Basic Need(and non) Distribution

[Servia]

If a needed good is a ways away, would the community send someone/people to go get it from the community producing it? Like if you lived in a city, obviously there aren't many fields near downtown New York or London

And how would non-basic goods be distributed?

[TSLexi]

The community needing the goods would send someone to the farm to pick them up, and reimburse them for the energy costs involved.

[Slavic]

If a needed good is a ways away, would the community send someone/people to go get it from the community producing it? Like if you lived in a city, obviously there aren't many fields near downtown New York or London

And how would non-basic goods be distributed?


Assuming that this is a post-revolution society in which free access of basic goods has been accomplished. Then I would say that the people in the city would most likely drive out to these farms and ship the good back into the city. Precisely the same way it is done today.

The farming community and the city community are not exchanging goods, nor are they competing with one another. There would be no push back from city or farm laborers bringing excess food from the farms into the city.

[Servia]

They're not exchanging it. They are just taking how ever much is needed. Correct?

And how are non-basic goods distributed? If I want something that isn't essential would there maybe a system (Communist Amazon ;) ) or a factory I could send a request to? Something like that?

EDIT: Also we reach the point of free-access of basic goods by everyone contributing in some manner because there is no division of labor? Every week I could work a few hours in the fields, then some other hours helping to build houses, and then I could spend the rest of time teaching if that's what I wanted to focus on the most.

[Comrade #138672]

They're not exchanging it. They are just taking how ever much is needed. Correct?I would not say "just taking it". Production will be planned to a great extent.


And how are non-basic goods distributed? If I want something that isn't essential would there maybe a system (Communist Amazon ;) ) or a factory I could send a request to? Something like that?Define "non-basic" and "essential".


EDIT: Also we reach the point of free-access of basic goods by everyone contributing in some manner because there is no division of labor? Every week I could work a few hours in the fields, then some other hours helping to build houses, and then I could spend the rest of time teaching if that's what I wanted to focus on the most.

According to Karl Marx:

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

[Servia]

What if all I really wanted to do was one thing?

[Blake's Baby]

I really don't that would be a problem. The only technical problems would be that the thing you want to do might not exist in your area - so you may have to move to do it; and, I guess, it might be a problem if you weren't very good at it I suppose. But I can't see why anyone would want to stop you doing some kind of activity that you wanted. How could (and why would) they?

As to how we get food into central London, I don't think that 8 million Londoners will all be driving out in their private cares to Essex and Surrey to load a sack-full of wheat into the back of the car. I think it's much more likely that the wheat-producing communities in the 'farming belts' around the cities will be organising with the urban communities to have large grain deliveries shipped to 'stores' in the urban communities (this is where N American comrades go 'what?' but by 'stores' I mean 'places to store things', not 'places to go shopping' because they're 'shops').

This is because there will be 'planning' in the sense that the rural communities will be producing food both for themselves and for the urban communities. Obviously communities will not be self sufficient; not everywhere can produce food and water and electricity and gas and textiles and plastics and ... in sufficient quantities for itself (in fact I think the number of communities capable of doing so will be close to zero) and therefore there will be co-ordination. That will completely fall apart if all the time, people from the cities are just driving around the country trying to pick up carrots and whatnot.

[ckaihatsu]

[L]arge grain deliveries [will be] shipped to 'stores' in the urban communities (this is where N American comrades go 'what?' but by 'stores' I mean 'places to store things', not 'places to go shopping' because they're 'shops').


Jeeeeeeeez, we'd better get our terminology pulled together or we're gonna be *fucked* -- !!


x D


Sorry to be the one who breaks it to ya, but the whole *layout* of how crops are raised could very well go 'farmless', due to technological developments:


Vertical farming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming


CCTOR6m3k9w

[Blake's Baby]

And how quickly are you going to roll out these developments Chris?

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.."

I don't think we're immediately going to be able to replace the way we are doing things now. There will be a period of chnging from where we are to where we're going (and I don't think we'll all have robots on day 2 of the revolution either).

[ckaihatsu]

And how quickly are you going to roll out these developments Chris?

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.."

I don't think we're immediately going to be able to replace the way we are doing things now. There will be a period of chnging from where we are to where we're going (and I don't think we'll all have robots on day 2 of the revolution either).


I surmise much would depend on what's most logistically expedient -- if all production currently going to warfare could be quickly retooled to produce these simple cylindrical hydroponic systems instead, and in global-scale quantities, then perhaps not a single inch of soil would ever be used again.

What you're getting at, of course, is a certain *conservatism*, unfortunately, regarding social and technological progress in a revolutionary context. You're laying it out to sound *neutral* and merely *empirical*, but why make this kind of statement / observation *at all*, then, if not for reasons of a more-conservative outlook, BB -- ?

Would *you* be among the ones reminding the rest of us on day 2 of the revolution that's it's only day 2 of the revolution -- ?(!)

[Blake's Baby]

Well, I expect that the industries 'tooled up for war' would still be tooled up for war, because I don't think we'll win the world civil war in less than 24 hours. Or even, even though think it makes me a conservative, within 48 hours.

Conservatism? Not a bit. I'd be very very happy if the entire world bourgeoisie went to sleep one night and woke up as convinced communists the next morning. It would certainly save some tedious and dangerous messing about with nasty things like 'revolution'. However, I have no expectation that it will happen like that. Seemingly, that's a character flaw on my part.

Just close your and wish hard BB! It's Christmas, of course miracles can happen! You just have to believe.....!

[ckaihatsu]

Well, I expect that the industries 'tooled up for war' would still be tooled up for war,


You're mixing timeframes here -- once there's a revolution there would no longer *be* any industries of warmaking, even if all of the equipment was still intact.





because I don't think we'll win the world civil war in less than 24 hours. Or even, even though think it makes me a conservative, within 48 hours.




Conservatism? Not a bit. I'd be very very happy if the entire world bourgeoisie went to sleep one night and woke up as convinced communists the next morning. It would certainly save some tedious and dangerous messing about with nasty things like 'revolution'. However, I have no expectation that it will happen like that. Seemingly, that's a character flaw on my part.

Just close your and wish hard BB! It's Christmas, of course miracles can happen! You just have to believe.....!


I was referring to your (relative) conservatism within the context of revolutionary politics.

I find some comrades to be relatively conservative in their views regarding *how quickly* technological change might be implemented once the bourgeoisie is soundly out of the way.

Admittedly this area is hardly clear-cut, so there's certainly some 'wiggle room' there, but I for one tend to be more full-throttle in inviting a complete turnover to improved, effective ways of doing things, as with these indoor rotating hydroponic carousels for the growing of food, versus conventional industrial farming techniques.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think saying 'we'll win the world revolution and robots will doing all the menial work within 2 days' is at all useful.

And if that's not what you're saying then why don't you actually explain what it is you are saying?

[ckaihatsu]

I don't think saying 'we'll win the world revolution and robots will doing all the menial work within 2 days' is at all useful.


I agree -- that line has become something of a cliche at best, and a stereotype at worst. Nonetheless it's probably the most 'go-to' conception of automation that people have when this kind of topic rolls around in conversation.

(I think it's because it's a *simple* concept -- that present-day workers / toilers could just be instantaneously released from their stations, and something almost identical but made of metal and wires would be put in in their place to do exactly what was formerly done by people.)





And if that's not what you're saying then why don't you actually explain what it is you are saying?


Well, here's what I've already *said*:





[I] for one tend to be more full-throttle in inviting a complete turnover to improved, effective ways of doing things, as with these indoor rotating hydroponic carousels for the growing of food, versus conventional industrial farming techniques.





I surmise much would depend on what's most logistically expedient


And here's from another thread:





[M]any innovations would have to take place, and quickly, to shift the way society makes use of large-scale industrial-type processes. Obviously the connotation of 'industry' is 'dirty, dehumanizing, drab, monotonous, etc.', so much would have to be collectively addressed regarding the materials that society uses, and how such could be provided with a minimum of (industrial-type) work effort, or perhaps with the mass production of *different* materials altogether so as to obviate the conventional distasteful industries that we think of in this context.

If the *processes* employed are less distasteful then there would be far fewer qualms from any given person when it comes to a reasonable participation for it. A post-capitalist workers society would have a collective interest not only in *automating* all mass-production workflows -- as is regularly pointed out -- but also in *humanizing* all work roles and supply-chain workflows, or work itself, basically.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes...

And what content are you giving this? So far it's just disagreeing with the idea that "I don't think we're immediately going to be able to replace the way we are doing things now. There will be a period of chnging from where we are to where we're going (and I don't think we'll all have robots on day 2 of the revolution either)."

So, if you disagree with the idea that we can't immediately change everything, and all manual work won't be automated on day 2 of the revolution - and indeed you dismiss such pessimism as 'conservative' - then you do think that we can immediately change everything, there will be no 'period' of change, and we will have automation on day 2.

Except, you just admitted that you don't believe that.

So, as you've disagreed with not just me but yourself, maybe you can start to clarify your position.

[ckaihatsu]

Yes...

And what content are you giving this? So far it's just disagreeing with the idea


In terms of social transformation *and* technological advancement, I *don't* disagree with the following statement. I *agree* with it:





that "I don't think we're immediately going to be able to replace the way we are doing things now. There will be a period of chnging from where we are to where we're going (and I don't think we'll all have robots on day 2 of the revolution either)."





So, if you disagree with the idea that we can't immediately change everything,


I *don't* think that all of society's current technological methods for production would realistically change overnight, no.





and all manual work won't be automated on day 2 of the revolution - and indeed you dismiss such pessimism as 'conservative' -


You're misrepresenting what I termed to be '[revolutionarily] conservative'. I use the term in regards to the *extent* of technological paradigm shifts, away from current, capitalism-context practices for production.

I don't mean 'conservatism' in the sense of the *pace* of overhaul -- at least not directly.





then you do think that we can immediately change everything, there will be no 'period' of change, and we will have automation on day 2.


No, I deny this.





Except, you just admitted that you don't believe that.

So, as you've disagreed with not just me but yourself, maybe you can start to clarify your position.


Sure -- I think it would first be helpful to differentiate between *social* progress and *technological* progress.

I'd say that the two are dialectically connected, since the latter can advance the former, especially when the technology is fairly broadly distributed -- as with electrification, for example -- and the former can advance the latter, as well, as with more-enlightened attitudes for people's everyday use of technology, like digital music or tablets, for example.

Since the two *are* connected, we can expect a prerequisite of upheaval-type *social* change, as over control of industry, before we'd be able to realize profound advances in the way society uses tools / technology as a whole, for mass production.

Here's another excerpt from another thread about the social *economics* in this direction:





[I]nstead of the current, capital-driven, "supply"-side impetus to economic activity, simply flooding everyone with sufficient monetary resources for purchasing the basics of life would be a *demand*-sided approach, with supply -- labor, especially -- moving to get a slice of that large pool of subsidized demand. (As things are now many taxpayer-subsidized industries like war spending and finance create artificial pools of capital for privileged salaried positions.)

The argument that I'm inching towards is that this overturning of what gets subsidized *might* be sufficient, in and of itself, to either *be* or *supplant* the conventional conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat, since a demand-driven economy would arguably not be dependent on any centralized command functioning -- the source of much political reservation and consternation around the whole dotp principle / proposal.

Once the market-type economy has definitively shifted to serving demand-sided social need, this empirical reality would very much resemble socialism, anyway, since the corollary is that *workers* would be serving social need -- the final step would be for workers to assume full control of their working conditions, since their basic needs would already be fulfilled on an ongoing basis, and then for them to socialize all production away from any vestigal capital-based, market-type functioning.

[Blake's Baby]

Except I've never said that I'm against a total technological revolution. In fact, I rather think that, freed from the necessity to 'deliver a profit', and also freed from the shackles of the 'boss knows best' paradigm inherent in capitalism, technological innovation will explode like never before in the entire duration of human culture. I'm really at a loss to see how the fact that I doubt your ability to roll out large scale agricultural reform quickly enough as being evidence that I want to limit total reform of agriculture and all other productive activities.

I'll put it really simply. Food takes time to grow, And yet, people still need to eat while the food they are going to eat is growing. So there must be some food that is growing - in the old way - while the new techniques are being implemented.

But apparently it is 'conservative' to note this.

[ckaihatsu]

Except I've never said that I'm against a total technological revolution. In fact, I rather think that, freed from the necessity to 'deliver a profit', and also freed from the shackles of the 'boss knows best' paradigm inherent in capitalism, technological innovation will explode like never before in the entire duration of human culture.


Yup.





I'm really at a loss to see how the fact that I doubt your ability to roll out large scale agricultural reform quickly enough as being evidence that I want to limit total reform of agriculture and all other productive activities.


It's just an observation and characterization on my part, based on your general statement / sentiment of post-revolutionary technological change:





I don't think we're immediately going to be able to replace the way we are doing things now. There will be a period of chnging from where we are to where we're going (and I don't think we'll all have robots on day 2 of the revolution either).


This is one of those things where it's all in how you slice it -- I'm basing my 'revolutionarily conservative' characterization on just your statement of general technological sentiment here, and not on any specific proffered timeframes. Again, it's hardly a clear-cut area to begin with.





I'll put it really simply. Food takes time to grow, And yet, people still need to eat while the food they are going to eat is growing. So there must be some food that is growing - in the old way - while the new techniques are being implemented.

But apparently it is 'conservative' to note this.


Okay, this is more specific.

So you're indicating that the revolutionary technological revolution would have one 'food cycle' of delay while the new infrastructure is being implemented, for the changeover.

That's certainly fair enough -- but not a day longer -- ! (grin)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I really don't that would be a problem. The only technical problems would be that the thing you want to do might not exist in your area - so you may have to move to do it; and, I guess, it might be a problem if you weren't very good at it I suppose. But I can't see why anyone would want to stop you doing some kind of activity that you wanted. How could (and why would) they?

As to how we get food into central London, I don't think that 8 million Londoners will all be driving out in their private cares to Essex and Surrey to load a sack-full of wheat into the back of the car. I think it's much more likely that the wheat-producing communities in the 'farming belts' around the cities will be organising with the urban communities to have large grain deliveries shipped to 'stores' in the urban communities (this is where N American comrades go 'what?' but by 'stores' I mean 'places to store things', not 'places to go shopping' because they're 'shops').

This is because there will be 'planning' in the sense that the rural communities will be producing food both for themselves and for the urban communities. Obviously communities will not be self sufficient; not everywhere can produce food and water and electricity and gas and textiles and plastics and ... in sufficient quantities for itself (in fact I think the number of communities capable of doing so will be close to zero) and therefore there will be co-ordination. That will completely fall apart if all the time, people from the cities are just driving around the country trying to pick up carrots and whatnot.

I'm not sure it makes sense to talk of co-ordination as if "communities" are going to be independent. Rather, I would say: the demand for food products in the London area will be assessed, the targets are going to be calculated (and who says the targets will be fulfilled by areas in or close to London? if people in London want durians I don't think opening a small durian plantation in or near London as opposed to just shipping the bastards is a good use of world resources), and then the distribution of goods from production units to the distribution centres will be decided on. This is, I think, an inherently global process.

This also means that there is little chance of products you want not being available in a nearby distribution centre, I think.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm not sure it makes sense to talk of co-ordination as if "communities" are going to be independent...

I don't know what that means.

I don't think communities will be 'independent'. On the contrary, they will be inter-dependent.


... Rather, I would say: the demand for food products in the London area will be assessed, the targets are going to be calculated (and who says the targets will be fulfilled by areas in or close to London? if people in London want durians I don't think opening a small durian plantation in or near London as opposed to just shipping the bastards is a good use of world resources), and then the distribution of goods from production units to the distribution centres will be decided on. This is, I think, an inherently global process.

This also means that there is little chance of products you want not being available in a nearby distribution centre, I think.

I'm rather if the opinion that some things won't be available. Like tea, which is picked in pretty horrendous conditions and I doubt that we're quickly going to come up with alternatives.

Which is a pity, because I really really like tea.

I agree that we''re not going to be producing everything locally. But as a general principle I think that rather than supplying Toronto from Britain and London from Canada, it's going to make sense to use local production where possible. I assume that the 'demands' will be collated upwards and the first level of being able to fulfill them will do. If the communities in London need 100,000 tonnes of wheat (or whatever) and the 'region formerly known as South East England' can supply 75,000 tonnes, then I don't see why it wouldn't.

And I don't why people in Nairobi or Bogata or Lincoln Nebraska need be involved in the organisational process.

[ckaihatsu]

(Please note how this discussion of originally 'need'-based items quickly winds up in 'luxury' -- or 'discretionary' -- terrain....)

(Score!)


'additive prioritizations'

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2784665&postcount=34

[Blake's Baby]

I don't understand what your distinction is between 'need' and 'luxury'. If the Surbiton Assembly decides it 'needs' 20 tonnes of tea, then that's as much a 'need' as 200 tonnes of grain. Likewise bananas or the things that 870 mentioned that I'd never heard of and aparently were only introduced into UK shops earlier this year. I think many (perhaps the majority) of people in Britain would consider tea a basic necessity.

The difference is, Surbiton can get 200 tonnes of grain from agricultural communities in Surrey. The nearest tea-plantations are in Kenya however - and there's no guarantee that tea-pickers in Kenya (or Sri Lanka which is where I was particularly thinking when I mentioned the horror of their conditions) are going to continue picking tea just because people in Britain and Ireland live on the stuff.

So, there's a possibility (a high possibility) that the revolution will seriously affect the ability of people in Britain to drink tea, which is why I mentioned it.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't know what that means.

I don't think communities will be 'independent'. On the contrary, they will be inter-dependent.

Alright, but you still seem to be describing "communities" making decisions "for themselves". I don't think this is at all compatible with the large-scale, objectively socialised nature of modern production. This takes place on the scale of the entire planet, and so that is the scale where it makes sense to plan it.


I'm rather if the opinion that some things won't be available. Like tea, which is picked in pretty horrendous conditions and I doubt that we're quickly going to come up with alternatives.

Which is a pity, because I really really like tea.

I'm fairly sure tea can be picked mechanically. Some complain about the taste but people are going to complain about taste and "authenticity" the moment you mechanise anything. Anyway, I accept the broader point, although I think it will not be as much of a problem, as people are going to have a direct incentive to find alternative methods.


I agree that we''re not going to be producing everything locally. But as a general principle I think that rather than supplying Toronto from Britain and London from Canada, it's going to make sense to use local production where possible. I assume that the 'demands' will be collated upwards and the first level of being able to fulfill them will do. If the communities in London need 100,000 tonnes of wheat (or whatever) and the 'region formerly known as South East England' can supply 75,000 tonnes, then I don't see why it wouldn't.

And I don't why people in Nairobi or Bogata or Lincoln Nebraska need be involved in the organisational process.

It might very well be that what you term a "general principle" will be the case in nine out of ten cases (I used to be able to write in English, honest guvnor). But still, the process of moving things around depends, not just on the distance between places, but on the means of transportation etc. So it might be the case that:

the London Labour Commune needs 100 000 tonnes of wheat;
the London Labour Commune produces 120 000 tonnes of wheat;
the United Gloucester Commune produces 110 000 tonnes of wheat;
the North Essex Labour Commune needs 90 000 tonnes of wheat.

So alright, you would say, let's meet the London demand by London wheat, and Essex demand by the production in Gloucester. But, what's the status of the means of transportation? If there are no ships, planes, whatever, near Gloucester, that can transport the wheat to Essex, but some that can transport it to London, then it actually makes sense to ship the London wheat to Essex, and the Gloucester wheat to London.

And of course, wheat production is going to require inputs from outside the British Isles, and changing the targets for wheat production in is ultimately going to affect people in Nairobi, in Bogota etc. I don't think it makes sense to act as if the modern processes of production can be neatly contained in a single geographical region.


Likewise bananas or the things that 870 mentioned that I'd never heard of and aparently were only introduced into UK shops earlier this year.

Just don't try to eat them. Take it from me, it's not worth it. The smell is quite unbelievable, it's like an onion coated itself with Limburger then died, and was found a year later, thoroughly decomposed and urgh.

[Blake's Baby]

Alright, but you still seem to be describing "communities" making decisions "for themselves". I don't think this is at all compatible with the large-scale, objectively socialised nature of modern production. This takes place on the scale of the entire planet, and so that is the scale where it makes sense to plan it...

I don't think this is true.

I think any kind of worldwide plan of what people should be eating is ridiculous. Send milk to China! They're obviously deficient in producing it! Send gross smelly fruit to Europe, where they don't have any!

It makes sense for 'London' to decide what needs are in London, it doesn't make much sense for Rio and Ulaan Bator to decide that, or even, for London necessarily to debate with Rio and Ulaan Bator what is needed in London. It might be necessary to debate how London can get it, though (especially if it's something produced in South America or Central Asia).


...
I'm fairly sure tea can be picked mechanically. Some complain about the taste but people are going to complain about taste and "authenticity" the moment you mechanise anything. Anyway, I accept the broader point, although I think it will not be as much of a problem, as people are going to have a direct incentive to find alternative methods...

Not sure what the 'direct incentive' of people in Sri Lanka is to find a solution to the problem of people in Britain and Ireland drinking something that comes from nearly 9,000km away.

But I'll drink 'mechanically recovered' tea. I'd drink burnt sawdust in hot water if I could convince myself it was tea.



...
It might very well be that what you term a "general principle" will be the case in nine out of ten cases (I used to be able to write in English, honest guvnor). But still, the process of moving things around depends, not just on the distance between places, but on the means of transportation etc. So it might be the case that:

the London Labour Commune needs 100 000 tonnes of wheat;
the London Labour Commune produces 120 000 tonnes of wheat;
the United Gloucester Commune produces 110 000 tonnes of wheat;
the North Essex Labour Commune needs 90 000 tonnes of wheat.

So alright, you would say, let's meet the London demand by London wheat, and Essex demand by the production in Gloucester. But, what's the status of the means of transportation? If there are no ships, planes, whatever, near Gloucester, that can transport the wheat to Essex, but some that can transport it to London, then it actually makes sense to ship the London wheat to Essex, and the Gloucester wheat to London.

And of course, wheat production is going to require inputs from outside the British Isles, and changing the targets for wheat production in is ultimately going to affect people in Nairobi, in Bogota etc. I don't think it makes sense to act as if the modern processes of production can be neatly contained in a single geographical region...

I agree with both of your points. There will be certain things that will have effects outside of the local area or the region or even sometimes the continent. I don't see that this is a problem. Let's say the 'South American Continental Council' has administrative responsibility for fertiliser production for the whole of the South American continent knowing that this fertiliser will be used worldwide. I don't see why the European Continental Council can't say 'European agriculture needs 40,000 tonnes of fertiliser', 40 tones of which is then sent to Surrey and 80 tonnes to Gloucester. The only problems arise if South America can't meet the need for fertiliser.

I also agree that sometimes it might make sense to move the thing from A where it's needed over to B where it is also needed, while moving a thing from C (where it isn't needed) to A to replace the thing that's been moved to B.

However, I also agree that nine times out of ten (as a 'general principle', which can be transcended in the one-out-of-ten cases when to apply it would produce absurdity) the system I'm proposing would work fine. If it's easier in the long run to do it by another system, do it by another system. I'm all about 'what's going to work best'. I don't think that is going to be served by calling a meeting of the World Soviet every time someone wants to make a sandwich.



...
Just don't try to eat them. Take it from me, it's not worth it. The smell is quite unbelievable, it's like an onion coated itself with Limburger then died, and was found a year later, thoroughly decomposed and urgh.

Noted. I won't try to make tea with them.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Another thought concerning a society in which labour isn't coerced, etc., is as I recall Marx noting, the distinction between town and country may break down. So, for example, in class society there are very real practical reasons to keep food production "over there" and managerial activity downtown, this logic doesn't really have much to do anything that's innate in an imaginable future urbanism.
Certainly, it's my feeling that economies will become increasingly local, and much production - freed from the fetters of global capital - will become an affair taken up quite locally (and, by doing away with the "drag" of transportation, concerns of labour-costs, etc. far more efficiently!). While obviously some regions are better suited to agricultural production, others to catching cod, and so on, I expect the end of capitalism could mean a renewed relationship to local landbases and a real flowering of diversity of production. No more "everyone everywhere eats Florida oranges" - and time for everyone in my city to plant kale everywhere (seriously - that shit survives 'til mid-late November in fucking Canada).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think this is true.

I think any kind of worldwide plan of what people should be eating is ridiculous. Send milk to China! They're obviously deficient in producing it! Send gross smelly fruit to Europe, where they don't have any!

Yeah, I agree. But then, I think any plan of what people should be eating is ridiculous, full stop. I think the purpose of production planning in socialism is to match production to demand - obviously we don't plan demand, then. Demand is an input - e.g., the demand for durian in the period of the next five-month plan is going to be X, which then translates into targets Y1, Y2, Y3... for durian plantations, fertilizer factories, etc. etc.


It makes sense for 'London' to decide what needs are in London, it doesn't make much sense for Rio and Ulaan Bator to decide that, or even, for London necessarily to debate with Rio and Ulaan Bator what is needed in London. It might be necessary to debate how London can get it, though (especially if it's something produced in South America or Central Asia).

Well, again, I agree, it's just that I don't think it makes sense for London to decide what the needs are in London, either. The demand can be predicted on the basis of certain data, even the notorious questionnaire that some people have been so hostile to (I still don't see how it's worse than filling tax forms but whatever), and that's it. If the data says that demand for cocaine is going to be 100 000 units, but you think it should be 10, then bad for you, I guess?


Not sure what the 'direct incentive' of people in Sri Lanka is to find a solution to the problem of people in Britain and Ireland drinking something that comes from nearly 9,000km away.

I imagine some people in Sri Lanka drink tea as well. In addition, there is going to be a lot of former tea-pickers, of which some might want to continue their former work in more tolerable conditions.


But I'll drink 'mechanically recovered' tea. I'd drink burnt sawdust in hot water if I could convince myself it was tea.

I'm pretty sure burnt sawdust is part of the recipe for Kneipp "coffee", but I don't know if that's a local thing or not.


I agree with both of your points. There will be certain things that will have effects outside of the local area or the region or even sometimes the continent. I don't see that this is a problem. Let's say the 'South American Continental Council' has administrative responsibility for fertiliser production for the whole of the South American continent knowing that this fertiliser will be used worldwide. I don't see why the European Continental Council can't say 'European agriculture needs 40,000 tonnes of fertiliser', 40 tones of which is then sent to Surrey and 80 tonnes to Gloucester. The only problems arise if South America can't meet the need for fertiliser.

I also agree that sometimes it might make sense to move the thing from A where it's needed over to B where it is also needed, while moving a thing from C (where it isn't needed) to A to replace the thing that's been moved to B.

However, I also agree that nine times out of ten (as a 'general principle', which can be transcended in the one-out-of-ten cases when to apply it would produce absurdity) the system I'm proposing would work fine. If it's easier in the long run to do it by another system, do it by another system. I'm all about 'what's going to work best'. I don't think that is going to be served by calling a meeting of the World Soviet every time someone wants to make a sandwich.

I don't think the world council will have to be called every time someone wants to make a sandwich. Actually, that would mean resources are being allocated ex post, instead of ex ante as in a "proper" system of planned production. I think we are going to predict the demand for sandwiches for a period, and then set the targets for various production units. Global coordination in this is necessary if we're to avoid different plans interacting and making a mess out of everything.

[ckaihatsu]

I don't understand what your distinction is between 'need' and 'luxury'.


In a post-capitalist context the term 'luxury good' would have a precise definition, meaning anything that wasn't already freely available or could be readily produced in abundance. (Because if something is as commonly available as the air that we breathe then there's no complication involved and thus no need for the formality of an economy of any kind, whatsoever.) (Abundantly available goods would be produced from sheerly voluntarist liberated labor, for the common good -- a 'gift economy'.)







[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.





If the Surbiton Assembly decides it 'needs' 20 tonnes of tea, then that's as much a 'need' as 200 tonnes of grain.


That's easy to *say*, of course, and with the item of tea it sounds *reasonable*, too, since it's such an everyday, commonplace thing.

But, as with all things of consumption, it's a gray-area slippery slope, and as we go further "outward", away from commonly-mass-consumed products, the terrain becomes much more questionable as to whether certain products should automatically be considered 'valid' by a post-capitalist culture of liberated labor, or not.

If a locality, post-capitalism, determines that it happens to need 200 tons of *steel*, that would doubtlessly be an easier thing to accomplish than if a locality happened to put out a call for 200 tons of truffles, fine wine, or furs. One could argue that tea, grain, steel, truffles, fine wine, and furs are all 'needs' since they're all being sincerely requested, and would, of course, be consumed and used by persons themselves, but a socialist-type social order would still be *materialist* and could not blithely ignore reality-based material factors like quality, relative scarcity of resources, difficulty of production, types of labor roles, availability and willingness of liberated labor, and so on.





Likewise bananas or the things that 870 mentioned that I'd never heard of and aparently were only introduced into UK shops earlier this year. I think many (perhaps the majority) of people in Britain would consider tea a basic necessity.

The difference is, Surbiton can get 200 tonnes of grain from agricultural communities in Surrey. The nearest tea-plantations are in Kenya however - and there's no guarantee that tea-pickers in Kenya (or Sri Lanka which is where I was particularly thinking when I mentioned the horror of their conditions) are going to continue picking tea just because people in Britain and Ireland live on the stuff.

So, there's a possibility (a high possibility) that the revolution will seriously affect the ability of people in Britain to drink tea, which is why I mentioned it.


Okay, so you're acknowledging real-world material factors like the willingness of (a future-liberated-) labor in places like Kenya and Sri Lanka. Note that just a moment ago you were saying:





If the Surbiton Assembly decides it 'needs' 20 tonnes of tea, then that's as much a 'need' as 200 tonnes of grain.


But now you've mitigated this sentiment.

[ckaihatsu]

870, I'm seeing some inconsistencies in your framing of 'global socialized production' -- consider:





Alright, but you still seem to be describing "communities" making decisions "for themselves". I don't think this is at all compatible with the large-scale, objectively socialised nature of modern production. This takes place on the scale of the entire planet, and so that is the scale where it makes sense to plan it...





[I] think any plan of what people should be eating is ridiculous, full stop. I think the purpose of production planning in socialism is to match production to demand - obviously we don't plan demand, then. Demand is an input - e.g., the demand for durian in the period of the next five-month plan is going to be X, which then translates into targets Y1, Y2, Y3... for durian plantations, fertilizer factories, etc. etc.




Well, again, I agree, it's just that I don't think it makes sense for London to decide what the needs are in London, either. The demand can be predicted on the basis of certain data, even the notorious questionnaire that some people have been so hostile to (I still don't see how it's worse than filling tax forms but whatever), and that's it. If the data says that demand for cocaine is going to be 100 000 units, but you think it should be 10, then bad for you, I guess?


Basically you're vacillating over two different approaches to the issue of inputs -- you're saying that [1] production planning can be on the basis of past data, extrapolated into algorithmic predictions for future production needs.

But you've also mentioned [2] using questionnaires, which would be a more-*subjective* -- albeit mass-scale -- method of feeding into a determination of 'needs' for production planning. Isn't this equivalent to 'communities making decisions for themselves', a process that you've eschewed as not being objective-enough -- ?

I happen to be all-for a globalized system of balancing inputs and outputs, too, but I think the area where you tend to run into controversy is in not being able to acknowledge, or speak to, conditions on the ground, as for novel consumer preferences. (Possibly also regarding the organic willingness of liberated labor for any given task, though this could just be considered an 'input'.)

[Blake's Baby]

... I think any plan of what people should be eating is ridiculous, full stop. I think the purpose of production planning in socialism is to match production to demand - obviously we don't plan demand, then...

I'd assume demand would be monitored by the community councils, on the basis of expressed wishes and 'stock control', and aggregated from there. Mostly electronically I'd assume.


...
Well, again, I agree, it's just that I don't think it makes sense for London to decide what the needs are in London, either...

I don't understand this. The only people who know what the demand is in London are the people in London, and they know what London's demands are because they're the ones doing the demanding. Why should anyone else know what it is I and my neighbours want?


... The demand can be predicted on the basis of certain data, even the notorious questionnaire that some people have been so hostile to (I still don't see how it's worse than filling tax forms but whatever), and that's it...

Predicted by whom, if not by the councils?


... If the data says that demand for cocaine is going to be 100 000 units, but you think it should be 10, then bad for you, I guess?...

I don't know who 'you' is, and I don't know what you mean by 'should' either, nor what 'data' you mean.

The London metropolitan area is divided into, let's say, 1,000 neighbourhood councils (='communities'). Each council has primary responsibility for distribution of consumer goods in its area. Each council monitors stock at the distribution centres, and collates info on 'future wants'. As I say I expect a lot of this to be done electronically. The All-London Council (= council of councils) collates the info from all the neighbourhood councils, the SE England Regional Council (= council of councils of councils) collates the info from London with other areas of SE England, the European Continental Council (= council of councils of councils of councils) collates the demands from the SE England Region with other regions of Europe... and then talks to the South American Continental Council about cocaine and fertilizer in the World Council.



...
I imagine some people in Sri Lanka drink tea as well. In addition, there is going to be a lot of former tea-pickers, of which some might want to continue their former work in more tolerable conditions...

Certainly. However, different ways of preparing and drinking tea don't necessarily use the same leaves/parts of leaves/harvesting techniques. I know (because I used to be a guilty hippy) that the leaves used to make tea for the European market are (?often? always?) picked in horrible conditions. Whether tea-pickers in Sri Lanka would continue to do such work, or whether it's susceptible to changing techniques and technology, I don't know. I don't know how the leaves used to make South Asian tea are harvested. It's not necessarily by the same process.



...
I'm pretty sure burnt sawdust is part of the recipe for Kneipp "coffee", but I don't know if that's a local thing or not.



I don't think the world council will have to be called every time someone wants to make a sandwich. Actually, that would mean resources are being allocated ex post, instead of ex ante as in a "proper" system of planned production. I think we are going to predict the demand for sandwiches for a period, and then set the targets for various production units. Global coordination in this is necessary if we're to avoid different plans interacting and making a mess out of everything.

OK. We estimate bread demand and set production targets, we estimate butter production and cheese production and set targets for these too - then we distribute these things downwards. It seems to me that production (and planning) of bread, butter and cheese is better done on a regional basis where possible. There's no reason to involve the councils in Abu Dhabi and Johannesburg if what we're talking about is how to get some cheese from Gloucester to London. Abu Dhabi is probably co-ordinating with Dubai and Doha over local dairying and bakery production, and Jo-burg is co-ordinating with Pretoria, Gaberone and Maputo.

Some things won't work on a locaal or regional level. That's fine. they can be done on a continental or world level. But some things are better done locally or regionally I'd say. Decisions should in principle be made at the lowest level that makes sense.




EDIT: there's too much stuff to go into here. Can't manage it all. Chris - I don't agree that there's a difference between 200 tonnes of grain from Surrey and 20 tonnes of tea from Sri Lanka - they're still 'needs' taht the community has defined. But, there isn't really a problem about the 200 tonnes of grain from Surrey. There might be a problem with the 20 tonnes of tea, if former Sri Lankan tea-pickers decide that picking tea is shit work and they don't want to do it any more.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Good grief, I mentioned this thread to another user, then realised I never replied. I blame the parents, personally. I'm not sure whose parents, or what I blame them for, but the point is that I'm not at fault here.

Now that that's out of my system, I think that addressing the previous posts paragraph-by-paragraph would lead to a lot of reduplication. So I will try to keep this concise (don't get your hopes up, though).

Chris, I think the chief distinction here is not between the subjective and the objective, but between the purely administrative and the, for lack of a better term, political, or perhaps civic. More on that later. But as for questionnaires, a very large number of subjective assessments can, if some very weak assumptions hold (that individuals are unlikely to misestimate by more than an order of magnitude, perhaps, and that there is no strong tendency toward either underestimation or overestimation), average out to something that correlates significantly with the objective state of affairs. So I think that a large number of questionnaires, used together with other data, would be a reasonably objective basis for planning production.

And yes, I think the availability of various types of labour is an input of a sort - although a peculiar one as it is most relevant when society is deciding on which plan of production to adopt. So if I think plan proposal #8472 requires too much bricklaying labour, I am going to mention that to the other people who elect my representative to the central soviet or whatever, and if we agree, we will instruct our representative to not vote for proposal #8472.

Blake's Baby, when you talked about "London deciding what needs are in London", I understod this as meaning that the report on the needs in London will be a political decision (again, I use the term 'political' loosely; strictly speaking there will be no politics in socialism, but the difference between routine matters and things that need to be discussed and presumably voted on will remain). In your latest post, however, you seem to be describing a purely technical collation of data. I think that will happen, yes. But I'm not sure local councils (I would say communes but whatever) are the best organs for the job - if nothing else, because if we have individual councils acting under their own authority, who is to guarantee the same standards will be followed when it comes to data collection? I would presume collecting this sort of data, and putting it into a usable form, is going to be the task of some collegium of the centre.

I also think that 'distributing production targets downwards' in the sense that we divide targets according to continents, then presumably the continental councils divide those targets by region, rayon, whatever, and after a few layers of administration (which sounds pointless to me; why would there even be a continental council?) the targets are given out to production units, is inefficient - it tries to solve an optimisation problem by arbitrarily dividing it into smaller problems, and in the process information is loist.

For example, if Malta is under the Europe Council, and the said council is tasked with allocating oil to the island, it might allocate oil from Hungary or even from here, in Croatia (or as I hope it will be known in socialism, the sea of glass where Croatia once stood). But it would be better to allocate oil from Lybia.

Not to mention, all of these units interact. So, what happens when the Europe Council distributes targets and draws up a schedule, and the Africa Council draws up a schedule and distributes targets, and these things inevitably clash? For example Europe wants uranium from Africa in the first quintile, and Africa wants to start producing only in the third quintile (as they don't need the uranium until then). Or Africa and Europe both want to use the same waterways at the same time. So what happens then? The only alternative to some sort of market haggling, as far as I can tell (except the "let the plans interact and hope it turns out fine", which I don't think is a serious proposal), is to collate and tweak all these plans - but that's just central planning with pretty artificial constraints.

So, generally, I don't understand why "things should be done at the lowest level at which it makes sense to do them". To me the principle reeks of thyme and the sort of petty localism that drives me mad, to be honest. A lot of things can be done at very low levels - hell, there are small steel foundries - but this means that we're not taking advantage of the economies of scale. And when it comes to planning, we're losing a lot of information that is hidden in the global interdependence of various production processes. In fact I would say that it's the opposite; when it comes to production, we should plan at the broadest technically feasible level. In Marx's time, it was the level of a 'nation' (even then, it would probably have made sense to combine the Rhine area, Belgium and Northern France). Today it's the planet. We would probably have problems planning for several distant planets - if we colonise other planets, Earth, Old Poseidon, Aquarius and [name not pronounceable by modern humans] are probably going to have to plan their own production until major technical breakthroughs.

As for tea, point taken. I never meant to say socialism will be just like the present society (in fact I regularly attack people on RevLeft who do just that - as in, I'm extremely sarcastic toward this sort of socialism that doesn't change anything; I don't wait for them to come out of their apartments with a hatchet, not yet). Back in the mists of time, meaning the late nineties, I was a big fan of Virgin Cola. I don't think socialism will put it back into distribution centres; if anything it will probably radically simplify the available colas as most people can't tell the differences in taste or are uninterested in the same.

[ckaihatsu]

EDIT: there's too much stuff to go into here. Can't manage it all. Chris - I don't agree that there's a difference between 200 tonnes of grain from Surrey and 20 tonnes of tea from Sri Lanka -




they're still 'needs' taht the community has defined.




But, there isn't really a problem about the 200 tonnes of grain from Surrey. There might be a problem with the 20 tonnes of tea, if former Sri Lankan tea-pickers decide that picking tea is shit work and they don't want to do it any more.


BB, this is a *contradiction* of meaning, then -- you can't describe both grain *and* tea as 'needs', but then differentiate *against* the meaning of 'needs' by admitting that the workers in Sri Lanka might reasonably object to providing their liberated labor for the production of tea for people in the British Isles.


---





Chris, I think the chief distinction here is not between the subjective and the objective, but between the purely administrative and the, for lack of a better term, political, or perhaps civic. More on that later. But as for questionnaires, a very large number of subjective assessments can, if some very weak assumptions hold (that individuals are unlikely to misestimate by more than an order of magnitude, perhaps, and that there is no strong tendency toward either underestimation or overestimation), average out to something that correlates significantly with the objective state of affairs. So I think that a large number of questionnaires, used together with other data, would be a reasonably objective basis for planning production.


Okay, duly noted, 870.

For the record I'll just mention that my own model / approach to the issue is a per-person *prioritization* list (like a shopping list combined with a political-demands list), that is then mass-aggregated and mass-collated by ranking slot (#1, #2, #3, etc.), across any given locality, or group of localities by combined consent:





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




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


---





And yes, I think the availability of various types of labour is an input of a sort - although a peculiar one as it is most relevant when society is deciding on which plan of production to adopt. So if I think plan proposal #8472 requires too much bricklaying labour, I am going to mention that to the other people who elect my representative to the central soviet or whatever, and if we agree, we will instruct our representative to not vote for proposal #8472.


Very good, and I agree in spirit.

I'll (again) note a similar treatment in my own proposed implementation:





labor [supply] -- Work positions are created according to requirements of production runs and projects, by mass political prioritization




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


So while I agree with the *spirit* of your particular approach, I'll point out that the *process* used in this 'communist supply & demand' model is different, in that everyone's daily prioritized demands lists would reflect, cumulatively, which specific plan of production should be implemented, *without* having to use any kind of political representatives / delegation whatsoever.

So if plan proposal #8472 happens to require too much bricklaying labor and those around this initiative make this publicly known, there may be a group that spins-off proposal # eight-four-seven-*three* that *reduces* the allocation of liberated-labor bricklayers, for everyone's consideration and inclusion in the next day's mass-prioritized political demands for that locality (or greater).


---





So, generally, I don't understand why "things should be done at the lowest level at which it makes sense to do them".




[W]hen it comes to production, we should plan at the broadest technically feasible level. In Marx's time, it was the level of a 'nation'




[W]hat happens when the Europe Council distributes targets and draws up a schedule, and the Africa Council draws up a schedule and distributes targets, and these things inevitably clash? For example Europe wants uranium from Africa in the first quintile, and Africa wants to start producing only in the third quintile (as they don't need the uranium until then). Or Africa and Europe both want to use the same waterways at the same time. So what happens then? The only alternative to some sort of market haggling, as far as I can tell (except the "let the plans interact and hope it turns out fine", which I don't think is a serious proposal), is to collate and tweak all these plans - but that's just central planning with pretty artificial constraints.


I don't think we can escape this 'lateralism' issue / dynamic, no matter how much we might try to rise above it -- certainly it's better to *generalize* across greater areas of production, as you're indicating, but there *is* a trade-off to such, that being a diminishing amount of *local control*.

(Consider BB's example of the reasonably reticent Sri Lankan tea workers.)

We could even take the scope down to two *individuals* who happen to show up to the same eatery at the same time during a lunch rush and are both politely told that only one seating is currently available. Of course either one could *defer*, or either one could *leave* to try to find another venue, but, in such a realistic scenario it makes no sense to tell them to 'generalize' at a higher level when such an option only applies when the strategy of *pre*-planning is available.

So, likewise, with your 'continents' scenario, I'd say that the very social *premise* of a socialist society / ethos will be tested in such a case -- they'll just have to work-it-out, with the potential of broader social attentions being lent, for whatever it's worth.

But the conceivable potential for disagreements and disputes doesn't automatically invalidate the *structure* itself -- I see no *inherent* problematics with a series of scale-based 'levels' of planning, so as to theoretically balance-out the structural interests of local-control vs. generalized-scales-of-efficiency. (The scales could be 'entity / household', 'local', 'regional', 'continental', and 'global'.)

[contracycle]

The modern discipline of cost accounting already has reliable mathematical and statistical tools for predicting the scale of future demand, ranging from the global supply chain all the way down to how much to stock the local shops. So there is, in fact, already a whole body of workers trained to deal with precisely these questions.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The modern discipline of cost accounting already has reliable mathematical and statistical tools for predicting the scale of future demand, ranging from the global supply chain all the way down to how much to stock the local shops. So there is, in fact, already a whole body of workers trained to deal with precisely these questions.

The problem is, these models (1) predict demand in capitalist society and (2) have to work just well enough to turn a profit. In socialism, presumably the structure of demand would change (as there would be no price constraints etc.) and success would be based on satisfying demand.

Which is not to say these models will be useless, but I don't think they can just be transposed from one mode of production to another.

[contracycle]

That's certainly true as they exist today, sure. One of their primary functions is to predict, say, whether selling so many units at price X is more or less profitable than selling a different number of units at price Y. But those figures are then fed into calculations for input levels, stock control, transport and storage costs, yada yada. The point, though, is that these techniques are quite robust; although a post-capitalist society would use them for different ends, I don't think there would be any difficulty in using the same techniques.

[Blake's Baby]

Still too much going on. Unfortunately, this doesn't likely to stop. We're losing information by not being local (specific) enough. Instead ofg one thread which tries to contain everything, we need regional (more focussed) discussions.


...

Blake's Baby, when you talked about "London deciding what needs are in London", I understod this as meaning that the report on the needs in London will be a political decision (again, I use the term 'political' loosely; strictly speaking there will be no politics in socialism, but the difference between routine matters and things that need to be discussed and presumably voted on will remain). In your latest post, however, you seem to be describing a purely technical collation of data. I think that will happen, yes. But I'm not sure local councils (I would say communes but whatever) are the best organs for the job - if nothing else, because if we have individual councils acting under their own authority, who is to guarantee the same standards will be followed when it comes to data collection? I would presume collecting this sort of data, and putting it into a usable form, is going to be the task of some collegium of the centre...

I'm not sure what all of this means, so it's difficult to know whether I agree or not.

On 'council' v 'commune', a commune is a base-unit. A council an overarching entity. Communes are face-to-face; we all in the commune chose some dudes to represent us at the 'council', because we can't all go to the decision-making body.

"... individual councils acting under their own authority ..."? The 'collegium of the centre' is the council. But if that 'centre' needs to decide on how South London gets grain from Surrey, it makes little sense for that 'centre' to be in Brasilia. If it's about how often buses run from one part of South London to another part of South London, it makes little sense for that 'centre' to be anywhere other than South London, in my opinion. But if it's about how to supply South London with hydro-electric power, it makes sense to include areas where hydroelectric power is generated, eg in Scotland and Wales. But not really Brasilia again.



... I also think that 'distributing production targets downwards' in the sense that we divide targets according to continents, then presumably the continental councils divide those targets by region, rayon, whatever, and after a few layers of administration (which sounds pointless to me; why would there even be a continental council?) the targets are given out to production units, is inefficient - it tries to solve an optimisation problem by arbitrarily dividing it into smaller problems, and in the process information is loist.

For example, if Malta is under the Europe Council, and the said council is tasked with allocating oil to the island, it might allocate oil from Hungary or even from here, in Croatia (or as I hope it will be known in socialism, the sea of glass where Croatia once stood). But it would be better to allocate oil from Lybia...

Not sure how info is lost. And don't get too hung up on 'continental councils'. 'Macro-regional' is what I'm going for. I can't see how the 'world council' could function as 'the council of 3,000,000 communes'. I can see many instances of organisation where a few thousand or even a hundred thousand communes need to discuss major infrastructure projects or the like but the rest of the world doesn't really need to be involved. But I don't think this organisation needs to be hard-and-fast. Yes, the Mediterranean is a real thing and just because the Ancient Greeks decided the 'Europe' was the north, 'Africa' to the south and 'Asia' to the East, that doesn't mean we have to do the same.

The hypothetical European Council would probably, rather than sending oil from Hungary (or Norway) ask the hypothetical African Council to get some oil shipped from Libya. Or the Mediterranean Council might assign some oil from Libya.

What wouldn't happen is that someone in Brasilia would make the decision to ship oil from Libya to Malta.


... Not to mention, all of these units interact. So, what happens when the Europe Council distributes targets and draws up a schedule, and the Africa Council draws up a schedule and distributes targets, and these things inevitably clash? For example Europe wants uranium from Africa in the first quintile, and Africa wants to start producing only in the third quintile (as they don't need the uranium until then). Or Africa and Europe both want to use the same waterways at the same time. So what happens then? The only alternative to some sort of market haggling, as far as I can tell (except the "let the plans interact and hope it turns out fine", which I don't think is a serious proposal), is to collate and tweak all these plans - but that's just central planning with pretty artificial constraints...

Of course the plans need to be 'collated and tweaked'. They need to be 'collated and tweaked' whatever level of organisation exists. Why wouldn't they? The European Council needs uranium. Africa needs Uranium. Africa has uranium, but doesn't need it yet. Europe does. Why would Africa then say 'you can't have the uranium'? I don't understand what you think is happening here.


... So, generally, I don't understand why "things should be done at the lowest level at which it makes sense to do them". To me the principle reeks of thyme and the sort of petty localism that drives me mad, to be honest. A lot of things can be done at very low levels - hell, there are small steel foundries - but this means that we're not taking advantage of the economies of scale. And when it comes to planning, we're losing a lot of information that is hidden in the global interdependence of various production processes. In fact I would say that it's the opposite; when it comes to production, we should plan at the broadest technically feasible level. In Marx's time, it was the level of a 'nation' (even then, it would probably have made sense to combine the Rhine area, Belgium and Northern France). Today it's the planet. We would probably have problems planning for several distant planets - if we colonise other planets, Earth, Old Poseidon, Aquarius and [name not pronounceable by modern humans] are probably going to have to plan their own production until major technical breakthroughs...

I'm not sure what the difference between 'the lowest level that it makes sense' and 'the biggest level we can' is.

I don't think a system that makes decisions about resource allocation thousands of kilometres away from where the resources come from or are being used makes sense. If the resources are going to be travelling thousands of kilometres or otherwise having a wide impact, then of course make the decision at a bigger scale.

[ckaihatsu]

Here's a good illustration for matters of scale.... Just disregard the 'market' component in it, as already-limited and peripheral as it is....


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

http://s6.postimg.org/cp6z6ed81/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/ccfl07uy5/full/)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Still too much going on. Unfortunately, this doesn't likely to stop. We're losing information by not being local (specific) enough. Instead ofg one thread which tries to contain everything, we need regional (more focussed) discussions.

Perhaps. But I would say it is equally possible that we are disagreeing on the details because our view of "the big picture" is different. For example, you write:

"I can't see how the 'world council' could function as 'the council of 3,000,000 communes'."

And now, I think that even if we had 3 000 000 delegates, it could work. We would have to be careful how we pack them, because we don't want the World Council to become degenerate delegate matter, but I think that, in principle, it's workable. But I also don't think there are going to be that many delegates, because I reject two assumptions that, I think, you make:

(1) each "commune" is going to send one representative to the World Council;

(2) there are going to be around 3 000 000 communes.

And point (2) is connected to, I think, the different ways in which we view how people are going to be housed in socialism. I think, and you're free to correct me on this, that existing villages and hamlets are going to continue existing in socialism, whereas I think that, to put it politely, there is going to be a general Ceausima in the countryside. The existing cities, too, are of course going to be modified, to attain what Marx called the "fusion of town and country".

That is one side of the issue. There is also your contention that a commune would be face-to-face - but more on that later. The point was that disagreements and discussions that, at times, seem unproductive, can come from ignoring "the big picture" just as much as from focusing on it to the extent that details are ignored.

Of course, this goes for human brains, for any reasonably complex problem. We can't look at the entire situation because our brains are finite, and fairly limited, so if we want to broaden our view, we have to ignore or forget some details. But this is not always the case for organisations; these are still finite, of course, but their capacity to process data is significantly greater, and they are much more flexible. The Commission for the General Social Plan can always ask for additional staff; we can't expand our brain by adding new tissue.

So, if we have information about only one region, about only one branch of the production process, etc., we have lost the information about other regions, other branches or the production process, etc. But if we collate all of these information, in one central database, we haven't lost any of the information. It's simply a matter of good filing practices.

(I would also like to add that, today, this would be done electronically, but it doesn't need to be done that way. It could be stored in punched cards and processed via tabulator etc. It would be unwieldy, but it could be done. This is important, I think, because some people seem to think the material prerequisites for socialism include the computer. Well, no, although the electronic computer makes things much easier.)

Anyway, it might seem odd to focus on this so much, but I think the analogy to our own mental capacities is the cause of much skepticism when it comes to central planning - we can't imagine seeing things like technical ratios, demand projections etc. for the entire world, per one production unit or distribution centre, so we assume it can't be done.


I'm not sure what all of this means, so it's difficult to know whether I agree or not.

Yes, it turns out my ability to explain things, already quite limited, atrophies when I have the flue. My sentences also sound stilted and slightly off. But that's never stopped me before, so let's see if I can explain what I mean.

As I said, I don't think politics as such will exist in socialism. There will still, however, be two classes of actions by the public authorities, broadly speaking.

The first are decisions in the full sense. There is something that is disputed - should a new theatre be built in the Greater London Labour Commune? does Dagenham Section need a new school? should Sue Donym, who is ten but interested in public matters and mature enough to discuss them, be given the vote? We assemble, either directly or through appointed representatives, and discuss the matter. Then we try to settle the dispute in some sense, whether seeking consensus on the matter, or a simple majority etc.

The second are purely technical, and should always happen without any discussion. For example, the Rubber Centre relaying targets from the planning commission to Rubber Factory #1014.

I think collecting data about the demand in an area is an example of the second kind of action. As such, I don't see why how it can be described as London "deciding what the needs are in London". Nothing is really being decided, is it? People have needs, and we collect the data about these needs.

This might seem like pointless hair-splitting, but some people do think that, for example, that if the data shows that the demand for cocaine is three kilos per person per day, then that data should be ignored. To me, that would go against the point of production in the socialist society - satisfying demand, no matter what the demand is.


On 'council' v 'commune', a commune is a base-unit. A council an overarching entity. Communes are face-to-face; we all in the commune chose some dudes to represent us at the 'council', because we can't all go to the decision-making body.

I don't think so. Or rather, you can of course call anything you like a "commune", but in the history of the socialist movement, the term referred to the public authority in cities (as it did, in a less direct manner, during the Middle Ages). There was a Paris Commune, a Petrograd Labour Commune, and so on. And I think this is the use most people assume when talking about communes.

What you're talking about are, perhaps, sections. But even sections would be too large, today, to be face-to-face. I'm not sure any administrative unit small enough to be truly face-to-face would be meaningful. What would there be to discuss in such units? What decisions could be made?

I imagine some people want to use them as electoral units, but would that be a good idea? I think it would be useful to decouple electoral from administrative units, for several reasons:

(1) it would stave off any localist tendencies;

(2) it would prevent, to an extent, policies being seen as the result of pressure from particular regions;

(3) electoral units could be restructured more easily.


"... individual councils acting under their own authority ..."? The 'collegium of the centre' is the council. But if that 'centre' needs to decide on how South London gets grain from Surrey, it makes little sense for that 'centre' to be in Brasilia. If it's about how often buses run from one part of South London to another part of South London, it makes little sense for that 'centre' to be anywhere other than South London, in my opinion. But if it's about how to supply South London with hydro-electric power, it makes sense to include areas where hydroelectric power is generated, eg in Scotland and Wales. But not really Brasilia again.

Schedules for public transportation are, I think, something the commune should take care of. But they're not directly relevant to social planning, I would say.

Now, supplying South London with hydro-electric power... I would argue that it is not useful to view the problem in this manner. That is, it seems to me that you think the production and distribution process is a sum of various sub-tasks, for example: supplying London with hydro-electric power, supplying Rangoon with coal power, extracting coal in the Donbas, etc.

And when you put it like that, and use the metaphor of the central level of organisation being physically remote from the place where these sub-tasks are taking place, then some degree of decentralisation sounds plausible.

But I would say that the production and distribution processes can't be viewed in this manner. They aren't simple sums of their components; there is a strong interaction between components, to the extent that any model that attempts to treat them by breaking them down into components (and then maybe adjusting a bit for a weak interaction - what we would call a perturbative calculation in physics) will fail.

I think this can be quantified: any change in the targets for one of the "component processes", let's say A, will result in a change in the targets for other "component processes", B, C, etc., that is comparable to the change in the targets for A.

Likewise for changes in transportation routes and schedules. If anything, the global interdependence of production and distribution is even more pronounced here, as you can get alizarin from madder (I think), or from coal, but there is only a given number of railroads, waterways etc. suitable for heavy freight, and freight vessels can't pass through one another.


Not sure how info is lost. And don't get too hung up on 'continental councils'. 'Macro-regional' is what I'm going for. I can't see how the 'world council' could function as 'the council of 3,000,000 communes'. I can see many instances of organisation where a few thousand or even a hundred thousand communes need to discuss major infrastructure projects or the like but the rest of the world doesn't really need to be involved. But I don't think this organisation needs to be hard-and-fast. Yes, the Mediterranean is a real thing and just because the Ancient Greeks decided the 'Europe' was the north, 'Africa' to the south and 'Asia' to the East, that doesn't mean we have to do the same.

The hypothetical European Council would probably, rather than sending oil from Hungary (or Norway) ask the hypothetical African Council to get some oil shipped from Libya. Or the Mediterranean Council might assign some oil from Libya.

Alright, but this just exacerbates the administrative problem. Previously, the European Council and African Council made plans, and then had to "connect" them, so to speak. But now there is also a Mediterranean Council, and it also needs to make plans, plans for some of the production units in Europe and some in Africa.

So now not only do you need to match the inputs and outputs from Europe to Africa, and from the rest of Europe to the Mediterranean, and from the rest of Africa to the Mediterranean, but also reconcile two sets of targets for production units in the Mediterranean.

I mean, to me all of this sounds like an administrative nightmare. It seems that all the plans would be redrawn and reconciled at the central level:


Of course the plans need to be 'collated and tweaked'. They need to be 'collated and tweaked' whatever level of organisation exists. Why wouldn't they? The European Council needs uranium. Africa needs Uranium. Africa has uranium, but doesn't need it yet. Europe does. Why would Africa then say 'you can't have the uranium'? I don't understand what you think is happening here.

But why have regional plans in the first place? Why not plan centrally from the get-go, particularly since an organ of society that has access to the information about global demand, technical coefficients, the state of the transportation sector etc. can produce a better plan than any organ that has partial information.

(Information is lost because the Council for the Mediterranean has only the information about the Mediterranean, presumably. If it has information about the entire world, then each council acts as an organ of central planning, and you end up with ten-twenty plans to be collated into one.)


I'm not sure what the difference between 'the lowest level that it makes sense' and 'the biggest level we can' is.

But think about it. Automobile manufacture can be organised at the level of an individual enterprise. Not really local (not always), but far from global. It can - but it's not very effective in material terms, is it? Farming can be organised at the level of one family plot.

Whereas, today, the biggest level at which we can plan production and distribution is the planet, and will probably remain so until we invent at least an ansible.



So while I agree with the *spirit* of your particular approach, I'll point out that the *process* used in this 'communist supply & demand' model is different, in that everyone's daily prioritized demands lists would reflect, cumulatively, which specific plan of production should be implemented, *without* having to use any kind of political representatives / delegation whatsoever.

So if plan proposal #8472 happens to require too much bricklaying labor and those around this initiative make this publicly known, there may be a group that spins-off proposal # eight-four-seven-*three* that *reduces* the allocation of liberated-labor bricklayers, for everyone's consideration and inclusion in the next day's mass-prioritized political demands for that locality (or greater).

Alright, fair enough. I think anyone should be allowed to submit a modified proposal, or an original one. Despite names like the Planning Commission etc., these are all working groups. If someone thinks they can do better - well, they can try.

However, I wonder if replacing representatives with prioritisation lists would not also, to a large extent, stifle political debate, particularly if things are being decided on a day-to-day basis.

I'm not saying it's a bad proposal, mind. I haven't thought enough about it to evaluate it, this is just the first thing that came to mind.


I don't think we can escape this 'lateralism' issue / dynamic, no matter how much we might try to rise above it -- certainly it's better to *generalize* across greater areas of production, as you're indicating, but there *is* a trade-off to such, that being a diminishing amount of *local control*.

(Consider BB's example of the reasonably reticent Sri Lankan tea workers.)

Yes, but how would local control help the tea workers? I imagine most Lankans are not tea workers, so they could still be outvoted. What really secures the individual in the socialist society against things like that, I think, is the voluntary, liberated nature of work under socialism. So we won't force anyone to pick tea because we won't force anyone to do anything, period.

But if they want to participate in production, they have to play by the rules of society. I don't think that's unreasonable.

[Blake's Baby]

Perhaps. But I would say it is equally possible that we are disagreeing on the details because our view of "the big picture" is different. For example, you write:

"I can't see how the 'world council' could function as 'the council of 3,000,000 communes'."

And now, I think that even if we had 3 000 000 delegates, it could work...

We're going to have to disagree on that. I don't know how you can actually believe that what you're saying is true. How are 3,000,000 people supposed to discuss with each other? Honestly, how could that be organised (anyway, having reached the end of a veryu long reply, I've realised that I made a mistake with my fag-packet maths and meant 4.5 million delegates, not that it substantially changes either of our points)?

If they aren't actually discussing with each other, then what you are actually talking about is sub-committees. Maybe functional ones - the food sub-committee; the transport sub-committee etc. Or regional ones. But of course, these smaller units would 'lose' information, wouldn't they?



... I also don't think there are going to be that many delegates, because I reject two assumptions that, I think, you make:

(1) each "commune" is going to send one representative to the World Council;

(2) there are going to be around 3 000 000 communes.

And point (2) is connected to, I think, the different ways in which we view how people are going to be housed in socialism. I think, and you're free to correct me on this, that existing villages and hamlets are going to continue existing in socialism, whereas I think that, to put it politely, there is going to be a general Ceausima in the countryside. The existing cities, too, are of course going to be modified, to attain what Marx called the "fusion of town and country"...

Your point is somewhat obscured here so I don't know what you're arguing, because it seems to be:

1 - hamlets will continue to exist;
2 - old buildings in the countryside will be torn down;
3 - and replaced with apartment blocks;
4 - and cities will get more 'countrified'.

'How' we live will change massively. But like everything it starts at the beginning and goes to wherever it's going. Things will change - from here, to there (and then beyond 'there').

What has that to do with how many delegates there'll be to the World Council?

What has that to do with how delegates will be chosen to the World Council (or any other hypothetical Council)?

The World Council would still have some members chosen somehow. Some form of 'lowest unit' would chose delegates for something. If that 'lowest unit' is a group of a million people; OK (and the World Council would still have 7,000 members which is still to large for a debating body). But I'm not a fan of representative democracy, I think 'neighbourhood assemblies' should delegate upwards.





...
That is one side of the issue. There is also your contention that a commune would be face-to-face - but more on that later. The point was that disagreements and discussions that, at times, seem unproductive, can come from ignoring "the big picture" just as much as from focusing on it to the extent that details are ignored.

Of course, this goes for human brains, for any reasonably complex problem. We can't look at the entire situation because our brains are finite, and fairly limited, so if we want to broaden our view, we have to ignore or forget some details. But this is not always the case for organisations; these are still finite, of course, but their capacity to process data is significantly greater, and they are much more flexible. The Commission for the General Social Plan can always ask for additional staff; we can't expand our brain by adding new tissue...

But surely, keeping that data in different brains 'loses' information in the same way as having 'sub-committees' loses information? Surely, if your argument is correct, it's better for one person to know everything, and for them to make all the decisions?

Of course, that's impossible. One person would not be able to hold all of the necessary information. 3,000,000 might. But they couldn't communicate it with each other, because with the best will in the world, if you get more than 200 people in a room even if they talk about whatever it is for several days, you're going to find that 20 people talk half the time and another 50 talk for 45% of the time and 30 people might say one long-ish thing each and 100 say 'yes' or 'no' but not both.





...
So, if we have information about only one region, about only one branch of the production process, etc., we have lost the information about other regions, other branches or the production process, etc. But if we collate all of these information, in one central database, we haven't lost any of the information. It's simply a matter of good filing practices.

(I would also like to add that, today, this would be done electronically, but it doesn't need to be done that way. It could be stored in punched cards and processed via tabulator etc. It would be unwieldy, but it could be done. This is important, I think, because some people seem to think the material prerequisites for socialism include the computer. Well, no, although the electronic computer makes things much easier.)

Anyway, it might seem odd to focus on this so much, but I think the analogy to our own mental capacities is the cause of much skepticism when it comes to central planning - we can't imagine seeing things like technical ratios, demand projections etc. for the entire world, per one production unit or distribution centre, so we assume it can't be done...

No central organisation is capable of being sufficiently clued up to be able to do it. It's a truism of mapping that a 1:1 correspondence is no longer a map. If I want to use a car that is in my home town to drive out into the country to visit someone (even in a decently-organised society there won't be buses on demand) there is no sense in me putting in my request with whatever passes for the transport authority, for someone to pass that to someone in Brasilia to make a decision about, to get it passed back to my local transport office, before I can find out if I can borrow the car.



...
Yes, it turns out my ability to explain things, already quite limited, atrophies when I have the flue. My sentences also sound stilted and slightly off. But that's never stopped me before, so let's see if I can explain what I mean...

Just for information's sake, the word you're looking for is 'flu'. 'Flue' is a a pipe for waste gases.


... As I said, I don't think politics as such will exist in socialism. There will still, however, be two classes of actions by the public authorities, broadly speaking.

The first are decisions in the full sense. There is something that is disputed - should a new theatre be built in the Greater London Labour Commune? does Dagenham Section need a new school? should Sue Donym, who is ten but interested in public matters and mature enough to discuss them, be given the vote? We assemble, either directly or through appointed representatives, and discuss the matter. Then we try to settle the dispute in some sense, whether seeking consensus on the matter, or a simple majority etc...

Right. Who's 'we'? 'We' the inhabitants of the place where we're deciding whether ot not to build a new theatre? Or the World Council? We'll need some gypsum... from Egypt. And some alum, from Canada, and one proposal is that we use nice black bricks from Switzerland...


... The second are purely technical, and should always happen without any discussion. For example, the Rubber Centre relaying targets from the planning commission to Rubber Factory #1014...

This is fine. What if Rubber Factory #1014 can't meet the demand/target/order/requisition/quota (I don't think any of those words is quite right)?


... I think collecting data about the demand in an area is an example of the second kind of action. As such, I don't see why how it can be described as London "deciding what the needs are in London". Nothing is really being decided, is it? People have needs, and we collect the data about these needs...

I don't think the idea of 'needs' is as simple as you make it there. Is a new school a 'need'? I'd say it is, so why isn't there just 'data' about whether Dagenham needs one? 'Needs' are what people decide 'needs' are aren't they? I think there will be a debate about what 'needs' are (BTW, this is an argument I have with Tim too about what 'socially-determined needs' are). I suspect that we'll come up with 'democratic' needs along the lines of current concepts of 'human rights' and I don't think knowing what they are in advance will be automatic. The 'need' for space for example. I think we'll start to set minimum standards for housing that would see many current properties regarded as 'overcrowded'.


... This might seem like pointless hair-splitting, but some people do think that, for example, that if the data shows that the demand for cocaine is three kilos per person per day, then that data should be ignored. To me, that would go against the point of production in the socialist society - satisfying demand, no matter what the demand is...

Why would it be ignored? Queried maybe as anyone taking 3 kilos of cocaine per day would die, so if the world population is consuming 21 million tonnes of cocaine per day then I think someone's made an error with the calculation, but why would we ignore data? We're not talking about a 'government' separate to the people here, but people involved in the 'administration of things'; you're hypothesising that 'some people' think that those doing the demanding are going to be ignoring their own demands when they're deciding whether or not to fulfil the demands that they themselves are making.




... I don't think so. Or rather, you can of course call anything you like a "commune", but in the history of the socialist movement, the term referred to the public authority in cities (as it did, in a less direct manner, during the Middle Ages). There was a Paris Commune, a Petrograd Labour Commune, and so on. And I think this is the use most people assume when talking about communes.

What you're talking about are, perhaps, sections. But even sections would be too large, today, to be face-to-face. I'm not sure any administrative unit small enough to be truly face-to-face would be meaningful. What would there be to discuss in such units? What decisions could be made?...

None, in a situation where the world's largest and most inefficient parliament is in perpetual sitting in Brasilia unable to determine the best use of cars in the Eastern Counties of what was formally England because no-one can get a word in edgeways among the 2,999,999 other delegates.


... I imagine some people want to use them as electoral units, but would that be a good idea? I think it would be useful to decouple electoral from administrative units, for several reasons:

(1) it would stave off any localist tendencies;

(2) it would prevent, to an extent, policies being seen as the result of pressure from particular regions;

(3) electoral units could be restructured more easily...

People live in areas. They occupy space. That's pretty fundamental to being alive. What happens in the space we inhabit is more important to us than what happens in the space we don't inhabit.

We inhabit the earth, and therefore, what happens on (or to) the earth is important to us, but it might not be quite so important as what happens on our street. If my neighbours' house is burning down I'm going to help them get out, try to rescue their stuff, get some buckets of water. If your house is burning down, I'm going to ask if you're all right afterwards and commiserate that you lost your record collection. Being 1,500km away, I don't have the same relationship to your house as I do to my neighbours' house.



...
Schedules for public transportation are, I think, something the commune should take care of. But they're not directly relevant to social planning, I would say.

Now, supplying South London with hydro-electric power... I would argue that it is not useful to view the problem in this manner. That is, it seems to me that you think the production and distribution process is a sum of various sub-tasks, for example: supplying London with hydro-electric power, supplying Rangoon with coal power, extracting coal in the Donbas, etc.

And when you put it like that, and use the metaphor of the central level of organisation being physically remote from the place where these sub-tasks are taking place, then some degree of decentralisation sounds plausible.

But I would say that the production and distribution processes can't be viewed in this manner. They aren't simple sums of their components; there is a strong interaction between components, to the extent that any model that attempts to treat them by breaking them down into components (and then maybe adjusting a bit for a weak interaction - what we would call a perturbative calculation in physics) will fail.

I think this can be quantified: any change in the targets for one of the "component processes", let's say A, will result in a change in the targets for other "component processes", B, C, etc., that is comparable to the change in the targets for A.

Likewise for changes in transportation routes and schedules. If anything, the global interdependence of production and distribution is even more pronounced here, as you can get alizarin from madder (I think), or from coal, but there is only a given number of railroads, waterways etc. suitable for heavy freight, and freight vessels can't pass through one another...

So, do you think that transport policy for South London (and let's not forget, every other community on the planet at the same time) should be decided in Brasilia?



...
Alright, but this just exacerbates the administrative problem. Previously, the European Council and African Council made plans, and then had to "connect" them, so to speak. But now there is also a Mediterranean Council, and it also needs to make plans, plans for some of the production units in Europe and some in Africa.

So now not only do you need to match the inputs and outputs from Europe to Africa, and from the rest of Europe to the Mediterranean, and from the rest of Africa to the Mediterranean, but also reconcile two sets of targets for production units in the Mediterranean.

I mean, to me all of this sounds like an administrative nightmare. It seems that all the plans would be redrawn and reconciled at the central level:



But why have regional plans in the first place? Why not plan centrally from the get-go, particularly since an organ of society that has access to the information about global demand, technical coefficients, the state of the transportation sector etc. can produce a better plan than any organ that has partial information.

(Information is lost because the Council for the Mediterranean has only the information about the Mediterranean, presumably. If it has information about the entire world, then each council acts as an organ of central planning, and you end up with ten-twenty plans to be collated into one.)...

The central organ doesn't have that information. Or if it does, it's suffering from information overload. Currently, I get my food from around 20 different outlets a week. Your system would require the centre to have a way of collating that information 7 billion times over. At the same time, it would need to know average journeys (again, let's say per week) for everyone on the planet. It would need to know the energy and water needs of the 1.4 billion households (or the .7 billion communal dwellings or the 7 million megablocks or the 7 megacities (= 'macro-regions'... or whatever). It would have to know when to turn the streetlights on and off. It would have to know about everything.


... But think about it. Automobile manufacture can be organised at the level of an individual enterprise. Not really local (not always), but far from global. It can - but it's not very effective in material terms, is it? Farming can be organised at the level of one family plot.

Whereas, today, the biggest level at which we can plan production and distribution is the planet, and will probably remain so until we invent at least an ansible...

The most efficient way of organising production is generally in 3 teams of slaves each doing a 16-hour shift. You go through a lot of slaves that way but you can sure crank out those widgets if you don't turn of the widget-machines.

I suspect that we won't want the most 'effective' way of doing things. We'll want to spend our time hanging out with our families, watching avant-garde drama at the new theatre in Dagenham, designing ansibles and arguing with people from Croatia over the internet, won't we?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

We're going to have to disagree on that. I don't know how you can actually believe that what you're saying is true. How are 3,000,000 people supposed to discuss with each other? Honestly, how could that be organised (anyway, having reached the end of a veryu long reply, I've realised that I made a mistake with my fag-packet maths and meant 4.5 million delegates, not that it substantially changes either of our points)?

If they aren't actually discussing with each other, then what you are actually talking about is sub-committees. Maybe functional ones - the food sub-committee; the transport sub-committee etc. Or regional ones. But of course, these smaller units would 'lose' information, wouldn't they?

But why do you assume that every delegate would participate in the discussion? Perhaps I am pessimistic about human thought, but I imagine that, if every of the 3,000,000 delegates spoke, there would be massive amounts of reduplication. Assuming I am the delegate from the curia n. 108, and the delegate of the curia n. 203 has already said everything I wanted to say, barring some minor point perhaps, would me repeating the same things the previous delegate said add anything to the discussion?

The function of delegates is primarily to vote. This can be done with 3,000,000 delegates.


Your point is somewhat obscured here so I don't know what you're arguing, because it seems to be:

1 - hamlets will continue to exist;
2 - old buildings in the countryside will be torn down;
3 - and replaced with apartment blocks;
4 - and cities will get more 'countrified'.

'How' we live will change massively. But like everything it starts at the beginning and goes to wherever it's going. Things will change - from here, to there (and then beyond 'there').

1. was a mistake on my part; I wanted to say that you think, it seems to me, that villages and hamlets will continue to exist in socialism. I think they will be abandoned.


What has that to do with how many delegates there'll be to the World Council?

What has that to do with how delegates will be chosen to the World Council (or any other hypothetical Council)?

As I said, you seemed to assume that communes would elect one delegate to the World Council each, and that there would be around 3,000,000 communes. The point, in any case, was not that the World Council will have less than 3,000,000 delegates (although I think it will), but that the image of socialism we have in our heads is subtly different.


But surely, keeping that data in different brains 'loses' information in the same way as having 'sub-committees' loses information? Surely, if your argument is correct, it's better for one person to know everything, and for them to make all the decisions?

Of course, that's impossible. One person would not be able to hold all of the necessary information. 3,000,000 might. But they couldn't communicate it with each other, because with the best will in the world, if you get more than 200 people in a room even if they talk about whatever it is for several days, you're going to find that 20 people talk half the time and another 50 talk for 45% of the time and 30 people might say one long-ish thing each and 100 say 'yes' or 'no' but not both.

I think it is best for information to be centralised. But in this case, information is not stored in brains; it is stored in records, in databases, and so on. I also don't think the World Council would draw up the plan, or rather plans. They would presumably delegate the responsibility to a commission of some sort. The function of the World Council would, I presume, be to vote to approve or reject the plan.


No central organisation is capable of being sufficiently clued up to be able to do it. It's a truism of mapping that a 1:1 correspondence is no longer a map.

That is true. However, I am not talking about a 1:1 correspondence. The World Council and its Commission for the General Social Plan don't need to know if the various production units have been painted grey or gunmetal, and if the gate at the entrance has straight or curved bars, good grief. What they need to know are technical coefficients, the distance between various production and distribution units (not even their exact position), perhaps things like the various pollutants they release and so on. So we're talking about a mapping from the entire region of the material universe corresponding to the planet Earth, to a set of maybe ten, twenty numbers times the number of production units.

This is far from intractable. It's a matter of the workers punching in some numbers at the end of the shift (or at the end of an agreed-upon period as I don't think there will be shifts in socialism). Hell, the bourgeois government of Chile could do something like that in the seventies.


If I want to use a car that is in my home town to drive out into the country to visit someone (even in a decently-organised society there won't be buses on demand) there is no sense in me putting in my request with whatever passes for the transport authority, for someone to pass that to someone in Brasilia to make a decision about, to get it passed back to my local transport office, before I can find out if I can borrow the car.

But this does not address my argument at all. I realise I am probably making less sense than I usually do, which is an accomplishment in itself, but I believe I have been careful to always talk about the processes of production and distribution. These, I think, should be managed by a global authority. There are other things, that would probably be managed by other bodies. When we want to organise a festival, we will turn to the commune. I think cars will be left, either to individual people, or to associations for car-pooling.


Just for information's sake, the word you're looking for is 'flu'. 'Flue' is a a pipe for waste gases.

I have one of those as well.


Right. Who's 'we'? 'We' the inhabitants of the place where we're deciding whether ot not to build a new theatre? Or the World Council? We'll need some gypsum... from Egypt. And some alum, from Canada, and one proposal is that we use nice black bricks from Switzerland...

Yes, which just means that some decisions by communes are going to generate additional, public demand for certain goods, as opposed to individual demand (the production units themselves also generate demand, but that can be calculated from technical coefficients). So:

(1) we figure out what the demand for consumer goods is; this includes both individual and public demand;

(2) a global authority figures out what the targets are if the global productive forces are to meet this demand;

(3) these targets are communicated to the production units.


This is fine. What if Rubber Factory #1014 can't meet the demand/target/order/requisition/quota (I don't think any of those words is quite right)?

Not much, I would imagine. We try to identify where things went wrong, assuming it was human error, and not the factory burning down or something. Presumably we have surplus production that we can use instead of the production lost at Factory #1014, either as an input to other production units or as a finished consumer good.


I don't think the idea of 'needs' is as simple as you make it there. Is a new school a 'need'? I'd say it is, so why isn't there just 'data' about whether Dagenham needs one? 'Needs' are what people decide 'needs' are aren't they? I think there will be a debate about what 'needs' are (BTW, this is an argument I have with Tim too about what 'socially-determined needs' are). I suspect that we'll come up with 'democratic' needs along the lines of current concepts of 'human rights' and I don't think knowing what they are in advance will be automatic. The 'need' for space for example. I think we'll start to set minimum standards for housing that would see many current properties regarded as 'overcrowded'.

To be honest, I don't place much importance on the distinction between "demand" and "need". Need is simply what individuals want, whether this is expressed as goods to be consumed as individuals or by the population of an area.

Things like standards in housing etc. are bona fide decisions, yes, and I think they will need to be debated and some sort of consensus will need to be reached. I am somewhat surprised by the notion that many current properties would be regarded as overcrowded. I suspect we would vote (it would be nice if that "would" becomes a "will") for different proposals.

But in my original comment, I was talking about individual consumption. If individual A thinks they will want 3 units of stuff per day, the only thing the council can do is note the fact.


Why would it be ignored? Queried maybe as anyone taking 3 kilos of cocaine per day would die, so if the world population is consuming 21 million tonnes of cocaine per day then I think someone's made an error with the calculation, but why would we ignore data? We're not talking about a 'government' separate to the people here, but people involved in the 'administration of things'; you're hypothesising that 'some people' think that those doing the demanding are going to be ignoring their own demands when they're deciding whether or not to fulfil the demands that they themselves are making.

In hindsight, I should have chosen a less lethal drug. Which might well turn out to be the story of my life. But concerning general principles, yes, there is no government over men in socialism. As such, I don't think people will care if someone asked for three kilos of cocaine per day. But there are quite a few people who think that the majority "in the community" should be able to dictate the behaviour of the minority (demand, after all, is not distributed equally across individuals), particularly when it comes to sex, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, meat, and so on. So, these people would probably say that the demand for drugs or alcohol could be voted down in the council. I don't think that would be the case in socialism - I think the very idea would be alien to someone who was born in socialism, to be honest - but that's precisely why I think aggregating individual demand would be a minor, purely technical matter.


People live in areas. They occupy space. That's pretty fundamental to being alive. What happens in the space we inhabit is more important to us than what happens in the space we don't inhabit.

We inhabit the earth, and therefore, what happens on (or to) the earth is important to us, but it might not be quite so important as what happens on our street. If my neighbours' house is burning down I'm going to help them get out, try to rescue their stuff, get some buckets of water. If your house is burning down, I'm going to ask if you're all right afterwards and commiserate that you lost your record collection. Being 1,500km away, I don't have the same relationship to your house as I do to my neighbours' house.

All I can say is that I consider this a particularly limited viewpoint. Already in capitalism, people move around quite a bit, and talk to people from outside "their" community. I think that, in socialism, this will continue and expand, to the extent that the idea of "your" community would be seen as odd.

If a house that is thousands of kilometres away is burning, I can't do anything. If a house that is next to me is burning, I will help if I can, even if it's not in "my" community.

Robbo once called this being "rootless". I can think of no higher compliment.


The most efficient way of organising production is generally in 3 teams of slaves each doing a 16-hour shift. You go through a lot of slaves that way but you can sure crank out those widgets if you don't turn of the widget-machines.

I suspect that we won't want the most 'effective' way of doing things. We'll want to spend our time hanging out with our families, watching avant-garde drama at the new theatre in Dagenham, designing ansibles and arguing with people from Croatia over the internet, won't we?

I don't think we will have families in socialism. I think you're with me on that point.

And yes, generally speaking we will want to have as much free time as possible, and to work as pleasantly as possible. This requires an effective use of resources - not capitalist efficiency in extracting surplus labour, but also not resources being wasted because some people think small is beautiful (ugh). After all, if we spend 1000 units of iron to make 200 units of steel, when we could be spending 800 units, that means that, for given demand, the steelworkers are going to work more.

[ckaihatsu]

So while I agree with the *spirit* of your particular approach, I'll point out that the *process* used in this 'communist supply & demand' model is different, in that everyone's daily prioritized demands lists would reflect, cumulatively, which specific plan of production should be implemented, *without* having to use any kind of political representatives / delegation whatsoever.

So if plan proposal #8472 happens to require too much bricklaying labor and those around this initiative make this publicly known, there may be a group that spins-off proposal # eight-four-seven-*three* that *reduces* the allocation of liberated-labor bricklayers, for everyone's consideration and inclusion in the next day's mass-prioritized political demands for that locality (or greater).





Alright, fair enough. I think anyone should be allowed to submit a modified proposal, or an original one.


Absolutely, and *this* is in the 'spirit' of a truly collectivist-type social order over mass production.

So, on any given day, *anyone* can jump right in and do whatever they -- probably along with a 'core group' of others -- want, to publicize their latest ideas and concrete proposals for XYZ.

Using the vertical-scale configuration of 'entity / household', 'local', 'regional', 'continental', and 'global', this particular proposal might be most appropriate, according to its authors, at the discrete discussion board that applies to Locality 'New Physicalia' (???) (!), which happens to coincide with the geographical location of where I am now, of course, in the Great Lakes region of the continent of North America.

At least one person would have to formally submit it on one particular day, to their own locality as an item on their own 'Individual Political Demands Ranking Sheet' (prioritization list) -- and, so, being important to them, it might be in their rank slot #1. A unique rank-item identifier for it then could be:

'20150106.000.LOC.NewPhys.Sam_Smith_72.0001.INI.Gl obal_Planning_Matrix'


The first eight digits are for the active date, then the next three are for a potential unique 'initiative #' (per day). 'LOC' indicates that the rank-item is for the 'locality' level, and the 'NewPhys' (or whatever) that follows it is the designation for the name of the locality. 'REG' would be for 'region', 'CON' would be for 'continent', and 'GLO' would be for the entire world only. If the rank-item was *not* political (in the sense of multi-person social organization) and was more of a 'personal shopping list' kind of item, then it might look something like this:

'20150106.000.HOU.NewPhys.Sam_Smith_72.0001.ORD.09 149_Kumquats_raw'


So 'HOU' means a 'household'-based item, 'ORD' means it's a consumer-type order, and the title-description at the end is an already-existing food database item (this one taken from the USDA database).

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/2301?qlookup=09149&format=Full&max=25&man=&lfacet=&new=1


If the person was also concerned with the functioning of a nearby production and distribution center, another item might be this:

'20150106.000.ENT.NewPhys.Sam_Smith_72.0002.DEM.Fr esher_kumquats_goddammit',


which would be a #2 rank-position item that's demanding fresher kumquats for themselves from whatever entities, presumably relatively nearby (or not necessarily), would be most appropriate for providing kumquats to Sam Smith.

I have other rank-item types being 'request', 'slot donation', 'proposal', 'funding', 'policy package', 'project', 'production run', and 'liberated labor internal', in addition to the already mentioned 'initiative', 'order', and 'demand'.

Going back to the original, global-oriented initiative,

'20150106.000.LOC.NewPhys.Sam_Smith_72.0001.INI.Gl obal_Planning_Matrix'


We'll see that, after being received by the locality, it would automatically be tallied by being prefixed with a 24-hour timestamp, to become this:

'201501062045.20150106.000.LOC.NewPhys.Sam_Smith_7 2.0001.INI.Global_Planning_Matrix'


Since this item happens to be an 'initiative' it would be publicly displayed, as over the Internet, and others in this 'Global Planning Matrix Advocacy Group' would *reinforce* the support for this initiative by including it in their *own* prioritization lists, but perhaps not until a day or two later....

'20150107.000.LOC.NewPhys.Pat_Jones_73.0001.INI.Gl obal_Planning_Matrix'

and

'20150108.000.LOC.NewPhys.Chris_Williams_70.0001.I NI.Global_Planning_Matrix'


The database tallier would pick-up on the repetition of the title-description, 'Global_Planning_Matrix', over more than one person's lists, and would then assign it an initiative *number*, so that it will be formally designated as an initiative:

'20150107.001.LOC.NewPhys.INI.Global_Planning_Matr ix'


Now, after this point, whenever *anyone* wants to include something pertaining to this 'Global Planning Matrix' initiative -- possibly a *demand*, indicating support -- they only have to reference its assigned initiative identifier number for any prioritization list item of any day:

'20150201.20150107.001.LOC.NewPhys.Alex_Johnson_74 .0005.DEM.Yeah_dawg


And after the tallying timestamp it would become this:

'201502012127.20150201.20150107.001.LOC.NewPhys.Al ex_Johnson_74.0005.DEM.Yeah_dawg'


---





Despite names like the Planning Commission etc., these are all working groups. If someone thinks they can do better - well, they can try.

However, I wonder if replacing representatives with prioritisation lists would not also, to a large extent, stifle political debate, particularly if things are being decided on a day-to-day basis.

I'm not saying it's a bad proposal, mind. I haven't thought enough about it to evaluate it, this is just the first thing that came to mind.


Instead of any fixed 'Planning Commission', which would require a system of elections and official-izing of some sort, we can just use this whole item-by-item process, reiterated daily at all levels and areas, to see and realize a full-view verbatim reflection of all social input, subject to prioritization (since people aren't going to have the patience or time to actually see *all* available rank-items, mass-collated).


---





I don't think we can escape this 'lateralism' issue / dynamic, no matter how much we might try to rise above it -- certainly it's better to *generalize* across greater areas of production, as you're indicating, but there *is* a trade-off to such, that being a diminishing amount of *local control*.

(Consider BB's example of the reasonably reticent Sri Lankan tea workers.)





Yes, but how would local control help the tea workers? I imagine most Lankans are not tea workers, so they could still be outvoted. What really secures the individual in the socialist society against things like that, I think, is the voluntary, liberated nature of work under socialism. So we won't force anyone to pick tea because we won't force anyone to do anything, period.


Well, which is it -- would all conceivably potential Sri Lankan tea workers have local control over their *own labor*, or could they possibly be 'outvoted' -- ?





But if they want to participate in production, they have to play by the rules of society. I don't think that's unreasonable.


Certainly, but we haven't yet reached an alignment on how a liberated-labor production is to be *organized*.

At one extreme would be *no* social organization, or simply *incidental* organization in practice, where either individual-type producers would work in isolation, or else make person-to-person arrangements, with zero guarantees as to outcomes.

At the other extreme would be the dreaded 'top-down' globally monolithic 'blueprint' social organization, where everyone is obliged to commit to a set schedule of labor for the period of the forthcoming five years -- and, in the interests of a rational global social production, anyone could be arbitrarily reassigned at any point so that things all balance-out, according to the unchecked requirements of mass consumer demand.

I have my 'labor credits' and 'communist supply & demand' framework as a proposal to address this whole political-logistical situation.





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

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Instead of any fixed 'Planning Commission', which would require a system of elections and official-izing of some sort, we can just use this whole item-by-item process, reiterated daily at all levels and areas, to see and realize a full-view verbatim reflection of all social input, subject to prioritization (since people aren't going to have the patience or time to actually see *all* available rank-items, mass-collated).

There might be elections for the planning commission. Or, perhaps more likely, the commission would be filled by a combination of appointments by the central deliberative body, co-optation, and volunteer work. I don't think, however, that there would be much "officialising". The planning commission, the poncey title aside, is simply one of the work groups of the socialist society. Other such groups could be formed, to present their own proposals, but this one is appointed to assure that, in any case, we have at least one plan to consider.

As for this sort of day-by-day planning, unless we can draw up, discuss and vote on a plan in one day, what would happen is that the figures for projected demand would constantly change, meaning the plan could never be drawn up in full.

Or have I misunderstood something?


Well, which is it -- would all conceivably potential Sri Lankan tea workers have local control over their *own labor*, or could they possibly be 'outvoted' -- ?

Well, yes and yes. Whether individuals work, where they work and when they work would obviously be up to them. At best, we could ask them - "hey, there's a really bad shortage of medical workers, so we're wondering if you could maybe help out". And I think that would work in most cases; after all, people donate blood, and whereas work can be pleasant, donating blood rarely is (although I do know... yeah, let's not go there).

On the other hand, they could be outvoted when it came to setting targets and production schedules. They don't have to participate in the production process, but if they do they have to follow the general social plan.



Certainly, but we haven't yet reached an alignment on how a liberated-labor production is to be *organized*.

At one extreme would be *no* social organization, or simply *incidental* organization in practice, where either individual-type producers would work in isolation, or else make person-to-person arrangements, with zero guarantees as to outcomes.

At the other extreme would be the dreaded 'top-down' globally monolithic 'blueprint' social organization, where everyone is obliged to commit to a set schedule of labor for the period of the forthcoming five years -- and, in the interests of a rational global social production, anyone could be arbitrarily reassigned at any point so that things all balance-out, according to the unchecked requirements of mass consumer demand.

I have my 'labor credits' and 'communist supply & demand' framework as a proposal to address this whole political-logistical situation.

I think two things are being conflated here; organisation and compulsion. Obviously in the socialist society, production is highly organised, but at the same time there is no compulsion. The members of the socialist society can draw up the general production plan, see how many labour-hours will be necessary and where, and then see if that's alright with them. Obviously it's never going to be as simple as that; probably at some point we would face the difficult decision: do I put in extra hours shoveling fertilizer, or risk there not being enough chocolate?

But on the assumption that the "government over men" has withered away, we can't force anyone to work. Like I said, at best we can ask them to. I think that's a good thing, not only because I wouldn't particularly want to be forced to work, but because work is of the highest quality when it is an expression of the human need for activity and, although some would disagree, play. I think having some sort of labour credit system that would gently force people to do things they don't want to would also work against that.

[ckaihatsu]

There might be elections for the planning commission. Or, perhaps more likely, the commission would be filled by a combination of appointments by the central deliberative body, co-optation, and volunteer work. I don't think, however, that there would be much "officialising". The planning commission, the poncey title aside, is simply one of the work groups of the socialist society. Other such groups could be formed, to present their own proposals, but this one is appointed to assure that, in any case, we have at least one plan to consider.




As for this sort of day-by-day planning, unless we can draw up, discuss and vote on a plan in one day, what would happen is that the figures for projected demand would constantly change, meaning the plan could never be drawn up in full.

Or have I misunderstood something?


Instead of 'day-by-day *planning*', I'll encourage the understanding of 'day-by-day *inputs*'. Given the social premise of a 1-through-infinity list of demands a person can formally put into the collective political economy, every day, what might people do with this -- ?

There'd be nothing to *preclude* more-decisive, definitive group planning and scheduling, so if *timetables* should need to be drawn up, that's certainly doable. At some point a locality's top-twenty collated demands might include 'Proposal Get-It-Going-by-Tuesday', while a close version, spun-off by a rival group, may happen to land just *above* it, called 'Proposal Get-It-Going-by-Monday'.

If both the 'Tuesday' and the 'Monday' groups are, indeed, ready to go and both are able to implement their respectively backed plans according to their respective timetables, then for this 'run-off' situation there would have to be a separate 'process' initiative that set a selection deadline *up-front* -- but not necessarily.

Most likely 'Tuesday' vs. 'Monday' didn't happen overnight -- rather, it was the culmination of some concern over some collective (public) situation regarding Area 'M', which was discussed at length, perhaps on discussion boards like RevLeft. At some point someone may have said something like 'Hey, enough talk -- let's get some proposals going on this, and let's give them a deadline of six months, and then whoever's proposal is in the lead will be the one selected.'

But since the world isn't so neat and tidy, it turned out that someone *else* then said '*Six* months? Screw that -- it should be *four* months, tops, and even *that's* too generous a timeframe, in my opinion.'

So before 'Tuesday vs. Monday' could even happen, there has to be 'six months vs. four months' for setting the date of the deadline.

Yes, one could certainly point out here that this process could possibly go backwards endlessly, with countless 'pre'-proposals about when to set the deadline for the decision of the *succeeding* proposal -- in other words, what's the deadline for seeing the results of 'six months vs. four months' in the locality's daily collated list of prioritized demands -- ?

I'll just say that there's no escaping the organic-ness of any given political economy, and these things would have to be determined as well as possible by those involved. For *any* process a lack of genuine interest and participation will yield ambivalent results overall -- think of the 2000 U.S. presidential election here, for example.


---





Well, which is it -- would all conceivably potential Sri Lankan tea workers have local control over their *own labor*, or could they possibly be 'outvoted' -- ?





Well, yes and yes. Whether individuals work, where they work and when they work would obviously be up to them. At best, we could ask them - "hey, there's a really bad shortage of medical workers, so we're wondering if you could maybe help out". And I think that would work in most cases; after all, people donate blood, and whereas work can be pleasant, donating blood rarely is (although I do know... yeah, let's not go there).

On the other hand, they could be outvoted when it came to setting targets and production schedules. They don't have to participate in the production process, but if they do they have to follow the general social plan.


I guess this is something of a sticking point, then, with me, in terms of theory.

I find this conception to be rather *substitutionist*, since the collective initiative may potentially put forth something like 'Furs for everyone' -- and when that initiative gets to the actual workers most will be 'Whatever -- I certainly don't need to be a part of making *that* happen.'

This plan-and-volunteer approach seems very inflexible and very much dichotomizes the roles of collective planning, and of liberated labor. I understand that the *people* involved with both would be the same, but nonetheless the *roles* are separated, which is problematic.

The advantage with the 'collated ranked lists' here would be its inherent *recursive* feature, where people are potentially revisiting the issues on a day-by-day basis, as with tea or furs. If one general social plan emerges that says the tea has to come from Sri Lanka, and the workers there overall *reject* this, there could immediately be a spin-off proposal that says '20% from Sri Lanka and 80% from elsewhere'.

In this way the proposals could almost-effortlessly *evolve*, as they change to reflect real-world realities on a day-by-day basis. Sri Lankan workers might see how much political attention was turned their way regarding this whole 'tea' issue, and that might spur many of them to become involved in the next cycle of proposal-making, perhaps resulting in the '20% labor from Sri Lanka and 80% from elsewhere' proposal for everyone's consideration, which would be *qualitative* input over general social planning and working conditions from the workers themselves, instead of being limited to just "voting with one's feet" -- walking away.





I think two things are being conflated here; organisation and compulsion. Obviously in the socialist society, production is highly organised, but at the same time there is no compulsion. The members of the socialist society can draw up the general production plan, see how many labour-hours will be necessary and where, and then see if that's alright with them. Obviously it's never going to be as simple as that; probably at some point we would face the difficult decision: do I put in extra hours shoveling fertilizer, or risk there not being enough chocolate?

But on the assumption that the "government over men" has withered away, we can't force anyone to work. Like I said, at best we can ask them to. I think that's a good thing, not only because I wouldn't particularly want to be forced to work, but because work is of the highest quality when it is an expression of the human need for activity and, although some would disagree, play. I think having some sort of labour credit system that would gently force people to do things they don't want to would also work against that.


I hear you, and I hope the segment above addresses this as well.

I don't understand, though, how you see the labor credit system as being compulsive in any way -- how would it conceivably 'force people to do things they don't want to'?

Here, for reference, is my oft-used 'ham and yogurt' scenario -- I get a lot of mileage out of it....







[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.

[ckaihatsu]

[T]he figures for projected demand would constantly change, meaning the plan could never be drawn up in full.


I realize I may have left one aspect unaddressed -- if mass demand *is* constantly fluctuating, and/or prone to sudden spikes, such realities could certainly be accounted-for by any given appropriate proposal / plan.

The *data* you're referring to would not be a secret -- it would be published and publicly accessible, so anyone involved with any kinds of proposals would certainly include these kinds of ranges in their estimates.

(The discussion-process-proposal-plan cycle, roughly, *itself* would *not* have to take place within the confines of a single day -- all matters of time would be free-flowing and overlapping unless mass-consciously, collectively-emergent nailed-down into set schedules, for whatever.)

[ckaihatsu]

(See tinyurl.com/global-planning-matrix) (Some details have changed.)

Sam Smith and Pat Jones are separate individuals who both happen to live in 'New Physicalia', a locality in the Great Lakes region of North America. Sam Smith is late-middle-aged, lives alone, and finds kumquats to be the most delectable kind of food ever.

That's why, for the date of January 5, 2015, Sam put in an order for food item #09149, 'kumquats, raw', as the most-prioritized item for the day. (That's how most days' lists are for Sam.) Furthermore, the number-*two* item for that day was a political *demand*, intended for the local distribution entity, for *fresher* kumquats, since Sam has become something of a connoisseur of the fruit, over time.

The next day Sam got to brainstorming and whipped up a quick, brief initiative on how cooperative social planning could take place at the most-aggregated scales, meaning worldwide. Sam got very excited and confident about it and put it at the very first rank position for the personal prioritization list for January 6, 2015, calling it 'Global Planning Matrix'. Upon receipt from Sam, the Locality of New Physicalia automatically timestamped the items, two from the 5th and one from the 6th.

Pat Jones is a year younger than Sam, has always been socially active in one way or another, as far as memory serves, and has always been attentive to cutting-edge-type developments that would be worth supporting and improving-on.

Pat Jones happened to see Sam Smith's initiative for a 'Global Planning Matrix', from January 6, 2015, and right away -- almost instinctively -- included a duplicate-named initiative the very next day, at rank position #1 on the personal daily prioritization list.

Because the title-description of 'Global Planning Matrix' occurred twice in New Physicalia within a 7-day period, the tallying software automatically created a formal-item ('initiative') for it, thus making it a formal item for anyone else's future reference.

Chris Williams is two years older than Sam Smith and three years older than Pat Jones, living and working in the locality of 'Middle Mentalia', in the Ellim region of Antarctica. Chris only got around to socio-political involvement recently, after deciding to browse the public formal-item listings for a few major localities, including that of New Physicalia. The 'Global Planning Matrix' formal initiative popped up there one day and Chris read-up on it and then decided to personally include it as a supportive initiative for the date of January 8, 2015.

Even though the 'Global Planning Matrix' initiative was formalized (as formal-item '20150107.001') in the locality of New Physicalia, Chris, in the far-off continent of Antarctica, was able to reference it by number, and "updated" it as being intended for the *global* level ('GBL'). Chris could certainly have just joined in with discussions about the original initiative, for the locality of New Physicalia, but in that context would have been an 'outsider' with an inherent limitation on meaningful participation. By 'going global' with it Chris will need someone else to also put forth an identical 'Global Planning Matrix' personal list-item within seven days at the global level or else it will not become a formal item there.

Back in New Physicalia someone named Alex Johnson, two years younger than Sam Smith, has noticed and read-up on the '20150107.001' formal-item and, a few weeks later, decided to support it as a personal 'demand' item at rank position 5 (for the date of February 1, 2015).


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/nfpj758c0/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)