[Michaeluj]

Dak is trolling. Please don't waste forum resources.

[Daktoria]

Yeah I'd stand up with him and bitch at the pussy friends too weak to stand up for themselves.

No? Nobility is something I'm opposed to. The only way to change things is to change which class is in control because that's how the state works. The class on top does the oppressing the class below eats shit.

Aren't you attempting to become nobility in your own group?

Isn't that how socialism works - by having a charismatically ambitious bureaucracy arbitrarily defining prices and quantities according to an emotionally judged historical lag?

There are only two groups because political and productive power are monopolized by one class. But libertarians reject the primacy of class so it's not surprising you'd completely ignore this.

Establishment/populace comparisons emphasize culture conflict, not class conflict.

Yes, it's important to not emphasize the primacy of class among people who can't even speak the same language for example.

[Dagoth Ur]

Aren't you attempting to become nobility in your own group?

Obviously no since bitching is not a quality considered noble, neither is calling your friends pussies.

Establishment/populace comparisons emphasize culture conflict, not class conflict.

Culture conflict is a product of class conflict. Silly Dak.

Yes, it's important to not emphasize the primacy of class among people who can't even speak the same language for example.

Yes it is because it works towards erasing the falseness of our division.

[Daktoria]

Do you believe people are objects, Dagoth?

Marxist class analysis completely dismisses how people have to be inspired to produce in defining the relations of production. The same goes for language. Language doesn't come naturally. People have to discipline their minds to understanding it.

As for nobility, one man's bitch is another man's beauty. :-P

[Dagoth Ur]

Do you believe people are objects, Dagoth?

I don't "believe" that people are objects, it's just true.

Marxist class analysis completely dismisses how people have to be inspired to produce in defining the relations of production.

What are you even talking about?

The same goes for language. Language doesn't come naturally. People have to discipline their minds to understanding it.

No you don't. You didn't discipline yourself into speaking english (assuming english is your native tongue). Language builds naturally, it's just the form that unnatural.

As for nobility, one man's bitch is another man's beauty. :-P

Being a bitch is noble to no one. It's antithetical.

[Daktoria]

I don't "believe" that people are objects, it's just true.

What are you even talking about?

If this is valid, why should I consider you a complete conversational partner? You'd be no different from a materially predetermined computer program.

No you don't. You didn't discipline yourself into speaking english (assuming english is your native tongue). Language builds naturally, it's just the form that unnatural.

If this is valid, why doesn't every English speaker know the entire language off the tip of their tongue?

English is synthetic, not analytic. The closest thing you'll see in the way of analytic language is music because it actually represents what happens when music is played.

In contrast, the characters of latin script don't actually imply a certain pronunciation of words or assignment of value. They're just lucky symbols.

Being a bitch is noble to no one. It's antithetical.

Is that Lady Gaga in your avatar?

[Dagoth Ur]

If this is valid, why should I consider you a complete conversational partner? You'd be no different from a materially predetermined computer program.

That we're both objects does not mean we're not different. Being an object is simply a quality of being made of matter.

If this is valid, why doesn't every English speaker know the entire language off the tip of their tongue?

There is a significant difference between speaking english and refining your knowledge of english. A four year old child speaks english without knowing what redistribute means.

Is that Lady Gaga in your avatar?

Yup that's the Gagar.

[Daktoria]

That we're both objects does not mean we're not different. Being an object is simply a quality of being made of matter.

Well yea. Conversations aren't premised on being made of matter though. They're premised on being self-forming actors.

Without self-formation, the signals we're sending to each other couldn't bear semantic value. They'd just be raw stimulus.

There is a significant difference between speaking english and refining your knowledge of english. A four year old child speaks english without knowing what redistribute means.

This is true, but if language was natural, a 4 year old could infer what "redistribute" means by applying a priori principles.

[Dagoth Ur]

Language is natural but the form, English, is synthetic. If it weren't for English you could teach them a series of clicks and whistles and they'd still take to it because humans have a natural tendency towards language. That they do not immediately grasp the intricacies of the more complex whistle click patterns is not an indication that they aren't naturally prone to language.

[Wolfman]

What the fuck are you two talking about, and how the hell does it relate to the OP?

[Michaeluj]

Language is natural but the form, English, is synthetic. If it weren't for English you could teach them a series of clicks and whistles and they'd still take to it because humans have a natural tendency towards language. That they do not immediately grasp the intricacies of the more complex whistle click patterns is not an indication that they aren't naturally prone to language.

[youtube]qOTJlzIeAxU[/youtube]

Just skip to 0.36.

[Daktoria]

Language is natural but the form, English, is synthetic.

Purely objectively speaking though, this is impossible to prove. You're stuck in stimulus and have no ontological realm to place semantic value within.

If it weren't for English you could teach them a series of clicks and whistles and they'd still take to it because humans have a natural tendency towards language. That they do not immediately grasp the intricacies of the more complex whistle click patterns is not an indication that they aren't naturally prone to language.

I'm not sure where you got the notion of immediacy being important from what I said before. I never claimed a time period during which application of a priori principles towards phenomena would take place.

The point is only how a whistle-click pattern is synthetic by itself, but if language was natural, people could necessarily infer what other whistle-click patterns mean.

This isn't necessarily true. If a whistle-click pattern is historically determined, then its value could come about inductively rather than deductively. In turn, people could be using obsolete expression methods which aren't default analysis. Instead, they could be using expression methods which were luckily convenient in past circumstances. When circumstances change, that convenience will no longer appear to new students of the same language.

____________

[youtube]qOTJlzIeAxU[/youtube]

Just skip to 0.36.

You know, this is why Leonard Peikoff never took off. He never sat down and took the time to actually discuss a priori principles...

...not that I'm really surprised. Rand didn't even acknowledge the analytic-synthetic dichotomy.

All squares are not green. When you claim this tells you all squares have four sides, that's when historical materialism seeps in since it lets people take refuge in post hoc fallacies.

[daft punk]

The problem with socialism is collective consciousness doesn't exist.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Marxism. According to Marxism, consciousness is a product of the material world. So to get a collective consciousness you first have to change the objective conditions. This is materialism, what you are saying is idealism.

Capitalists simply decide which is cheaper, or, barring that, whether the return on the investment is worth a higher expenditure. Not only that, but everyone makes this decision, by producing an amount somewhat equivalent to what they produce and having discouragements to exceed that. You even decide if you want to purchase an object at store A or consider spending gas money to travel to store B which has a cheaper version. It's a simple matter of knowing prices and seeing if you come out ahead in relation to other decisions.

Socialists can guesstimate, and that's it. They can't account for the effects of demand, how much free resources are available for production in proportion to consumption or whether adjusting that is desirable, they can't clearly account for shipment as a cost when energy prices are based on the demand from people correctly preferring to use it and its supply, they can't really say whether its better for a scientist to become a teacher, and so much more. This does not mean that socialism will collapse because of this; it's the principle that utility is wasted in socialism and, so, it'll remain inefficient.
Factor the considerations of whether socialism would be a dictatorship or pure democracy. The dictator would have to prioritize and guess based on his inclinations, removing freedom of choice and likely leaving people with what they don't want, as well as in conditions of spiritual imprisonment in one's own nation. Now, if it's a democracy, how would those people choose what they want?

From an excessive point of consideration, they could vote on whatever the hell they want, and computers and statistics would implement triage based on need values (consistent power supply, toothpaste...) so that expensive things like houses would be put on hold until previous orders are filled. Of course, it would be impossible to tell who deserves more, implying that equality would have to be established here, and it would be hard to believe that people --even with a wealth increase-- would be deliberate proponents of saving, so we have problems of service, presumed aspects of quality (less 3D TVs, for example), and no way to encourage growth to increase wealth.

Finally, we can consider a democracy that is not so extreme: people are paid in something equivalent to dollars, representing their contribution, and a portion of that money would go to a planning committee for growth. People could even store some of it for the planners to get more earnings later. This would have democracy, an assessment for individual calculation and its impact on a macro scale (if everyone buys more than they produce, then there is little growth. This is just problems like that), and a form of increasing growth in relation to individual desire.
However, it lacks a method of defining the value of labor in different job types: Because there is no monetary benefit for a coordinator to see if the job market for janitors is weak while maintenance men is high, he would have to make a request of this employee just like one would in a management game like ___ Tycoon and I guess Sim City. He could just make the request based on the level of cleanliness in certain areas, but, instead of simply popping down a desired worker from nowhere, he would have to find someone from among the 100% employed and try some method of persuasion to get that worker to do something for him. This man cannot actually provide better money, not without going to the planning committee and pleading to be able to raise "wages" in his business, because that would be capitalism; he would be controlling the people's resources. Nonetheless, wages would remain the same and a janitor from another business could be transferred.
There's also the question of over-employment. A clean business is good, but how much would normally be financially undesirable?
There's likely more, and I wonder if I have exaggerated certain portions of the socialist system that I am thinking of--or whether I should have noted others.

Well, socialism has to be democratic. Hugely so. It means mass participation in decision making. You cant have socialism without loads of democracy, it wont work. The ultimate goal, call it communism if you want, is that everyone is a part time worker, part time planner, and there isnt really a government as such. People must be openly involved in all aspects of planning and running the economy.

However you have to start with what you have and once you have made a decisive break (eg nationalised the top 500 companies in America) gradually shift from what you have to where you want to go. I'm not an economist, all I know is we only just invented computers and already they can do thing we couldn't imagine a few years ago. The thing is, the economy is already largely planned, by the multinationals. We take them over and plan them better, with need rather than profit being top priority. I guess there is stuff you could read, this is one place to start
Socialism and Innovation
It's written by an economist and it's about socialist planning. It wont answer all your questions, but it would give a feel for decision making.

So think of it as a gradual process. In Britain we had all sorts of industries nationalised, so they must have had internal planning. Of course it wasnt socialism, but there was just one of each industry. They worked ok. Socialism would be far better.

Where Russia went wrong was no democracy. The consumers had no voice so quality was poor. They progressed very fast, but there was a lot of bad decision making because decisions were made by bureaucrats removed from production, and defending their privilege. Secrecy for example was common, especially with the cold war.

see also this list of books and articles on

The Socialist Calculation Debate

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/pboettke/pub ... ialist.htm

there might be something useful among that lot

you could also see this

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/314

Planning green growth

[Daktoria]

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Marxism. According to Marxism, consciousness is a product of the material world. So to get a collective consciousness you first have to change the objective conditions. This is materialism, what you are saying is idealism.

What I'm saying is you're not a mind reader.

If you believe you are, then you're delusional. There are boundaries to our existences, and even a cybernetic network would be premised upon functionalism where components are enslaved to the hive. The flow of information would be one way, and it would be subjectively and externally interpreted by central components.

The most obvious case in point is considering what it means when people smile. Sometimes, people smile out of joy. Sometimes, people smile out of anxiety. Sometimes, people smile out of deviousness.

You have no way of knowing for certain which is which. Furthermore, you're always going to be condemning abnormals if you engage in some sort of neurological interpretation of brain waves for the definition of utility preferences and cognitive abilities.

[Michaeluj]

Well, socialism has to be democratic. Hugely so. It means mass participation in decision making. You cant have socialism without loads of democracy, it wont work. The ultimate goal, call it communism if you want, is that everyone is a part time worker, part time planner, and there isnt really a government as such. People must be openly involved in all aspects of planning and running the economy.

Instead of denying that, I was simply accounting for those who say otherwise. Whether those who explicitly want non-democratic socialism are actual communists is still questioned, but the point of the matter is that I was covering all possible angles in the allotted time. Instead of pretending like I know what you want, or pretending that others on Pofo don't matter, I decided to voice my opinion about both democratic and non-democratic socialism.
Nevertheless, this part of the argument is a waste. I never said that the democratic planners have to be a specific group of people who don't shift from their employment, like how government could be viewed; I merely state the necessity of people having to, for want of a better word, authorize the decisions, to expedite them.

Instead of debating me, you've simply provided literature. I'll get to it eventually, but I would really prefer that you make legitimate claims to my specific arguments. Reading is also going to require time.

[daft punk]

well I tried

[Michaeluj]

The innovation article doesn't relate to the subject, the list of books is just plain unsuitable, and the last article doesn't apply to what I said.

[Eauz]

Capitalists simply decide which is cheaper, or, barring that, whether the return on the investment is worth a higher expenditure. Not only that, but everyone makes this decision, by producing an amount somewhat equivalent to what they produce and having discouragements to exceed that. You even decide if you want to purchase an object at store A or consider spending gas money to travel to store B which has a cheaper version. It's a simple matter of knowing prices and seeing if you come out ahead in relation to other decisions.

Correct, however, this value has to have a base to start from. After the economic collapse in the 30's, they started to place value in the USD for all goods sold globally, mainly for stability. Capitalist don't just randomly say, "This Box is worth X, just because.". I don't see why, in the early stages of socialism, why this concept would be any different. For example, if the technology exists to produce 100 pencils in 10 minutes, then the value of those pencils could be 1/6th of an hour of labour. Please note, this is just an idea. The whole concept of labour-hours was developed by Marx to exam how capitalism functions, not as an actual concept of futuristic valuation.

Socialists can guesstimate, and that's it. They can't account for the effects of demand, how much free resources are available for production in proportion to consumption or whether adjusting that is desirable, they can't clearly account for shipment as a cost when energy prices are based on the demand from people correctly preferring to use it and its supply, they can't really say whether its better for a scientist to become a teacher, and so much more. This does not mean that socialism will collapse because of this; it's the principle that utility is wasted in socialism and, so, it'll remain inefficient.
Factor the considerations of whether socialism would be a dictatorship or pure democracy. The dictator would have to prioritize and guess based on his inclinations, removing freedom of choice and likely leaving people with what they don't want, as well as in conditions of spiritual imprisonment in one's own nation. Now, if it's a democracy, how would those people choose what they want?

I think this is part of what I'm talking about. At the moment, the critics in this forum continue to assume that our evaluation of how pencils will be sold, will be the same structured culture of consumerism that exists today. If we look back on history, the culture of production has developed differently. For example, if we were living in Feudal times, the idea that the same question would be brought to capitalist theorists is idiocy. Let's assume that we're Serfs on a piece of land, owned by a king and someone asks this capitalist theorist, how will I be able to plow the king's land in the future? Why would I want to leave this style of live, I'm safe, doing fine and my life is simplistic, where is the benefit of supporting a futuristic society that I have no idea about?

In regards to the evaluation of skills, again, we move back to the capitalist society. Teachers were evaluated in the 20th century, in order to develop and sustain a future well educated middle-class, and thus were subsidised in many parts of the world. They were valued, in order to create a more competitive environment for the growth of capitalism. What would be wrong with eliminating the concept of a "Teacher", or a "Professional", and develop a structural culture of collective ownership of the development of society. The early stages of socialism might see labour-hours paid out, and evaluation of say X2 or X5 the base (whatever is used), however, over time, as the culture changes and the collective takes more ownership over the production and reproduction of collective culture, there may not be a need for currency based evaluation of salaries. I can tell you that many companies, such as my own, have specific salary ranges for each position. For example, one position I had inquired about had a range of 35-42,000, no matter your qualifications or knowledge. The company would not be willing to pay more for that position.

From an excessive point of consideration, they could vote on whatever the hell they want, and computers and statistics would implement triage based on need values (consistent power supply, toothpaste...) so that expensive things like houses would be put on hold until previous orders are filled. Of course, it would be impossible to tell who deserves more, implying that equality would have to be established here, and it would be hard to believe that people --even with a wealth increase-- would be deliberate proponents of saving, so we have problems of service, presumed aspects of quality (less 3D TVs, for example), and no way to encourage growth to increase wealth.

Again, we're assuming that the same culture of consumerism would continue to exist, which is completely ahistorical. Nevertheless, I will return to a potential idea that one could use labour-hours as an option for payment in the early stages. Goods and services would continue to be sought, however, for many socialists, eliminating the concept of slave/master, regarding the requirement for income would help develop a culture of socialism. Of course people are going to need a place to live, food and clothes, and for many socialists, some of the aspects of the Soviet Union's economy had benefit, despite the lack of goods. This does not mean that tweaks in the equation, such as providing more worker say in the production of goods and services. Just as grocery stores have to plan in advance, the collectives would be given inquiries into needs and requirements for the next month. Therefore, if we have too many of X items, then there is no need to advise the producers to continue to send that item for the next month.

[Michaeluj]

After the economic collapse in the 30's, they started to place value in the USD for all goods sold globally, mainly for stability. Capitalist don't just randomly say, "This Box is worth X, just because.". I don't see why, in the early stages of socialism, why this concept would be any different. For example, if the technology exists to produce 100 pencils in 10 minutes, then the value of those pencils could be 1/6th of an hour of labour.

But labor, in the principle as an object containing both intrinsic and subjective value, is valued by money, not the other way around as labor-hours cost. The variability of labor makes us asks questions of how much and of what quality we want. Trying to focus on labor as a base of value automatically deletes a portion of the calculations in economic calculation. I know that it is an example, but we should consider the requirements for what can be utilized for accurate calculation. Additionally, there is the factor that those pencils are also produced by machinery, which, initially, have to, somewhere, be shown that they are being used to an extent that is worth more than the costs of producing them. Normally, a business would raise prices to recuperate losses, which can't conveniently be done with labor-hours.

I think this is part of what I'm talking about. At the moment, the critics in this forum continue to assume that our evaluation of how pencils will be sold, will be the same structured culture of consumerism that exists today. If we look back on history, the culture of production has developed differently. For example, if we were living in Feudal times, the idea that the same question would be brought to capitalist theorists is idiocy. Let's assume that we're Serfs on a piece of land, owned by a king and someone asks this capitalist theorist, how will I be able to plow the king's land in the future? Why would I want to leave this style of live, I'm safe, doing fine and my life is simplistic, where is the benefit of supporting a futuristic society that I have no idea about?

I wrote nothing like this. I was purely regarding difficulties of applying correct values to objects and the work put into them.

In regards to the evaluation of skills, again, we move back to the capitalist society. Teachers were evaluated in the 20th century, in order to develop and sustain a future well educated middle-class, and thus were subsidised in many parts of the world. They were valued, in order to create a more competitive environment for the growth of capitalism. What would be wrong with eliminating the concept of a "Teacher", or a "Professional", and develop a structural culture of collective ownership of the development of society.

Value can be assigned to teachers, and their costs can also be adjusted to suit some ideal goal, but these are not necessearily correct values. For example, too much education makes job requirements higher than an accepted norm, raising prices for everyone because of prejudice towards the uneducated.

Again, we're assuming that the same culture of consumerism would continue to exist, which is completely ahistorical. Nevertheless, I will return to a potential idea that one could use labour-hours as an option for payment in the early stages.

I would say that assuming otherwise is also highly assumptive, but it's not necessary to argue this specific point. But it could be noted that, with low consumption, production could also atrophy in order to not produce waste, thus continuing the requirement that resources be carefully managed.

This does not mean that tweaks in the equation, such as providing more worker say in the production of goods and services. Just as grocery stores have to plan in advance, the collectives would be given inquiries into needs and requirements for the next month. Therefore, if we have too many of X items, then there is no need to advise the producers to continue to send that item for the next month.

I'll say it again: losing money as a tool of economic calculation does not create failure. It just reduces accuracy. If people say that they want food, increasing the food supply isn't necessarily a bad idea. But what if they also want oil and you had little reason to clearly see which is better? I am reminded of Real-Time Strategy games, in which you either control cities or armies. For cities, you have money and taxes; buying buildings would increase the population and increase taxes, allowing more. . . . To decide if people feel culturally listless, or hungry, or crowded, or poor, you could read graphs showing how much people want these things (out of, let's say, a hundred. A hundred what?) or by posting the number of people who feel angry or happy about each major aspect of the city: You then pick whatever seems urgent or cheap enough to spend money on, and you smile when those negatives are reduced. In an army-controlling game, you know that building resource-harvesters is good but you also know that soldiers are also important but you also know that upgrades are important, so your only means of judging how to achieve victory is by either hoping that you have more skill than the opponent for general combat or that you know what his strategy will be and how it would permit you to invest in long-term expenses. In the former, broad solutions need accurate aggregate data to induce satiation without consideration for the relative and purely subjective opinions for other things (How can one accurately measure if a culture-house is better to get than a KFC?). The latter suffers from knowing what is good for the long-run but requiring decisions that are entirely based on the opposition's choices: Everyone wants to spend everything on harvesters and upgrades in the beginning, but units have to be made (objects produced in an economy replacing research done for development), and those units have to be selected based on the weakness's of the opponent's units (What is produced is not based on internal pressures).

[daft punk]

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

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


I havent studied economics, so it's not something I can write about off the top of my head. There are Marxist economists however, Ed Milliband was taught by Andrew Glyn for example. Andrew was a Marxist economist at Oxford. He wrote about economic calculation in regard to the miners strike in Britain.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debating-Coal-C ... 0521125979
Debating Coal Closures: Economic Calculation in the Coal Dispute 1984-5 (Cambridge Studies in Management)

You said my links are not relevant, but the one on green growth does answer your question:

"Since Marx’s day, and particularly since the Russian Revolution, academics have written libraries full of books about why socialism cannot work. It is only possible here to briefly respond to the key points. One of the main criticisms is that planning the efficient allocation of resources is impossible because of the vast complexity of modern industrial society where millions of economic transactions take place every day. However most of these economic interactions are between enterprises, they do not involve consumers, and it is quite clear that present day multi-national firms conduct planning of a similar complexity to that required under socialism all the time. The activity of the multi-nationals answers a further criticism that the operation of supply and demand to determine price is the only efficient way to proceed in the exchange of goods. In their international operations companies like General Motors simply allocate resources between countries and factories without reference to the market.

As far as planning for consumer needs are concerned the key point is that active democratic institutions should exist that can compel the planning bodies to respond to their demands. In addition to this, techniques such as market research and using the internet will make the tasks faced by future socialist planners enormously easier than their counterparts had to deal with in the young Soviet Union. It is important, though, not to exaggerate the role that will be played by the internet or look for a ‘technical fix’- the existence of democratic institutions will be paramount. The role of democratically elected and powerful consumer bodies will also make sure that shoddy goods are not produced and quality is maintained. Here as well, the advances in modern production management techniques can be applied, since the future socialist society will inherit, unlike the Soviet Union, an industrial tradition, or culture, associated with the highest levels of technique developed by capitalism. "

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/314