Originally posted by The Grapes of
[email protected] 27 2005, 11:37 PM
First off, this following section on a planned economy is basically a word for word segment of a reply I made on the same subject that I found way back in the archives. The issue of the economy is essential to socialism and modern society and needs to be thoroughly explored in all of its avenues. Since I am one the few on this site that advocate market socialism as part of the transitional phase to communism I feel it is important to express my views. Love them or hate them at your discretion.
“ To begin with, industrial economies are huge and complex, more than we can really imagine. In order to centrally plan anything, we would have to take into account all the products, no matter how small, no matter how difficult to make, and no matter how complex ... and then PLUS everything that goes into those complex products. For example, a TV ... all the parts to a TV would have to be planned by the center. Along with all cars, all boats, all radios, all printing presses, all guitars, all clothes, all beer cans, all sandals, all pens, all notebooks, plus a million more things you can think of. That is just too complex for one unit to handle. So, given this immense amount of products, and the immense work needed to plan it all, bureaucracy is inevitable. A few thousand can't plan out an economy; a few million could (or can they?). While bureaucracy is not bad, it is often times slow and prone to problems that are specifically bureaucratic.
The second is the lack of information. You can guess how many specific cars, and then tack on a few extra units just in case, but the fact is, you don't really know. However, capitalism works much the same way, with products being produced in specific quantities in hope that they will be sold. However, in capitalism, the argument goes, the company will quickly be able to respond to produce more if needed, but it takes a loss if products are not sold, just like a planned system. The capitalist (I suppose we could simply call it the "market-oriented") firm is much more capable of adjusting to changes in consumption, essentially, demand.
Another problem is quality of goods. How can you judge quality of something that you do not produce, you simply give the orders that X amount of Y is produced? You really can't. You can develop some form of "quality control" based off of money value, or tons, or size, or what have you. But if some steel weighs more, and that is an indicator, is that steel made out of the best quality iron? or is it just the factory manager's way of getting ahead? And money value? Skimming the corners to get things produced on time and in proper proportions, or else, wasting money to make it seem that these products are the best they can be.
Sure, you can make the argument that teams will go in and look at the quality of the produced units and decide whether to distribute them or to hold them, but then, you're finely tuned planning has been thrown out of wack. The number of the materials are now gone, and in a world of absolute shortage in certain materials, that can hurt. What would their "common denominator" be?
Another problem is investment. Who is to invest and who are they investing for? Will politics play a part? How much investment is too much investment? And, a problem with bureaucracy, if a junior member sees something differently and wants to change it, how are they to question a superior without retribution?
What of change? or innovation? A change in the way something is produced cannot really be explored if things are planned. It would throw all the previous years of data obsolete, and it would be hard to integrate a Plan without this data.
Finally, what of materials? The economy is so complex, and resources are so scarce, that some places will not get materials, or materials of any usable quantity. And then, the Plan is gone, and a new one is needed. It is all so bureaucratic as to be almost a larges, slow moving animal. These are not the only problems with a planned economy, by far, certainly not. Numerous problems can be found by looking at the Soviet Union, or even China before it became a pseudo-capitalist country.
The only answer we really have is some things need to be centrally planned (i.e. electricity, steel, etc), while others obviously can't be (i.e. food, shoes, clothes, other consumer goods). The real question is, where do we draw the line? ”
To be realistic, I think that the market does a fairly decent job in some sectors and not so decent in others. This I agree with you in. I honestly don't see why everyone should be paid the same thing, or even attempting to implement such an idea. I would like to see everyone allowed a living wage, but at the same time, you can't restrict the wages that some people would naturally make (ie a computer programmer is obviously gonna make more than factory worker, we have to admit that).
I believe the economy would need to be a mixture of the two. I think that there are plenty of products that can be efficiently directed by the government, such as electricity, steel, petrochemicals, banks, credit institutions, etc. Then you would have government owned, but autonomous enterprises with control over their finances, but with something going back to the larger government. Think of a state university, it is self-contained, self run, but yet owned by the state; almost like a state franchise.
Then of course you would have cooperatives where all employees are also owners. Whether agricultural, industrial or commercial, it makes no difference. The workers are the owners and the operators and the profit (minus some tax) goes to them.
I don't see why small private enterprises would not exist, in fact, I can see it as a necessity to modern living. Such things would be restaurants, small accounting firms, a dental office, a grocery store, a gas station, a tanning salon, and countless others ... the owners are more often then not working alongside their hired help. These enterprises provide important products and services at the micro level that the macro planning of the state cannot. However, they do need to be highly regulated so as to not allow any exploitation or too much expansion. I think a good idea would be to limit the number of workers one would be able to hire and of course, keeping legislation enacted to protect worker's rights while also encouraging these small enterprises to continue their operations ... it is fine a line I would assume.
Lastly, we have private individuals such as plumbers, farmers, artists, craftspeople, small shop owners with no employees. Why would we want to get rid of their shops, their livelihoods and the services or products they provide? How can we really even reproduce these things if the economy was run solely by a large bureaucracy? These are questions that need to be addressed. These small things work ... but are they capitalism?
But, I'm sure that other forms of industries and so forth could be thought up of and implemented. My feelings on large industries is that they tend to alienate the workers, so state ownership would need to be less. However, government would have vital functions to regulate the economy and the market by not allowing it to eventually destroy itself, which is always a possibility.
Competition, regulated of course, would allow more than moral incentive for workers by providing material rewards. This would not allow for large-scale private enterprise, there would be no nonworking owners making millions off the backs of employees.
I don't see why people can't own a house, or a car. I don't see why people can't have money that they wish to spend on anything they like. I think that the market has the ability to regulate what is produced, however, it can and does fail from time to time. These problems would have to counteracted by some sort of legislation I'm sure, some form of regulated market.
Is this socialism? There is no large scale private ownership, state run enterprises major investments planned by an elective state government, there is central management of large industries, maximize participation of workers through maximization of small scale and local production, limited private sector with government regulation to ensure the benefits of workers, workers have rights to change jobs and so forth, absolute freedom of choice for workers and families to use money on products they wish to purchase and trust from companies they choose.
I feel that with something as vitally important as the economy, things needs to be taken gradually, allowing those in the future to change as they see fit. Things need to go gradually with assumptions kept at a minimum. Theories that have been proven to work and work well will need to be incorporated while theories that are hypotheses need to be tested and decisions made regarding their outcomes.
Better safe than sorry. (Long winded, sorry about that).
TGOW
Gee, that is a lot to respond to. But I think I can clear a lot of it up quite simply. You mention who would judge the quality of goods, and that's why I propose a bureacratic system in which workers elect a fellow worker to plan the production for their specific workplace (after all, the worker likely knows his/her plant the best). The worker is overseen by an economist, who is overseen by the local government to protect the worker's rights, and the government is of course chosen by the workers i.e. the majority. It is a circular system ensuring that all parts do their job. This should result in economic efficiency. This locally planned idea should also help with your bit about the complexity of the economy. Each factory worries about its own output, the workers plan it, and the government and some economists oversee all of this production. Again, the system, once it smoothes out (I would predict a few rough years in the beginning, but then smooth sailing with none of those nasty recessions we see in capitalism), should prove to be quite efficient. Also, I don't think that this bureacracy would be quite as slow or problematic due to its roots in democratic principles.
On 'information' as you call it, I suggest that the problem with such capitalistic forms of production is essentially that no planning is involved. Anarchic production eventually becomes 'let's just make the most we can'. This inevitably creates a surplus, oerproductivity, and a recession is inevitable. A planned economy would be much more efficient, and any problems with knowing how much to produce will be solved given experience. Again ,regarding quality, I place my faith in the worker, that they can, given leadership of one of their own, successfully create quality goods. Later on you mention 'equal wages'. Now that is something I do not condone. I favor redistributive policy to lessen the gap between rich and poor, but equal wages would obviously result in economic disaster. That being said, I think that as redistributive policy evolves, the old MArxist idea of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs could become a possibility, but that policy will be the beginning of communism really, and thus not a characteristic of socialism (what I mean is, when such a policy is adopted, capital is rendered useless). All through your response you mention 'market socialism'. Wouldn't any type of socialism essentially involve a market, a place of exchange? The government may set prices, in accordance with supply and demand, but I don't think the government will just hand out items. A market will be neccesary. Thus I don't see the relevance of you calling yourself a 'market socialist'.
On investment, I think we must leave it up to the federal government. For example, currently we could invest in fusion based nuclear reactors which have the potential to be much more beneficial than their fission counterparts. The problem is that the chance of fusion reactors being successfully produced in the foreseeable future is almost zero. A federal government will realize this. Of course, since the government is chosen by the people, in the end, it is the people who will decide what new technologies should be invested in and what shouldn't. They will reflect their views by electing specific candidates. I don't quite understand what you mean by 'junior' officer. Would this just be a 'newbie'? In any case, I suppose this so-called junior could contact his superior with his ideas and then the superior could contact his superior. But again this may have no relevancy since the fedral government should decide what to invest in, and the people will obviously, as stated, have much to do with this.
As far as changes go, I think they go hand in hand with investments. If an investment i sought, the government will obviously gather data on this new productive measure, therefore its transition into the planned production, rocky as it may be, will not be nearly as rocky. The entire concept of the planned economy is to conserve human and natural resources. Capitalism quite obviously wastes a large quantity of each. I want no comparison with the USSR or China because this bureacracy will be much more localised, with the advent of workers planning their own production. The problem with those bureacracies was the impersonal nature of the bureacracy. You did what your superior told you or you were dealt with accordingly...Also those bureacracies used almost all economic resources on military maintenance, which is why I suggest we abandon the idea of a professional military. Instead, I support the idea of private militia that the government oversees rather than funds.
You are right that some things need central planning, but in socialism, why would such essentials such as food and clothing even need to be on the market? We could plan production of food and clothing in the mentioned ways, and then distribute these essential items accordingly. In fact, if a citizen is in need of an item, he/she could contact her local government to alert them. Again, here is an example of the bureacracies efficiency in that it can be made quite elastic. We know currently that food is wasted in the USA on a monumental scale. Why not have organizations set up to transfer some canned items to families who need them? The same goes with clothes. I would hope that we would not need to buy such essential items. I agree with you that small private enterprises are essential, but I ask why they cannot be communally regualted, instead of having an owner. This could be accomplished with the local government overseeing the specific private enterprise to, as you mention, control it. I think that plumbers, artists, and farmers could be employed by the state. Local shops could be regulated by the state. And of course people would own their own house and their own car, and money would still exist. Redistirbutive policies could help people own such things. This is, in effect, simply highly regulated and a mostly planned market. Perhaps we think more similarly than I first thought. I think this is socialism, only a new kind, perhaps 'neo-socialism' if you like.