Economic Planning: My Idea

[Marshal of the People]

Greetings comrades.

I would just like to explain my little idea on economic planning in a scoicalist or communist society. I would like constructive critisism and to know if any of you like or dislike my idea.

Thanks from your favourite member.:)

Introduction

So I have come to the opinion that decentralised economic planning is better than centralised economic planning but traditional decentralised economic planning would be very cumbersome to use on a worldwide scale and I think it would not be very efficient so I have com up with my own idea for economic planning which is using computers to do the economic planning in a centralised manner.

Enjoy.


My Idea

In my idea economic planning would be managed by computers.

So for example a consumer (if that is the correct word, otherwise just person) would go to the goods distribution centre (like a shop) and put all the things he wants in his trolley (like food, clothes, games, etc) and when he gets to the checkout he would scan all his products and then scan his 'goods card', what will then happen next is the computers which organise the economic planning would record what he has taken. So over time the computers will be able to predict exactly how much of what needs to be produced (in order to avoid shortages it may be necessary to slightly overproduce, though not by much) and how much of it needs to be produced.


This is just the basics of my idea and I think this system is good but that is just my opinion and would like to no your opinions on this topic and also if you like or dislike my idea.

Thanks comrades.

EDIT: You probably wouldn't need a 'goods card' for this idea to work.

[SovietCommie]

Doesn't sound too bad, you're off too a good start ;)

[Marshal of the People]

Doesn't sound too bad, you're off too a good start ;)

Thanks SovietCommie, I am always open to learning and building upon my views.

[tuwix]

My Idea

In my idea economic planning would be managed by computers.


You probably know that it isn't only your idea and you haven't invented it as first man in the world. :)

But every economic planning has it obstacles. The time of reaction is one of the most important IMHO. When there is lack of some products, capitalist will take a price up. In economic planing, you should increase a production that capitalist is doing too but it has its limits...

Besides you must realize that completely marketless economy is as impossible as complete free market. People will always exchange goods which defines market.

I think the most important think is how to manage a lack of a good. And the solution I like the most is booking a good to use. There is lack of Ferrari's, so you can reserve a usage as one can book a flight or hotel room.

[Marshal of the People]

You probably know that it isn't only your idea and you haven't invented it as first man in the world. :)

But every economic planning has it obstacles. The time of reaction is one of the most important IMHO. When there is lack of some products, capitalist will take a price up. In economic planing, you should increase a production that capitalist is doing too but it has its limits...

Besides you must realize that completely marketless economy is as impossible as complete free market. People will always exchange goods which defines market.

I think the most important think is how to manage a lack of a good. And the solution I like the most is booking a good to use. There is lack of Ferrari's, so you can reserve a usage as one can book a flight or hotel room.

Can you name an idea which was 100% the same? It doesn't really matter who thought of it first (and no idea is 100% the same as another) what matters is you can change it to suit yourself. I am guessing you are in favour of "intellectual" property so I am not going to argue with you. No one has ever created an idea them self, every single idea was spawned from observations of stuff around them or from the ideas of others, it is silly to restrict information and learning and treat it as property to be owned!

What do you mean by "booking a good to use"? I really wouldn't have to book a loaf of bread and then have to wait until it is made, I would rather just go to the depot and take it. And because you are booking it to use you don't actually own, so does that mean you partly digested bread can be confiscated?

[reb]

So where does revolution and class struggle fit into this?

[Marshal of the People]

So where does revolution and class struggle fit into this?

So where do purple unicorns fit into this?

[reb]

So where do purple unicorns fit into this?

I'm asking you how you would get here. Obliviously you at least have a passing knowledge of the words "revolution" and "class" so I was at least hoping that you were competent enough and lucid enough to at least provide me with a material frame work for getting to your idea. Where are the roots of it in real life? Instead, it appears that you are not. If you want to be taken seriously, admit when you don't know what is going on instead of giving a stupid reply that both makes you look dumb and childish.

[Marshal of the People]

I'm asking you how you would get here. Obliviously you at least have a passing knowledge of the words "revolution" and "class" so I was at least hoping that you were competent enough and lucid enough to at least provide me with a material frame work for getting to your idea. Where are the roots of it in real life? Instead, it appears that you are not. If you want to be taken seriously, admit when you don't know what is going on instead of giving a stupid reply that both makes you look dumb and childish.

How was I suppose to know that was a question and not an insult?

[Fourth Internationalist]

So where do purple unicorns fit into this?I, too, am curious about this. Where do they fit into this whole idea?

[Marshal of the People]

So where does revolution and class struggle fit into this?

Well obviously there would need to be a revolution in order to achieve the communist or socialist society. Class struggle is the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois.

[Marshal of the People]

I, too, am curious about this. Where do they fit into this whole idea?

Well the purple unicorns oversee the maintenance of the computer systems while drinking tea.

^ JOKE

[Fourth Internationalist]

Also, wouldn't this technically be central planning? Surely all these computers would be a part of one system where needs would be calculated, no?

[Marshal of the People]

Also, wouldn't this technically be central planning? Surely all these computers would be a part of one system where needs would be calculated, no?

Centrally planned economies are top down and hierarchical. while decentralized ones are bottom up. Centrally planned economies like the one in the Soviet Union were very inefficient because they were planned right up from the top with no input from lower levels. With decentralised planning it is still planned but information from the people are taken into account and it is more efficient in my view. I am pretty sure a computer aided system would be classified as decentralised.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Soviet planners used computers extensively; even the Stalin-era VSNKh and RabKrin had machines for tabulating punched cards.


Centrally planned economies are top down and hierarchical. while decentralized ones are bottom up. Centrally planned economies like the one in the Soviet Union were very inefficient because they were planned right up from the top with no input from lower levels.

Planning "without input from lower levels" is impossible because most economic information is found "at the lower levels". Soviet planners certainly didn't get statistics about production and consumption from the Holy Ghost.

Besides, how would products such as satellites, dams and so on be taken care of in this scheme? No one goes to the store to pick up a carton of milk and a weather satellite.

[Tim Cornelis]

This is more logistics than it is economic planning. The monitoring of consumption is a basic feature of any modern economy but it doesn't answer how many resources are to be used toward what end.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Centrally planned economies are top down and hierarchical. while decentralized ones are bottom up.

What necessitates hierarchy?


Centrally planned economies like the one in the Soviet Union were very inefficient because they were planned right up from the top with no input from lower levels.

Was the Soviet Union a planned economy or was it capitalist?


With decentralised planning it is still planned but information from the people are taken into account and it is more efficient in my view.

That would occur, also, in a centrally planned economy. Input from below is needed in a planned economy.


I am pretty sure a computer aided system would be classified as decentralised.

Not if all the calculations for what needs to be produced came from a central system that all these computer thingies were all connected to, which would be the optimal set-up because it could take into account demand in all other parts of the world for resources.

[Tim Cornelis]

Was the Soviet Union a planned economy or was it capitalist?

They are not mutually exclusive.

[Fourth Internationalist]

They are not mutually exclusive.

They are, actually. You cannot plan capitalist production. Capitalism operates by specific laws that humans can never fully control.

[Tim Cornelis]

They are, actually. You cannot plan capitalist production. Capitalism operates by specific laws that humans can never fully control.

You need elaborate on this a bit. What does it mean that one, supposedly, cannot plan capitalist production? Surely, every single capitalist firm plans on the basis of input and output using market signals? And what laws are these that magically transcend human conduct? Of course, competitive markets escape conscious control by individuals as they are the aggregate of uncoordinated individual choices, but this is different from some law that exists outside of humanity somehow.

But it can verily easily be shown that capitalism can be planned: the Soviet Union. If you say that capitalist production cannot be planned and therefore the USSR was not capitalist, it amounts to circular reasoning. The Soviet Union was capitalist because:


Direct producers confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property or non-property (i.e. the existence of private class property)
The dispossessed working class selling their labour-power to the owners of the means of production (i.e. the existence of a proletariat and wage-labour)
The Soviet proletariat producing commodities and performing unpaid surplus labour (i.e. the extraction of surplus value)
Soviet enterprises conducting exchange through monetary-commodity relations of consumer goods and instruments of labour (i.e. generalised commodity production)
Soviet enterprises being reciprocally autonomous as evidenced by this exchange (i.e. the existence of singular capitals)
Soviet enterprises, operating as singular capitals, confronting each other through this exchange (i.e. the existence of competition of capitals)
The often ruthless pursuit of economic growth through the extraction of surplus value to invest and expand production to produce more surplus value (i.e. the accumulation of capital).
The existence of the law of value can be inferred from the existence of these properties.


Yet it existed in a framework of central planning. Hence, why planning and capitalism are not mutually exclusive.

Preobrazhensky noted the compatibility of economic planning and capitalism:

“The regulation of the whole of capitalist production by the bourgeois state reached a degree unprecedented in the history of capitalism. Production which formally remained commodity production was transformed de facto into planned production in the most important branches. Free competition was abolished, and the working of the law of value in many respects was almost completely replaced by the planning principle of state capitalism.”

[tuwix]

What do you mean by "booking a good to use"? I really wouldn't have to book a loaf of bread and then have to wait until it is made, I would rather just go to the depot and take it. And because you are booking it to use you don't actually own, so does that mean you partly digested bread can be confiscated?

I used an example of Ferrari for purpose. IMHO abolishing of money would be very stupid, if there was a scarcity of bread. The idea of booking can be applied to rare goods that always won't be in sufficient amount. But such things as bread must exceed a world demand before abolishing of money.

[Fourth Internationalist]

You need elaborate on this a bit. What does it mean that one, supposedly, cannot plan capitalist production? Surely, every single capitalist firm plans on the basis of input and output using market signals? And what laws are these that magically transcend human conduct? Of course, competitive markets escape conscious control by individuals as they are the aggregate of uncoordinated individual choices, but this is different from some law that exists outside of humanity somehow.

That's not a planned economy, though, which is what I mean.


But it can verily easily be shown that capitalism can be planned: the Soviet Union. If you say that capitalist production cannot be planned and therefore the USSR was not capitalist, it amounts to circular reasoning.

The Soviet Union was capitalist because:


Direct producers confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property or non-property (i.e. the existence of private class property)
The dispossessed working class selling their labour-power to the owners of the means of production (i.e. the existence of a proletariat and wage-labour)
The Soviet proletariat producing commodities and performing unpaid surplus labour (i.e. the extraction of surplus value)
Soviet enterprises conducting exchange through monetary-commodity relations of consumer goods and instruments of labour (i.e. generalised commodity production)
Soviet enterprises being reciprocally autonomous as evidenced by this exchange (i.e. the existence of singular capitals)
Soviet enterprises, operating as singular capitals, confronting each other through this exchange (i.e. the existence of competition of capitals)
The often ruthless pursuit of economic growth through the extraction of surplus value to invest and expand production to produce more surplus value (i.e. the accumulation of capital).
The existence of the law of value can be inferred from the existence of these properties.


Yet it existed in a framework of central planning. Hence, why planning and capitalism are not mutually exclusive.

Have you considered that the Soviet Union's economy was only nominally planned, but in reality operating by the laws of capitalism?


Preobrazhensky noted the compatibility of economic planning and capitalism:

“The regulation of the whole of capitalist production by the bourgeois state reached a degree unprecedented in the history of capitalism. Production which formally remained commodity production was transformed de facto into planned production in the most important branches. Free competition was abolished, and the working of the law of value in many respects was almost completely replaced by the planning principle of state capitalism.”

That quote is a claim, not really any sort of evidence that a planned economy is compatible with capitalism nor that the law of value was replaced by planning but was still somehow capitalist.

[Tim Cornelis]

That's not a planned economy, though, which is what I mean.

Then what do you mean?


Have you considered that the Soviet Union's economy was only nominally planned, but in reality operating by the laws of capitalism?

I have, but I find it an arbitrary distinction.


That quote is a claim, not really any sort of evidence that a planned economy is compatible with capitalism nor that the law of value was replaced by planning but was still somehow capitalist.

ok.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Direct producers confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property or non-property (i.e. the existence of private class property)
The dispossessed working class selling their labour-power to the owners of the means of production (i.e. the existence of a proletariat and wage-labour)
The Soviet proletariat producing commodities and performing unpaid surplus labour (i.e. the extraction of surplus value)
Soviet enterprises conducting exchange through monetary-commodity relations of consumer goods and instruments of labour (i.e. generalised commodity production)
Soviet enterprises being reciprocally autonomous as evidenced by this exchange (i.e. the existence of singular capitals)
Soviet enterprises, operating as singular capitals, confronting each other through this exchange (i.e. the existence of competition of capitals)
The often ruthless pursuit of economic growth through the extraction of surplus value to invest and expand production to produce more surplus value (i.e. the accumulation of capital).
The existence of the law of value can be inferred from the existence of these properties.


Comrade Cockshott, myself, and other comrades would certainly disagree with your first point entirely and with your fifth and sixth points for the periods before the Kosygin-Liberman reforms.

[the debater]

I think using computers and other advanced technology would definitely be a good idea. Obviously there are other steps that need to be taken, but using technology is a good start. Capitalists will argue that socialism can't do an efficient job of determining what people want and what they don't want. But if we use technology, then we solve the problem of what people want to buy, and how much of it they want to buy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Japan has used technology that is similar to what the OP is talking about.

[Marshal of the People]

Soviet planners used computers extensively; even the Stalin-era VSNKh and RabKrin had machines for tabulating punched cards.



Planning "without input from lower levels" is impossible because most economic information is found "at the lower levels". Soviet planners certainly didn't get statistics about production and consumption from the Holy Ghost.

Besides, how would products such as satellites, dams and so on be taken care of in this scheme? No one goes to the store to pick up a carton of milk and a weather satellite.

Computers are used in capitalist firms also but the computers in the USSR didn't handle the economic planning at all they were just used to aid in it.

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense at all. I never said dams or satellites would be offered to the ordinary citizens and nor do I understand how a command economy (which the Soviet Union definitely was) would not be able to produce these things.

[Marshal of the People]

This is more logistics than it is economic planning. The monitoring of consumption is a basic feature of any modern economy but it doesn't answer how many resources are to be used toward what end.

I guess it is.

The computers would be aware off all resources which are available for use.

[Marshal of the People]

I think using computers and other advanced technology would definitely be a good idea. Obviously there are other steps that need to be taken, but using technology is a good start. Capitalists will argue that socialism can't do an efficient job of determining what people want and what they don't want. But if we use technology, then we solve the problem of what people want to buy, and how much of it they want to buy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Japan has used technology that is similar to what the OP is talking about.

Yes, I agree computers could be very useful in this regard and would blow the capitalist’s theory of "socialism can't work" out of the water (<- If that is the right saying). However I don't know about Japan using a similar system, I should probably look it up someday.

[Marshal of the People]

What necessitates hierarchy?

1. A system of persons or things arranged in a graded order.
2. Any system of persons or things ranked one above another.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hierarchy


Was the Soviet Union a planned economy or was it capitalist?

I would definitely say a planned economy which was state capitalist.

http://www.econ.umn.edu/~evdok003/planning.pdf

http://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1941/ussr-capitalist.htm


That would occur, also, in a centrally planned economy. Input from below is needed in a planned economy.

I actually agree with you on this point now.


Not if all the calculations for what needs to be produced came from a central system that all these computer thingies were all connected to, which would be the optimal set-up because it could take into account demand in all other parts of the world for resources.

Again I agree with you on this point.

[Five Year Plan]

You need elaborate on this a bit. What does it mean that one, supposedly, cannot plan capitalist production? Surely, every single capitalist firm plans on the basis of input and output using market signals? And what laws are these that magically transcend human conduct? Of course, competitive markets escape conscious control by individuals as they are the aggregate of uncoordinated individual choices, but this is different from some law that exists outside of humanity somehow.

But it can verily easily be shown that capitalism can be planned: the Soviet Union. If you say that capitalist production cannot be planned and therefore the USSR was not capitalist, it amounts to circular reasoning. The Soviet Union was capitalist because:


Direct producers confronting the objective conditions of their labour as alien property or non-property (i.e. the existence of private class property)
The dispossessed working class selling their labour-power to the owners of the means of production (i.e. the existence of a proletariat and wage-labour)
The Soviet proletariat producing commodities and performing unpaid surplus labour (i.e. the extraction of surplus value)
Soviet enterprises conducting exchange through monetary-commodity relations of consumer goods and instruments of labour (i.e. generalised commodity production)
Soviet enterprises being reciprocally autonomous as evidenced by this exchange (i.e. the existence of singular capitals)
Soviet enterprises, operating as singular capitals, confronting each other through this exchange (i.e. the existence of competition of capitals)
The often ruthless pursuit of economic growth through the extraction of surplus value to invest and expand production to produce more surplus value (i.e. the accumulation of capital).
The existence of the law of value can be inferred from the existence of these properties.


Yet it existed in a framework of central planning. Hence, why planning and capitalism are not mutually exclusive.

Preobrazhensky noted the compatibility of economic planning and capitalism:

“The regulation of the whole of capitalist production by the bourgeois state reached a degree unprecedented in the history of capitalism. Production which formally remained commodity production was transformed de facto into planned production in the most important branches. Free competition was abolished, and the working of the law of value in many respects was almost completely replaced by the planning principle of state capitalism.”

Obviously value relations operate through people, who think and plan and plot to maximize their position within the ranks of value production. But that scheming to get ahead in rat race is not what most Marxists are referring to when they talk about planning. I think Link's point is that either considerations of maximizing surplus value predominate in an economic relationship, or considerations about concrete needs or desires independent of value predominate. They are opposing forces, so the extent to which one predominates is the extent to which the other is subordinate. Even if there is no law against their co-existing, for better or worse, to some degree. And even if people think and "plan" in the pursuit of maximizing value production.

[AmilcarCabral]

Hi friend, that's a super-advanced futuristic economic social system. I think it would be able to be applied after years of workers-dictatorships (the stage between the overthrow of most capitalist governments and their replacement by workers-states). I think that's almost the same system of anarchist-communist, when the world has ceases to be so barbarian like today. Where the won't be any more civil wars in the middle east, in Africa, where humans themselves, will not be egocentrical anymore. And where many diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and personality disorders like social phobia, depression, paranoia, borderline personality disorders, anger, nervousness etc. would be cured. And many many other problems in this world would be solved.

By the way there is a futuristic political system where people would be ruled by computers, not by humans, I think that system is called technocracy or transhumanist-socialism. I read an article about it on a website, but i forgot the exact link

.



Greetings comrades.

I would just like to explain my little idea on economic planning in a scoicalist or communist society. I would like constructive critisism and to know if any of you like or dislike my idea.

Thanks from your favourite member.:)

Introduction

So I have come to the opinion that decentralised economic planning is better than centralised economic planning but traditional decentralised economic planning would be very cumbersome to use on a worldwide scale and I think it would not be very efficient so I have com up with my own idea for economic planning which is using computers to do the economic planning in a centralised manner.

Enjoy.


My Idea

In my idea economic planning would be managed by computers.

So for example a consumer (if that is the correct word, otherwise just person) would go to the goods distribution centre (like a shop) and put all the things he wants in his trolley (like food, clothes, games, etc) and when he gets to the checkout he would scan all his products and then scan his 'goods card', what will then happen next is the computers which organise the economic planning would record what he has taken. So over time the computers will be able to predict exactly how much of what needs to be produced (in order to avoid shortages it may be necessary to slightly overproduce, though not by much) and how much of it needs to be produced.


This is just the basics of my idea and I think this system is good but that is just my opinion and would like to no your opinions on this topic and also if you like or dislike my idea.

Thanks comrades.

EDIT: You probably wouldn't need a 'goods card' for this idea to work.

[ckaihatsu]

Centrally planned economies are top down and hierarchical. while decentralized ones are bottom up. Centrally planned economies like the one in the Soviet Union were very inefficient because they were planned right up from the top with no input from lower levels. With decentralised planning it is still planned but information from the people are taken into account and it is more efficient in my view. I am pretty sure a computer aided system would be classified as decentralised.


Here's from another thread:





To expand on that you can use computers to manage the economy in a decentrally planned economy.





I'd like to hear more about this, if you would oblige -- I'm very skeptical because computers don't have the capacity for individual autonomy the way *we* do, so they wouldn't actually be *managing* anything in the pro-active sense of the term.

And, a "decentralized" kind of decision-making only begs the question -- if several (productive) entities have the same information in front of them, which one / who would be making the final decision(s) over their coordination in common, as for producing a finished product -- ?

I suppose it could be an *emergent* event, where either cooperation takes place on an ad-hoc basis, or else it doesn't. But, along the way, there could be much 'messiness' where many more entities attempted to coordinate from the beginning but found their efforts fruitless and their time wasted, for whatever reasons. (And this would be very similar politically to the chaos of the market-based planning of today.)


---





[T]he basic idea is to *generalize* productive activity as much as possible, yielding broader and deeper expanses of coordination.

[Comrade #138672]

I am in favor of it, provided that the workers actually control the means of production. But the idea is actually pretty straightforward, especially now with all the advanced technology.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

I just realized I missed this post:


Computers are used in capitalist firms also but the computers in the USSR didn't handle the economic planning at all they were just used to aid in it.

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense at all. I never said dams or satellites would be offered to the ordinary citizens and nor do I understand how a command economy (which the Soviet Union definitely was) would not be able to produce these things.

But "aiding planning" is all that computers can do since, as chkaihatsu points out, computers don't function in the same manner as people do. They can't make political decisions, for example.

As for my last paragraph, you said that:


So for example a consumer (if that is the correct word, otherwise just person) would go to the goods distribution centre (like a shop) and put all the things he wants in his trolley (like food, clothes, games, etc) and when he gets to the checkout he would scan all his products and then scan his 'goods card', what will then happen next is the computers which organise the economic planning would record what he has taken. So over time the computers will be able to predict exactly how much of what needs to be produced (in order to avoid shortages it may be necessary to slightly overproduce, though not by much) and how much of it needs to be produced.

So, how would the planning computers account for the necessity of new factories, satellites, dams, schools, apartment blocks etc.? All of these require expenditure of socially-useful labor power, and their presence or absence impacts the production of other goods. But the need for these things can't be deduced from the behavior of workers-as-consumers. So these computer systems could, at best, plan a portion of the economy.

Also, how would this system deal with fads? If one month most people buy a Tamagochi (god I'm old), the computers will plan for a lot of Tamagochis to be produced next month, even though no one will take them.