tomorrow.


In week 1 , the socialist distribution store orders 100 cases of baked beansand these are consumed in week 2. Presumably these 100 cases did not just materialise out of thin air. They were produced by the suppliers or manifacturers of baked beans responding to the demands of the store. Those suppliers presumably in turn placed orders with the farmers to deliver more beans. And so on and so forth.

In terms of your very own example there is thus coordination and not chaos as you claim. Youve just shot yourself in the foot, in other words and not for the first time.

Maybe the store doesnt know exactly how many cases of baked beans will be consumed in week 4 but by extrapolating from past trends it will have a shrewd idea. It will also have a buffer of stock to play with to accomodate unexpeceted changes in the pattern of demand which is one of the principles of sound stock control management. At any rate there will be nothing like the "chaos" you melodramatically predict should the demand for baked beans suddenly rise from 100 cases to 103 cases per week . Just a temporary shortage which would translate into an increase in the bulk order ot baked beans next time round

Except of course that means consumers do not have goods and services which they require.
But since none of these producers are independent actors, its not just a question of an error by the supermarket. ALL the lines of production would make decision based upon the same criteria. So an increase in the demand for canned corn places pressure not just on the farmers or canners, but the metal folks (which could be facing an increase in demand for aluminum foil).
Stock control is of no assistance here since it doesn't tell, say, the canners that corn is more of a priority than baked bean. A 'general ethos' says nothing on this question either. Leaving the decision to the canners (ie the production unit) seems an unsatisfactory solution: since they have no guidance here in the area of prices, they can only substitute their best judgement of what they want to do-- and who really cares what the cannery people wish to can? People want the product.




You still dont get it do you? It has been said to you several times not just by me but by others here too - there is absolutely no contraidction in saying that work needs to be strucutred to meet social demand and workers chosing to do the work that they will do Why is it not possible for you to grasp the quite simple point that workers can chose to do work that is "strucured to satsify demand".

OK-- work that is "structured to satisfy demand" is unalterable? t cannot ever be changed? How is changed? Why is it changed?
You talk about 'dynamics' in producton, yet everything rests upon production and demand being stationary.


Why do you automatucally assume that becuase work is "structured to satsify demand". this is soemnthing which workers will "not approve of" or "not wish to do". Isnt gratifying other peoples' needs a fundamental motive in human beings?

If the labor in the shoe factory produces 50 shoes per hour, and that is at a sufficent rate to keep people in footwear, is that workforce structured to satisfy demand? How do you know?

[Ledur]

hm



And you are also describing the capitalist mode of production. Which also makes sense as capitalism is the rational mode of production.

supply-and-demand has nothing to do with capitalism. Supply-and-demand is a basic economic relationship, even old hunter-gatherers, even some animals produce things based on that.

[ckaihatsu]

As they "buy" things, couldn't the system just rank preferences automatically?


Was about to hit the 'Submit Reply' button just now, affirming this, but--

How does requesting something already existing / in-production show an ordered preference in any way -- ?

I suppose that action could automatically put that item to the #1 rank on a person's ongoing list, and, once soon received, that list item would be fulfilled and then removed from the list completely, allowing everything else to move up a place.

Is this what you had in mind?

[robbo203]

You keep insisting upon a 'social' mode of production, yet when you get down to describing things, you get into 'atomising' things.
Yes-- the workers can decide to get a particular piece of machinery-- they can decide to work 6 hours per day as opposed to 5, they can decide to structure the workspace however they wish.
BUT-- the desire to get the machine is in response to the actions of others outside the factory; the decision to work 6 hours instead of 5 is in response to the actions of others outside the factory.
Or at least SHOULD be.


Once again - no one is disputing this . Why do you keep on flogging a dead horse? It is perfectly clear that Ive said not once but many times, production is a socialised process involving interdependent actors. There is no question of me "atomising things" when I get down to decribing things in this way. Saying that decisions are taken by individuals or indiidual entities like businesses - and not by others- does not in any way mean such individuals are not interdependent vis-a-vis others




Yep. Because again, the issue isn't simply 'homes.'


What on earth are you on about? You made the outlandish suggestion earlier that prices are "rational". When I pointed out that under a system of market prices millions of homes are empty while peoiple are forced to sleep on the steets you come up with this guff! What else is the issue about? It is not becuase there are not enough homes or because people dont want the homes. Its is because the price system constitutes an irrational (and monumentally wastefu)l barrier between peoples' desires for a decent home and the satisfaction of those desires





Prices



Yet more nonsense from Baseball! In this case I asked you for a better and more reliable method than stock control for guesstimating what people might want tomorrow and this is the best you can come up with - "prices" Prices indeed! Prices dont tell you what people - or at least not with any great accuracy at all. I gave you the example of the hungry pauper, Pray do tell - how do "prices allow us to quess what he might want in the future by way of a four square meal when he lacks what the economists call "effective demand"? The paupers present want's dont even register in a market economy, let alone his future wants . They slip completely under the radar

Its a joke really to claim that the market economy efficiently coordinates supply and demand and allows us to predict future demand through the mechanism of prices. What do you think the capitalist trade cycle is all about?. It is a function of disproportional growth between different lines of production arising precisely out of the lack of coordination between enterprises . Enterrprises blindly compete in the market hoping to maximise their market share. The problem is everyone else has the same idea as well.. The result is over production in certain markets which spreads to other sectors of the economy and eventually turns into a generalised recession.

So much for prices predicting future wants! Businesses propelled by competition think they can just go on increasing output without limit and that demand for their products will grow without limit as expressed in rising prices. Then they hit the buffers when the future demand they anticpated and relied upon for increased expansion suddlenly fails to grow futher ansd gradually evaporates when workers elsewhere in the economy are laid off and dont have the money to splash out on the consumer goodies out enterprise was intent upon producing

[ckaihatsu]

Its not just the toilet paper folks themselves that will face these types of problems, its also the people who provide the parts necessary for the production of toilet paper-- whether it the paper people, the wood people, the energy people ect.


Agreed -- the supply chains, in other words.





An economy is not stationary. the problem described is not an aberration, but a standard feature of production which any community, including yours, will face.

And your suggestions to solve the problem make perfect sense and are quite rational.


Good to get your imprimatur on this, I guess....





And you are also describing the capitalist mode of production. Which also makes sense as capitalism is the rational mode of production.


To *generalize*, we're simply covering the ground of basic material supply chains.

How the *economics* and *politics* of this material process are socially arranged for such supplying is the whole point of a (revolutionary) politics, though -- so, as usual, we're of different minds on this, of course.

Just for the record I'll remind you and anyone else that the model I advocate does not require or allow the use of capital or of exchangeability between labor credits and material goods / resources / assets.

[Ledur]

Was about to hit the 'Submit Reply' button just now, affirming this, but--

How does requesting something already existing / in-production show an ordered preference in any way -- ?

I suppose that action could automatically put that item to the #1 rank on a person's ongoing list, and, once soon received, that list item would be fulfilled and then removed from the list completely, allowing everything else to move up a place.

Is this what you had in mind?

Your list (household) is filled with things you take from the distribution center.

After a certain period of time - say one month or one year - the system checks, for each item, if a household consumption for that item is above the mean consumption of all households in the same region.

[F]actor = (your consumption) / (mean consumption)

the system ranks factors for each item, from highest to lowest, and then each household has a rudimentary list of what is more important.

I'm not very sure if this specific algorithm would be useful, but I sill think that automatically ranking is possible...

[ckaihatsu]

Your list (household) is filled with things you take from the distribution center.


You mean on a regular basis, like toilet paper -- ? (Then this could make some sense, as a procedural convenience.)

But it *doesn't* make sense if it's any one-off item -- because once fulfilled, it should then be *removed* from the list.





After a certain period of time - say one month or one year - the system checks, for each item, if a household consumption for that item is above the mean consumption of all households in the same region.

[F]actor = (your consumption) / (mean consumption)

the system ranks factors for each item, from highest to lowest, and then each household has a rudimentary list of what is more important.

I'm not very sure if this specific algorithm would be useful, but I sill think that automatically ranking is possible...


This sounds more like a statistical analysis, that could be useful information to the liberated laborers who are handling matters of production and fulfillment.

I won't bicker, though -- it's not up to me, anyway.

[Ledur]

You mean on a regular basis, like toilet paper -- ? (Then this could make some sense, as a procedural convenience.)

But it *doesn't* make sense if it's any one-off item -- because once fulfilled, it should then be *removed* from the list.

I don't understand, why should it be "removed"? That's just a list of everything consumed by a household.

Maybe I didn't get it right: what's the goal of a preference list?

[ckaihatsu]

As above-- not simply for others, but the actions of others control the decisions made by the original factory.


You're over-reaching here -- you're using boogeyman tactics to proffer a supposed "threat" to the sovereignty of a post-capitalist liberated labor, as though such workers would become *wholly subservient* to a mob-like popular will.

I'll assert as an alternative that at any scale of production it will be those who do the actual work of mass production who ultimately have 'veto-power' over their own liberated labor, combined with the use of the collectivized machinery.

However, that said, the mass public would not be *dependent* for production on any one worker, or group of workers. Since liberated labor would always be a subset of the broader public, the sentiment of mass demand could always find *alternatives*, or detours, around any given liberated-labor holdup, such as bringing forth new workers for whatever the task-at-hand happens to be.

In this way we're defining a system of checks-and-balances, but not for a system of hegemonic bourgeois private ownership and its internal decision-making, but instead for a post-capitalist worker-controlled system of industrial mass production for the common good.


---





However, you cannot issue some priority list to production units in the locality, containing each and every singe conceivable good arranged in strict hierachical order after widespread public consultation. This was Tim's ridiculous interpretation of what was meant by a hierarchy of production goals - that consumers owuld have to decide on some megalist containing millions of different goods or end uses. Thats patently absurd and no one has ever suggested such a thing,





ckhaiatsu has.


No, yet again you're mischaracterizing my position, as contained in my model. Here's a clarification of operating principle:





[T]he ranking information should be taken as an 'advisory' by any and all concerned with such matters, like available liberated laborers.





Associated material values

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Material function

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]




Determination of material values

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[ckaihatsu]

I don't understand, why should it be "removed"? That's just a list of everything consumed by a household.

Maybe I didn't get it right: what's the goal of a preference list?


No prob -- think of it as a combination of a weekly grocery shopping list (submitted on a daily basis), with an ongoing 'wish list' for discretionary purchases and political demands.

So, by definition, the demands list, for every individual, is of *unfulfilled* items.

(Also see the excerpts from the model that I provided in my previous post.)

[Ledur]

No prob -- think of it as a combination of a weekly grocery shopping list (submitted on a daily basis), with an ongoing 'wish list' for discretionary purchases and political demands.

So, by definition, the demands list, for every individual, is of *unfulfilled* items.

(Also see the excerpts from the model that I provided in my previous post.)

Ok, got it!

To be honest, ckaihatsu, you should write a book.

Or revleft could provide a wiki, where we could share all our views and models.

[ckaihatsu]

Ok, got it!

To be honest, ckaihatsu, you should write a book.

Or revleft could provide a wiki, where we could share all our views and models.


Well, I'm *doubly* flattered, then, since argeiphontes suggested the same thing....

If this is of any help, what I did for my most recent blog entry was to take good material from some regular posts, and then edit that content down -- I'd say the same thing for anyone else, since the threads are good to 'get things out', and as an 'incubator', while something like a blog post (or whatever) can be an edited 'final product'.

If you have some fairly detailed sense of what the basis would be for our combined collaboration, as you're suggesting, I'd be open to it. I wouldn't want to start, though, unless we know in advance what it is we're trying to do. (Or we could just keep this thread going for now for more on this topic.)

Finally, if you (or any other RevLefter) have a good political concept you want to make into a graphic, feel free to let me know. I worked with someone a year ago on a very good original idea:


Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems
(a cooperative project from Dec. 2012)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2548017&postcount=167

[Paul Cockshott]

The refutation is based Egyptian pharohs and Soviet dictators who relied upon brute force and orders and commands to people to obey?

The point is to illustrate informally and historically at first that calculation in kind has existed and worked. The Misean assertion was that only monetary calculation was a possible basis for rationally organising production. The substantive argument is based on explaining Kantorovitch's method of linear optimisation with worked examples showing how you can optimise for example the use of different power resources - wind power and hydro power arriving at different optimal solutions according to what the population density is.

Do you incidentally have any evidence that the economy of Egypt in the 3rd millenium BC was based on 'brute force'? As far as I was aware the current belief among archaeologists is that the great engineering works were carried out by free men rather than slaves.

[liberlict]

The point is to illustrate informally and historically at first that calculation in kind has existed and worked. The Misean assertion was that only monetary calculation was a possible basis for rationally organising production. The substantive argument is based on explaining T's method of linear optimisation with worked examples showing how you can optimise for example the use of different power resources - wind power and hydro power arriving at different optimal solutions according to what the population density is.

Do you incidentally have any evidence that the economy of Egypt in the 3rd millenium BC was based on 'brute force'? As far as I was aware the current belief among archaeologists is that the great engineering works were carried out by free men rather than slaves.

Thu USSR relied on price signals given out by capitalist countries to price things. There was no calculation in kind at all in the USSR. Perhaps only just the calculations Stalin used regarding how many workers he needed to work to death in order to fulfill his 5 year plans.

[robbo203]

Thu USSR relied on price signals given out by capitalist countries to price things. There was no calculation in kind at all in the USSR. Perhaps only just the calculations Stalin used regarding how many workers he needed to work to death in order to fulfill his 5 year plans.

This is a misunderstanding of what is meant by calculation-in-kind. Any large scale society has to employ calculation in kind - including state capitalist system of the Soviet Union or corporate style capitalism of the USA. You have to be able to physically calculate in kind your stock levels and keep some tabs on the movement of stock to some extent.

In capitalism (of whichever variety) calculation in kind exists alongside monetary calculation. This was equally true oif the Soviet Union. A regulated market economy is still a market economy. Consumer goods were bought and sold in the Soviet union. Producer goods were likewise bought and sold between state enterprises and subject to legal binding contracts. Labour power too was a commodity signifiying that the workers were alienated from the means of prpduction

You might want to argue that a regulated market economy was not a particularly efficient way of operating capitalism insofar as it lacked a reliable method of setting prices and had to depend on price signals from abroad. But this overlooks the extent to which the latter are also based on guesswork.

If western style capitalism was such a reliable source of price signals there would be no such things as economic crises. Nuff said.

[Baseball]

You're over-reaching here -- you're using boogeyman tactics to proffer a supposed "threat" to the sovereignty of a post-capitalist liberated labor, as though such workers would become *wholly subservient* to a mob-like popular will.

I'll assert as an alternative that at any scale of production it will be those who do the actual work of mass production who ultimately have 'veto-power' over their own liberated labor, combined with the use of the collectivized machinery.

What else would be the point of "liberated-labor" performing labor if not to be subservient popular will?



However, that said, the mass public would not be *dependent* for production on any one worker, or group of workers. Since liberated labor would always be a subset of the broader public, the sentiment of mass demand could always find *alternatives*, or detours, around any given liberated-labor holdup, such as bringing forth new workers for whatever the task-at-hand happens to be.

Sounds like that you are agreeing that liberated labor freely declining to labor on needed activities could pose a problem to the community. So how would the community find new "liberated labor" to do the work that old "liberated labor" refused to do? Why would the new folks be anymore desirous to be subservient than the old folks?

[Baseball]

The point is to illustrate informally and historically at first that calculation in kind has existed and worked. The Misean assertion was that only monetary calculation was a possible basis for rationally organising production. The substantive argument is based on explaining Kantorovitch's method of linear optimisation with worked examples showing how you can optimise for example the use of different power resources - wind power and hydro power arriving at different optimal solutions according to what the population density is.

Across a modern economy, yes that was the claim.

[argeiphontes]

Sounds like that you are agreeing that liberated labor freely declining to labor on needed activities could pose a problem to the community. So how would the community find new "liberated labor" to do the work that old "liberated labor" refused to do? Why would the new folks be anymore desirous to be subservient than the old folks?

It's my understanding that in his system, people could decide to increase the labor credits allocated to those workers. If people don't like those jobs, they probably have valid reasons for it. Everybody wants to join my blueberry collective, obviously, but somebody has to work in the steel mill. I don't think ckaihatsu's system is so inflexible that they wouldn't. Also keep in mind that workplaces would be designed and structured to take into account the needs of the workers, making them safer and more pleasant.

[argeiphontes]

Across a modern economy, yes that was the claim.

Speaking of Paul Cockshott's power optimization example, this kind of optimization and calculation is going on all the time in capitalism. Check out https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/giant_battery_ensures_renewable_energy_supply_2013 1209

[Baseball]

It's my understanding that in his system, people could decide to increase the labor credits allocated to those workers. If people don't like those jobs, they probably have valid reasons for it. Everybody wants to join my blueberry collective, obviously, but somebody has to work in the steel mill. I don't think ckaihatsu's system is so inflexible that they wouldn't. Also keep in mind that workplaces would be designed and structured to take into account the needs of the workers, making them safer and more pleasant.

Yes, people would be paid more to work in industries which are more valuable, where there are shortages ect. This also means people would be paid less for work in areas less valuable, where labor is not needed ect.

People would work where they wished to work, under those terms which they agree to work.

HOWEVER, people will be employed to work under terms as defined by those doing the employing.

Nothing has changed. Because now a market (in labor) has been created, using prices (ie pay) to distribute labor amongst the various industries (hell ckhaiatsu has even suggested that jobs could be exported if the local market does not support the prices (pay) sought by liberated labor there, to a locale that would support that pay).
A market cannot just exist in the area of labor.

[Radical Rambler]

My response to this stuff is that the "economic calculation" problem assumes the axioms of NeoClassical economics itself. There is no reason to assume consumers maximize their 'utility' by buying whatever it is they actually buy. In fact, the mere existence of consumer advocacy organizations pretty much refutes this idea.

The "economic calculation problem" asks Marxists to assume that the axioms NeoClassical economics are true. They are actually false, and admittedly so by most economists. Hence, there is no basis to proceed with a discussion.

[Baseball]

Speaking of Paul Cockshott's power optimization example, this kind of optimization and calculation is going on all the time in capitalism. Check out https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/giant_battery_ensures_renewable_energy_supply_2013 1209

This is not calculating in kind. Wind power presents a difficulty in producing electricity. As such, coal remains far more effective in producing electricity. Its better to invest resources in coal to provide electricity.

The article explains that the problems of windpower may be solved. At which case, should it come to pass, calculations would need to be made whether those problems have been sufficiently solved.

[argeiphontes]

This is not calculating in kind. Wind power presents a difficulty in producing electricity. As such, coal remains far more effective in producing electricity. Its better to invest resources in coal to provide electricity.

The article explains that the problems of windpower may be solved. At which case, should it come to pass, calculations would need to be made whether those problems have been sufficiently solved.

Yeah, fair enough, bad example.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Damn, y'all seem pretty concerned with maintaining mass industrial production of consumer goods. Maybe I'm hella backward, but when I think of the "problems" of communist economics, "But how will we know how many iPods to produce?!" doesn't really enter the equation. It seems to me a reflection of bourgeois ideology to imagine "the good life" as premised on a "post-scarcity" economy in which there is no scarcity of consumer goods rather than, I dunno, bioregionally specific autonomous community production.

Since the whole "calculation problem" is predicated on scarcity, I don't know why you're talking about post-scarcity. Your "bioregionally specific autonomous community production" would have to solve the same problem. Even if they're not churning out advanced electronics by the ton or whatever, they might still have need of say, mineral deposits of iron ore that don't require too much energy to recover. Or at least enough energy spare to be able to recycle their scrap, assuming they have enough of it in the first place

On the other hand, a continental system of recycling and extraction would be in a much better position to organise and distribute iron so that surpluses in some subdivisions are used to make up for shortfalls in others. Assuming of course that its operation is not being distorted by a price system.

[ckaihatsu]

You're over-reaching here -- you're using boogeyman tactics to proffer a supposed "threat" to the sovereignty of a post-capitalist liberated labor, as though such workers would become *wholly subservient* to a mob-like popular will.

I'll assert as an alternative that at any scale of production it will be those who do the actual work of mass production who ultimately have 'veto-power' over their own liberated labor, combined with the use of the collectivized machinery.





What else would be the point of "liberated-labor" performing labor if not to be subservient popular will?


Exactly.

The whole *point* of revolution, workers control, etc., is to bring the workers of the world *beyond* the point where their labor participation can just be *assumed*, as it is today.

The reason I use the term *liberated* laborers is because their material / political status would indeed be changed -- there would be nothing anyone could do to *coerce* liberated laborers into providing work effort, if they didn't *inherently* want to do it themselves.





Infrastructure / overhead

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





However, that said, the mass public would not be *dependent* for production on any one worker, or group of workers. Since liberated labor would always be a subset of the broader public, the sentiment of mass demand could always find *alternatives*, or detours, around any given liberated-labor holdup, such as bringing forth new workers for whatever the task-at-hand happens to be.





Sounds like that you are agreeing that liberated labor freely declining to labor on needed activities could pose a problem to the community. So how would the community find new "liberated labor" to do the work that old "liberated labor" refused to do? Why would the new folks be anymore desirous to be subservient than the old folks?


No guarantees -- just saying that there are more fish in the sea, so-to-speak.





It's my understanding that in his system, people could decide to increase the labor credits allocated to those workers.


Yes, if that group of people ('locality') had *already* put in sufficient liberated labor themselves to *possess* that increased number of labor credits -- else they'd have to go into a *debt* of labor credits, meaning that they're resorting to direct exploitation, which would be publicly displayed.





If people don't like those jobs, they probably have valid reasons for it. Everybody wants to join my blueberry collective, obviously, but somebody has to work in the steel mill. I don't think ckaihatsu's system is so inflexible that they wouldn't. Also keep in mind that workplaces would be designed and structured to take into account the needs of the workers, making them safer and more pleasant.


Yes -- and, since all designs and structures can only result from labor efforts, anyway, what you're effectively saying is that liberated laborers would have full *control* over how their own workplaces are designed and structured.





Yes, people would be paid more to work in industries which are more valuable, where there are shortages ect. This also means people would be paid less for work in areas less valuable, where labor is not needed ect.

People would work where they wished to work, under those terms which they agree to work.


Good so far....





HOWEVER, people will be employed to work under terms as defined by those doing the employing.


No -- there would be no 'employment' since that term implies 'wages' and 'necessity to earn wages'.





[W]hat you're not accepting is that all assets and resources -- the means of mass production -- would be socialized, or in the public domain.

The production of goods would be *collectively* decided on -- no more commodities -- so that leaves liberated labor as the final variable, since nothing could happen without its 'services'. Hence labor credits, which only represent labor effort. No 'pay', no 'job', no 'prices'.





Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





Nothing has changed. Because now a market (in labor) has been created, using prices (ie pay)


Nope -- no commodities, thus no labor-commodity, thus no markets or prices or pay.





to distribute labor amongst the various industries (hell ckhaiatsu has even suggested that jobs could be exported if the local market does not support the prices (pay) sought by liberated labor there, to a locale that would support that pay).
A market cannot just exist in the area of labor.


Nice try, again, but you're attempting to assert an independence for market-pricing-of-labor when none exists within the framework you're addressing -- and then you're trying to use that erroneous assertion as a base from which to edge over into asserting a *blanket* commodification (which doesn't exist either).

The reason it's not a market -- though rates of labor credits for labor hours *may* vary from the index somewhat -- is because there's no *independence* for abstract pricing outside of the political economy itself. Any and every divergence (or not) from the indexed rates could only result from a process of collective *political* deliberation, to create an *alternative* policy package (that specifies an alternative rate of pre-existing labor credits).

[Baseball]

[

The whole *point* of revolution, workers control, etc., is to bring the workers of the world *beyond* the point where their labor participation can just be *assumed*, as it is today.

The reason I use the term *liberated* laborers is because their material / political status would indeed be changed -- there would be nothing anyone could do to *coerce* liberated laborers into providing work effort, if they didn't *inherently* want to do it themselves.

Doesn't the latter paragraph depend upon assuming working would wish to do certain tasks?





No guarantees -- just saying that there are more fish in the sea, so-to-speak.

"assuming"






Yes, if that group of people ('locality') had *already* put in sufficient liberated labor themselves to *possess* that increased number of labor credits -- else they'd have to go into a *debt* of labor credits, meaning that they're resorting to direct exploitation, which would be publicly displayed.

And...?


Good so far....

No -- there would be no 'employment' since that term implies 'wages' and 'necessity to earn wages'.

Nope -- no commodities, thus no labor-commodity, thus no markets or prices or pay.

If "liberated labor" has the right to refuse work, because, in their estimation the labor credits accrued them are not worth their efforts, the community must have the same right. They must be be able to refuse to contract with liberated labor if, in their estimation, the work needed is not worth the credits being demanded by liberated labor.
The result will seem to be that labor will be distributed, not as per need (or at least how socialists tend to define need) but according to who can bring the most labor credits to bear.
Its a market.



The reason it's not a market -- though rates of labor credits for labor hours *may* vary from the index somewhat -- is because there's no *independence* for abstract pricing outside of the political economy itself. Any and every divergence (or not) from the indexed rates could only result from a process of collective *political* deliberation, to create an *alternative* policy package (that specifies an alternative rate of pre-existing labor credits).

This sounds like nothing more than 'wage controls'-- labor credits accrued/spent are being tightly controlled.


Which leads to this:
1. Why should "liberated labor" be told how much labor credits can be accrued? It seems rather unliberating.
2. What organization tells, and enforces, such rules on "liberated labor"?

[ckaihatsu]

The whole *point* of revolution, workers control, etc., is to bring the workers of the world *beyond* the point where their labor participation can just be *assumed*, as it is today.

The reason I use the term *liberated* laborers is because their material / political status would indeed be changed -- there would be nothing anyone could do to *coerce* liberated laborers into providing work effort, if they didn't *inherently* want to do it themselves.



[

Doesn't the latter paragraph depend upon assuming working would wish to do certain tasks?


Sure -- I'll grant that there's the assumption that such a political economy would have a basic, general sense of 'social responsibility', including for certain socially necessary tasks. But even if there *wasn't*, it would be possible to address outstanding / unfulfilled social needs through a labor-credit system, for example.





Sounds like that you are agreeing that liberated labor freely declining to labor on needed activities could pose a problem to the community. So how would the community find new "liberated labor" to do the work that old "liberated labor" refused to do? Why would the new folks be anymore desirous to be subservient than the old folks?





No guarantees -- just saying that there are more fish in the sea, so-to-speak.



[

"assuming"


Well, just with today's *existing* technology, a communist-type society would not have any difficulties in taking care of everyone's basic humane needs, with a minimum of labor participation. And, without the constraints of national borders there could be even *more* labor availability, for areas that required it.

I don't know how to address this 'variable' any more definitively since we're necessarily at a loss for specifics, but let's just say that the conditions are favorable for such a worldwide political overhaul.





It's my understanding that in his system, people could decide to increase the labor credits allocated to those workers.





Yes, if that group of people ('locality') had *already* put in sufficient liberated labor themselves to *possess* that increased number of labor credits -- else they'd have to go into a *debt* of labor credits, meaning that they're resorting to direct exploitation, which would be publicly displayed.



[

And...?


And what -- ?

If you mean "What might the implications of that be?", there are two answers....

Either localities in debt would have to find projects elsewhere to work at, to bring back sufficient amounts of labor credits to erase the debt, or else, if localities' debt problems were very commonplace, it would indicate that there isn't enough economic activity going on to make reciprocity possible, commonly.

The concern from a revolutionary point of view would be bad-enough material conditions that would encourage a lapse of economics back into the inferior market-based system -- "black markets".





It occurred to me that the model [...] provides for a kind of 'internal' black market of sorts, should historical material conditions go less-than-smoothly -- which could forestall *actual* black markets from becoming necessary and reappearing.




Since [...] labor credits only account-for work effort on a labor-hours -times- hazard/difficulty basis, *and* allows groups of people (a 'locality') to go into simple (non-financial) debt for the same, this could be considered a 'black market' kind of mechanism should scarcity prevail under such social conditions -- *many* localities could conceivably issue ongoing 'IOUs' (debt-based labor credits), because of difficult conditions.

In other words, if conditions of general material privation prevailed, there might not be any point in attempting to reconcile an overwhelming number of localities' labor-credit debts since not enough liberated-labor might be required on an ongoing reciprocal basis. Yet we could still maintain a collectivized social order without sliding back to exchange-based (black) markets.



[

If "liberated labor" has the right to refuse work, because, in their estimation the labor credits accrued them are not worth their efforts, the community must have the same right. They must be be able to refuse to contract with liberated labor if, in their estimation, the work needed is not worth the credits being demanded by liberated labor.


Agreed.



[

The result will seem to be that labor will be distributed, not as per need (or at least how socialists tend to define need) but according to who can bring the most labor credits to bear.
Its a market.


No, it's *not* a market, because more labor credits doesn't confer more 'purchasing power'. Goods are received according to mass demands -- with the backing of sufficient labor credits, for the necessary liberated-labor for production -- *not* on any given person's "ability to pay".

Sure, there could very well be population subsets of 'workaholics' who tend to look for projects to do, and they may also look for better rates of labor credits, but they wouldn't gain *material* rewards from such dedication -- they would gain the *political* reward of having a greater say in who would be brought on board for projects, going forward, due to their possession of greater numbers of labor credits, compared to the average person.





The reason it's not a market -- though rates of labor credits for labor hours *may* vary from the index somewhat -- is because there's no *independence* for abstract pricing outside of the political economy itself. Any and every divergence (or not) from the indexed rates could only result from a process of collective *political* deliberation, to create an *alternative* policy package (that specifies an alternative rate of pre-existing labor credits).



[

This sounds like nothing more than 'wage controls'-- labor credits accrued/spent are being tightly controlled.


No, no 'wage controls', and no limits on the flows of labor credits -- nothing of the sort is specified or implied.

The index of work-role multipliers (onto each and every labor-hour) would be derived from exit surveys from all work roles, as noted in the model.



[

Which leads to this:
1. Why should "liberated labor" be told how much labor credits can be accrued? It seems rather unliberating.
2. What organization tells, and enforces, such rules on "liberated labor"?


1. No, no limits on how many labor credits an individual can accrue -- keep in mind that labor credits are *non-financial*, and so they directly, proportionately represent the actual *past work* that someone has done. As a person's lifetime is finite, so would be the number of labor credits that they could possibly possess.

2. There would not need to be much in the way of societal oversight -- just enough to keep an eye on the computerized (automated) database processes that underlie the functions of the 'communist supply & demand' framework:





[W]ith contemporary computer technology all of the computational processes required -- for conducting the exit surveys, the sorting and mass-prioritizing of cumulative demands, the tracking of labor credits in circulation, the maintaining of informational wikis about each factory and workplace, the rank-and-file discussions and decision-making, etc. -- could be fully transparent from the source code onward, enabling full public oversight of all of society's political mechanics in realtime.

The 'central authority', or mass co-administration, could realistically be synonymous with full public oversight of these computational processes, thus relieving society of any ambiguities over political procedure.

[liberlict]

robbo203 believes in a society based on 'self determined needs'. Read his treatise.

[ckaihatsu]

Quick note -- just wanted to extend my apologies to argeiphontes, and mitigate my embarrassment, regarding my taking him / you to task over 'terminology', in post #63.

I just came across the following use of the term 'capital goods' and realized *my* understanding of the term was incorrect.





Since the private sector has been unwilling to undertake investment in capital goods like technology, machinery and buildings to generate jobs and increase output, households continue to face unemployment and stagnant incomes.




http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/912.php

[Mrcapitalist]

We do not need prices. We can do our calculations based on labor-time.
No price?That's stupid how am I supposed buy things then?

[Ledur]

No price?That's stupid how am I supposed buy things then?

There's a difference between price and value. You can assign a "value tag" instead of a "price tag" to a good....

Nonetheless, if you don't have a MARKET, then you don't need to do economic calculation the way markets do. Alternatives to the unidimensional value/price system (calculation in kind for example) can eliminate that need. In this thread (and others) you can find some details.