Another question

[Noah]

I was reading the book 'The Undercover Economist'...

It brought up the argument;

If you take alot of take of someone who is unwilling or doesn't see their tax really helping them they'll command alot for example;

I want you to give me better health service, better schooling, better police and emergency services and so on.

But if you don't take tax or take minimal tax then, you could say 'put your money where your mouth is and pay for everything you need then'.

This has also been used in debates against me as aswell, I do mention that this would be terrible for the people at the bottom who might not be able to afford much at all.

Also I read this on the forum;


And as it is workers labor power, their time that is given up in order to create the products, they should dictate what things are produced, not the consumer

In socialism, if the workers in a factory decided what to make then how do they know whether the rest of the people need them?

And also I think this is a question regarding Marxist economics...

My teacher said the problem with Marxism is that is says;

'If a worker creates something that is not in demand, marxist economics says he should get paid the same as someone who is producing something that is much more in demand and so it kills the economy because marxist economics puts no value in the item itself but the worker's time'

Now he didn't say it exactly like this but that's how I remember it, I can't rreally argue back, he's an ex-anarchist but now he's social democratic .... I'm guessing that he's talking about the transitional stage; socialism as communist society doesn't have money anyway.

Can anyone help me out? I'm trying to learn, it's taken me about a year now, I've not even grasped the basics have I? xD

[ComradeRed]

'If a worker creates something that is not in demand, marxist economics says he should get paid the same as someone who is producing something that is much more in demand and so it kills the economy because marxist economics puts no value in the item itself but the worker's time' Uh...how do you quantify demand? :huh:

Bourgeois economics says there is some quantity of money per some quantity of "utility" (however that works, measuring utility is impossible...there is no standard!). Then they draw the diminishing marginal utility curve and switch the units of utility to money to get the demand curve.

But this is rather circularly done in practice...in order to avoid the problem of measuring utility.

You may also want to read the first chapter of Das Kapital very thoroughly.


Can anyone help me out? I'm trying to learn, it's taken me about a year now, I've not even grasped the basics have I? xD No, you really haven't. What are you studying?

[Noah]

I'm studying, well many things...random books about anarchism and other 'schools' and articles and redstar's website (well haven't been there for a while_, I have knowledge on lots of issues it's just all scattered at the moment....Das Kapital, sounds like a good place to start..

You sound like a smart man/lad but I started when I was 14 and unlike some, I am not a genius but i'm trying man.

[Nusocialist]

In socialism, if the workers in a factory decided what to make then how do they know whether the rest of the people need them?
Well in Market socialism,they use supply and demand. :D


Uh...how do you quantify demand?
What people want to buy generally,even you must realise that producing unwanted goods it not a good thing.
Supply and demand is the best and most efficient way to allocate commodities.

[Delta]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2006, 12:00 PM
In socialism, if the workers in a factory decided what to make then how do they know whether the rest of the people need them?
?
There are various ways of fixing this. One decentralized approach is for orders to be placed by the consumer federations and then this information relayed to the industrial federations that will produce the goods. If the order is too much, the industrial federation can let that be known, and then the consumer federations can adjust their order if need be.