Market Calculation under Socialism/Communism - Page 9 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13904077
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet (I've not read the whole thread), but there is a book written by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell called "Towards a New Socialism" which addresses this. They started on this before the collapse of the USSR (they were highly critical of the "Market Socialism" that the Soviet Union was drifting towards) and proposed a scientific alternative to the sort of planning the Soviets did. It proposed a very feasible route towards the elimination of money altogether as well, in order to prevent accumulation and black market trading (which would inevitably lead to Capitalism, as it did in the USSR). Unfortunately for the USSR, they finished well after the collapse of the Soviet Union - although I do realise how unlikely it would have been for the Soviets to implement this, even if it had come out in time. Here is a nice summary of it by Paul Cockshott on YouTube:

Towards a New Socialism:
Part I:

Part II:

Part III:
#13904332
I'll save you the bother NT:

A young Publius/Wolfman asks the Communists of the forum how it will be known how many pencils will need to be made under Communism
Various Marxists show up and give some answers that amount to nothing, and the odd admission that they're following an ideology that they don't understand
Various Libertarians and other undesirables show up and troll the thread.
Publius/Wolfman decides he needs a drink, and abandons forever the perversity of Marxism

I only came back because I was curious what you had to say.
#13904679
Thanks for the summary. I'm not amused when real discussion is derailed by trolling; glad I didn't have to read it myself.

Did you check out the videos I linked to?
The model is a hybrid of a centrally-planned and community-planned economy. According to the Cockshott/Cottrell model, how much a pencil costs and how many to make, in summary, is calculated as such:
1)The pencil initially costs the number of labour hours (or fractions thereof) that have gone into producing it (including raw materials costs, capital costs, transportation costs, store costs, etc) as a base price.
2)Everyone is paid in labour hour credits (adjusted for productivity relative to median) which they can use to buy said pencils.
3)The price of the pencil, depending on the ratio of supply to demand, changes within a certain range based upon a careful real-time computer-assisted calculation that Cockshott/Cottrell elaborate on in their book.
--This serves two purposes:
i) First, if the price goes up, it reduces frivolous purchase of the underproduced product by those who don't need it. If the price goes down, it facilitates clearout of the overproduced goods.
ii) Second, and here is the more important part, the very same calculation that was used to determine the supply-demand-based price adjustment is used to determine the rate at which to produce the goods. That is, to ramp up production or slow it down.
4)This is much more efficient than the Soviet quota system that was set up by central planners. First of all, the Soviet system didn't take into account people's wants/needs directly. Second, a quota having to be calculated based on census data, shortage/excess data from years past is clunky, slow, and inaccurate. This model, in addition to having the benefit of longer term planning infused from planners, takes into account the economy's immediate needs as well, and produces a very plastic, dynamic economy that is receptive to small and large changes in the needs of society and industry in real-time.
#13904747
^Ok I just spent and 1,5 hours watching this boring guys lectures and I could find no where where he actually explains how prices would be calculated, he talks a lot about energy use and calling people robots and talking about how various products are made from a production standpoint but he does not say what determines their price anywhere.

naked_turk wrote:1)The pencil initially costs the number of labour hours (or fractions thereof) that have gone into producing it (including raw materials costs, capital costs, transportation costs, store costs, etc) as a base price.


What if I decide to become a painter? Then I could spend 20 hours per painting no problem I think, would I then be able to spend 20 hours worth of credit? (keep in mind that you cannot use the average calculation thing since my painting product is unique and not comparable to any other product).

I could also record myself playing video games and call that labor also and call my recording a product, would I then be able to sell that for X hours worth of labor used to create tomatos for example?

naked_turk wrote:3)The price of the pencil, depending on the ratio of supply to demand, changes within a certain range based upon a careful real-time computer-assisted calculation that Cockshott/Cottrell elaborate on in their book.


Saying that ''computers will have the answers'' is not an answer, how exactly do you determine what labor is needed and what labor is not needed?
#13904785
I'm not amused when real discussion is derailed by trolling


I don't think there was any serious discussion on the matter. Anything approaching answering my questions ended before the first page did, and the answers amounted to a mild shrug of indifference and saying "I don't know"

Did you check out the videos I linked to?


I made the OP with the purpose of giving Communism a last shot. That you're (apparently) the only Communist here with something that might be an answer this discourages any possible interest I might have. I only bothered to respond out of respect for you.
#13905776
Kman wrote:^Ok I just spent and 1,5 hours watching this boring guys lectures and I could find no where where he actually explains how prices would be calculated, he talks a lot about energy use and calling people robots and talking about how various products are made from a production standpoint but he does not say what determines their price anywhere.
You're welcome to buy the book instead of trying to learn how to run a whole economy by watching a 30 minute YouTube video. You can find the answers to your 'missing calculations' issue therein. Of course, it would be daft to claim that this one book will cover all aspects of socialist planning: It is but one of the many proposed solutions to the problem, and even if it does turn out to be the best one, we'll need further research, larger by orders of magnitude in volume, before we can actually implement it and make it work.

Amazon.com TANS

Kman wrote:What if I decide to become a painter? Then I could spend 20 hours per painting no problem I think, would I then be able to spend 20 hours worth of credit? (keep in mind that you cannot use the average calculation thing since my painting product is unique and not comparable to any other product).

I could also record myself playing video games and call that labor also and call my recording a product, would I then be able to sell that for X hours worth of labor used to create tomatos for example?
Refer above - a 30 minute video has obviously not endowed you with enough information to be able to criticise a model you do not yet fully understand. They advocate a form of direct democracy. If the voters believe painting is a valuable profession, and you pass the standards of qualifying as a professional painter, you will have become a painter.

This is of course completely ignoring the fact that the point of socialism is to provide you with enough free time to pursue your own hobbies and develop your own skills in a productive manner that doesn't require you to sell them to anyone; socialism, in effect, aims to end wage slavery. If I worked 4 hours a day, even if it was in a field that didn't interest me, I could still come home and (in my case) develop software on my own time as a hobby, even making creative, innovative products that I wouldn't otherwise be able to under a directed-work environment. Linus Torvalds and associates did it with Linux, producing a world class operating system purely out of love for their work. I don't see why painters shouldn't be able to do likewise.

Kman wrote:Saying that ''computers will have the answers'' is not an answer, how exactly do you determine what labour is needed and what labor is not needed?
Except that's not what they are saying at all. I simply cannot go through their whole supply/demand based community planning and cost calculation here, nor can Cockshott in a 30 minute video. This isn't The Venus Project, where some old idealist just dismisses the whole issue with "computers will have the answers." There is a reason that the book has two authors: One is an Economist/ Mathematician and the other is a Computer Scientist; there is plenty of practical research and development that has gone into designing the model*. If you are truly interested in criticising the model, buy the book and respond to it directly instead of creating strawmen.

*Again, I have to reiterate that the research of only 2 men will not be enough for actual implementation. You might rather take this as workable a proposal.
Publius wrote:I made the OP with the purpose of giving Communism a last shot. That you're (apparently) the only Communist here with something that might be an answer this discourages any possible interest I might have. I only bothered to respond out of respect for you.
That is unfortunate. I apologise on the behalf of some of the forum for turning you off from the topic. Another note I should make though is this: We as Marxists would rather first work on creating a situation favourable to working class rule, and then decide on the details of the economy later, based on the real situation at the time of the workers' government. It is, in a sense, pointless to pick a specific goal economy now and strive for that, for how do we know if the conditions and circumstances will allow its implementation when workers' rule is established? Far better is to acknowledge that we share the condition of being part of an exploited class, that we as a class are in the majority, and that our goal is to implement a government that will back our interests rather than those of big business. Once a legitimate government has been established to vouch for our interests, then let the debates begin on exactly what will be the best road to secure our best interests. Until then, it's best to leave our options open: why commit to any single one of a number of yet-to-beimplemented socio-economic theories? I have some of my own, too, and, should the opportunity present itself, I shall investigate and research their feasibility.
#13905811
naked_turk wrote:You're welcome to buy the book instead of trying to learn how to run a whole economy by watching a 30 minute YouTube video. You can find the answers to your 'missing calculations' issue therein. Of course, it would be daft to claim that this one book will cover all aspects of socialist planning: It is but one of the many proposed solutions to the problem, and even if it does turn out to be the best one, we'll need further research, larger by orders of magnitude in volume, before we can actually implement it and make it work.


You cannot calculate what human beings value with math, value is an internal brain process of each human being that does not lend itself to mathematical calculation from a central point or planner.

naked_turk wrote:Refer above - a 30 minute video has obviously not endowed you with enough information to be able to criticise a model you do not yet fully understand. They advocate a form of direct democracy. If the voters believe painting is a valuable profession, and you pass the standards of qualifying as a professional painter, you will have become a painter.


So I would have to vote for every product that anyone creates? Would everyone in the world be forced to look at my painting and voting yay or nay on it? Or is this voting requirement only limited to my town? How often would this vote take place also? What if I got democratically approved and then decided that instead of painting beautiful pictures I would start painting stick figures, would a new vote be required then?

naked_turk wrote:If I worked 4 hours a day, even if it was in a field that didn't interest me, I could still come home and (in my case) develop software on my own time as a hobby, even making creative, innovative products that I wouldn't otherwise be able to under a directed-work environment. Linus Torvalds and associates did it with Linux, producing a world class operating system purely out of love for their work. I don't see why painters shouldn't be able to do likewise.


Programming is a hobby to some people and it is also a field that lends itself to easy copying where 1 programmer can service 5 billion people with no issues, the same cannot be said of jobs like being a guy who repairs broken sewers or changing truck springs (both jobs I have done), I doubt you are gonna get anyone to work as a truck spring changer because it is their ''hobby'' lol, it is dirty and hard work and people do it for the money, they do it because they are rewarded better for it than some guy with an easy job.

naked_turk wrote:Except that's not what they are saying at all. I simply cannot go through their whole supply/demand based community planning and cost calculation here, nor can Cockshott in a 30 minute video. This isn't The Venus Project, where some old idealist just dismisses the whole issue with "computers will have the answers." There is a reason that the book has two authors: One is an Economist/ Mathematician and the other is a Computer Scientist; there is plenty of practical research and development that has gone into designing the model*. If you are truly interested in criticising the model, buy the book and respond to it directly instead of creating strawmen.

*Again, I have to reiterate that the research of only 2 men will not be enough for actual implementation. You might rather take this as workable a proposal.


First of all, economics is a logical science not a mathematical one. Second of all, based on your post it seems you just want people to trust you that you have a working program, you still havent explained how 1 programmer or lets say 100 programmers can know the value scales of lets say 5 million people or 100 million people.
#13905901
You cannot calculate what human beings value with math, value is an internal brain process of each human being that does not lend itself to mathematical calculation from a central point or planner.


You should tell that to economists. They have a graph to model everything. Supply and demand? Model. Most profitable price of sale? Model. Most efficient number of employees to hire? Model. Most profitable wage? Model. Everything in Economics that is known (instead of hypothesized) is done with math.
#13905905
Publius wrote:You should tell that to economists. They have a graph to model everything. Supply and demand? Model. Most profitable price of sale? Model. Most efficient number of employees to hire? Model. Most profitable wage? Model. Everything in Economics that is known (instead of hypothesized) is done with math.


Appeal to authority = invalid.
#13905928
Publius wrote:It's no more an appeal to authority then saying "The earth rotates around the sun, and I know this because every astrophysicist says so" is an appeal to authority.


You can prove that via simple observation, you cannot prove human value scales since you cannot see them anywhere and they change constantly.
#13906146
Supply and demand? Model.

I'm not sure how the other models are made, so I'll focus on this one. Doesn't it require data based on the costs of what to buy; how the supply of what is bought changes prices independantly for each good and substitute good; and, also, the amount of disposable income? (I'm making a presumption that each good has a different variant of the graph.)I don't think any of those inputs could, in a valid sense, exist in socialism, so the only way to implement this would be to take current trends in capitalism, shove the values into a socialist framework, and hope that nothing changes in the socialist system to make the numbers useless.

Also, from my experience of the model, it's just an abstract concept. There may be a set of calculations that I was never told, but the version that I was showed is that there *is* a logical relationship between the two axis: so, no numbers, just a way of showing how one could theoretically affect the other.

Also, I really like how everything I wrote (and apparently won, judging by the lack of responses for such a long time) has been shoved under the proverbial carpet to make way for this new argument.
#13906193
Kman wrote:You cannot calculate what human beings value with math, value is an internal brain process of each human being that does not lend itself to mathematical calculation from a central point or planner.
:D I'm glad you've resorted to strawmen to defend your failing beliefs. You asked for a calculation for the value of products, not human beings. The model does not attempt to place a specific value on human beings. I don't know why you're bringing this into a debate on the value of pencils. I've already pointed you towards an appropriate resource for the calculation of product value.

Kman wrote:So I would have to vote for every product that anyone creates? Would everyone in the world be forced to look at my painting and voting yay or nay on it? Or is this voting requirement only limited to my town? How often would this vote take place also? What if I got democratically approved and then decided that instead of painting beautiful pictures I would start painting stick figures, would a new vote be required then?
I came here to give you an intro to a model, not answer every detail you would no doubt like to nitpick at. This is the reason I do not like to debate people with no working knowledge of a topic. It is akin to me having a debate with you on the merits of procedural programming versus structured programming, where you have no more than semi-casual knowledge on the subject and refuse to do any of your own work.

As I said before, there would, in theory, be a vote or an act of government to establish the requirements of being a professional painter. Your specific performance would not be put to a vote; you would, at any point, either meet or fail to meet the set requirements. You're approaching on troll territory here by subjecting my points to your own very distorted interpretations. Never mind that, again, this also has nothing to do with calculating the cost of a pencil.

Kman wrote:Programming is a hobby to some people and it is also a field that lends itself to easy copying where 1 programmer can service 5 billion people with no issues, the same cannot be said of jobs like being a guy who repairs broken sewers or changing truck springs (both jobs I have done), I doubt you are gonna get anyone to work as a truck spring changer because it is their ''hobby'' lol, it is dirty and hard work and people do it for the money, they do it because they are rewarded better for it than some guy with an easy job.
Yes, it is a job where one programmer can service 5 billion. :roll: Is that why Microsoft, Google, and dozens of software companies have multi-billion dollar development expenses every year? ...Because it's such a fun job that everyone just does it as a hobby? Is that why extremely wealthy TelCos rule the world of information...? Because any programmer wanting a billions strong network could just wish the internet into existence? You're living in a dreamland, dude; I never said it's a pleasant job. I said there are people who simply do work for the love of their work, and end up creating the best of world class products.

You completely skipped over the most important part here: Socialism is meant to reduce the amount of time the worker is bound to labour by removing the waste of profit. It will essentially double productivity in terms of "dollars in vs dollars out" if done right. So yes, there will be a mandatory job for everyone depending on what their individual skills and education are, but ideally, you'd be working a reduced schedule. Who is to say I wouldn't be a programmer in my directed time and be a painter in my time off? Who is to say I wouldn't be a truck spring changer in my directed time, and use my time off to develop software in a free association with other developers? Who is to say I couldn't be a painter professionally, and do absolutely nothing on my time off? Or any other combination you can think of? Again, nothing to do with a pencil.

Kman wrote:First of all, economics is a logical science not a mathematical one. Second of all, based on your post it seems you just want people to trust you that you have a working program, you still havent explained how 1 programmer or lets say 100 programmers can know the value scales of lets say 5 million people or 100 million people.
Economics is not a mathematical science, but rather a logical one? I'm no mathematician, but you are aware that mathematics is purely logic, yes?

Whoever is saying anything about programmers determining the value of people? No one said this - especially not me. I only mentioned that a computer scientist and an economist designed a workable system of assigning real-time market values to products in a socialist framework. You're creating strawmen to fight against, and completely dismissing my responses to your poorly argued rebuttals.

Kman wrote:Appeal to authority = invalid.
[...]
You can prove that via simple observation, you cannot prove human value scales since you cannot see them anywhere and they change constantly.
You sound like a highschooler who has just discovered philosophy class. Let me make this easier for you: Hume says that all observations on the nature of reality are based on inference from experience, which he (rightfully) say is inherently irrational and logically invalid. Now go tell that to astrophysicists, economists, and anyone else of your choosing who you disagree with. I'm sure everyone will take you very seriously.

Michaeluj wrote:I'm not sure how the other models are made, so I'll focus on this one. Doesn't it require data based on the costs of what to buy; how the supply of what is bought changes prices independantly for each good and substitute good; and, also, the amount of disposable income? (I'm making a presumption that each good has a different variant of the graph.)I don't think any of those inputs could, in a valid sense, exist in socialism, so the only way to implement this would be to take current trends in capitalism, shove the values into a socialist framework, and hope that nothing changes in the socialist system to make the numbers useless.
Did you check this out?

Michaeluj wrote:Also, from my experience of the model, it's just an abstract concept. There may be a set of calculations that I was never told, but the version that I was showed is that there *is* a logical relationship between the two axis: so, no numbers, just a way of showing how one could theoretically affect the other.
Yes, because the system, as it stands, is a chaotic system with a very small degree of stability or control. The very fact that it continues to exist is through massive, repeated, and expensive government interventions, and not some "invisible hand" that some economists would have you believe.

Michaeluj wrote:Also, I really like how everything I wrote (and apparently won, judging by the lack of responses for such a long time) has been shoved under the proverbial carpet to make way for this new argument.
I'm sorry Michaeluj, there were 8 pages in here before I joined the "debate." I read the first couple of posts and then decided to post an interesting model. My intent wasn't to debate much on it, nor do I really care to do as such, because the model I proposed doesn't necessarily follow my exact views and ideals, nor is my personal opinion on it all that much of an academically valid assessment.
#13906212
Did you check this out?

You do realize that this method actually reduces calculation? It's like adding your entire grocery list, giving every item an arbitrary value n, and then saying that your smoothie made from the items has cost nx+your time to make smoothie? It's not like it'll fail; that's not the argument, but it's still a reduction in quality. That's basically your first mistake.

Michaeluj wrote:
Also, from my experience of the model, it's just an abstract concept. There may be a set of calculations that I was never told, but the version that I was showed is that there *is* a logical relationship between the two axis: so, no numbers, just a way of showing how one could theoretically affect the other.

Yes, because the system, as it stands, is a chaotic system with a very small degree of stability or control. The very fact that it continues to exist is through massive, repeated, and expensive government interventions, and not some "invisible hand" that some economists would have you believe.

I know that you didn't make the point I was speaking about here, but I'll target your use of it until the original speaker returns to debate it further.

Even if supply and demand is fully unable to be quantified, as you say, that doesn't mean that the system is at fault. For example, why should astrophysics impact my ability to walk across a street, when it is such a big concept that defines the movement of every gigantic object (aka, similar in scope to the economy)? The important matter is that people can ignore those large features by focusing on prices: if price can be changed to improve results, then people would be inclined to change those prices. I don't have to worry about how proximity to the moon changes my gravity when all I really have to do is decide between waiting where I am for the light at an intersection to turn green, or go across the street by the grace of a different, already green light, so that I can stand there, thus having spent just a few more seconds being productive by getting slightly closer to my destination. The invisible hand is me seeing the current lights then acting accordingly.
#13907142
Michaeluj wrote:You do realize that this method actually reduces calculation? It's like adding your entire grocery list, giving every item an arbitrary value n, and then saying that your smoothie made from the items has cost nx+your time to make smoothie? It's not like it'll fail; that's not the argument, but it's still a reduction in quality. That's basically your first mistake.
Hold on a moment here - how did you determine that my value n is arbitrary? The precursor cost is not arbitrarily determined. Under this model, when I receive the ingredients for the smoothie, each one has a value based on the amount of labour hours that have gone into producing them. We can recursively keep following this back to the point where we are just harvesting raw materials.

Michaeluj wrote:I don't have to worry about how proximity to the moon changes my gravity when all I really have to do is decide between waiting where I am for the light at an intersection to turn green, or go across the street by the grace of a different, already green light, so that I can stand there, thus having spent just a few more seconds being productive by getting slightly closer to my destination. The invisible hand is me seeing the current lights then acting accordingly.
It is true that you, as an individual, are not directly involved in the exact method the government employs to intervene in the market (which is the only force keeping it in tact). What about the fact that this intervention is done on your back, through your taxes, through your efforts - all for supporting the status quo? Is that not directly affecting you?

You did mention the green lights... representing conditions that make it favourable for you to make a purchase or not to make a purchase, correct? If you do exclude the macroeconomic picture and focus on just the individual purchase, what is the meaning of those red or green lights? Sure, you'll make your decision based on the lights. But how does that change the fact that those conditions, as far as you're concerned, are imposed upon you arbitrarily? And how does it change the fact that, in the overall picture, the system, if left to it's own devices without above control and intervention, will collapse?
#13907221
Hold on a moment here - how did you determine that my value n is arbitrary?

There are other reasons, but most obvious is that labor value is different for each person. There are factors of education costs which (ought to) bring up their labor costs; there's the innate rarity of skill and how it ought to be incentivised to go to the correct places (would you prefer that a guy become an expensive doctor rather than the best damn cheap chicken feeder in the world, especially if they cost the same?); there's luck; there's that the cost of a machine is not proportional to how much it adds to labor *value*, and so on. Basically, I can just say, "Everyone earns 22 dollars per hour!", but, in your case, those dollars would be nothing more than labor-hours of the same value; how could you find the correct labor-hour cost? Well, I guess you could average all wages, but then why should one dumb person have the same pull as a genius who has the skill to invest in skyscrapers?

It is true that you, as an individual, are not directly involved in the exact method the government employs to intervene in the market (which is the only force keeping it in tact). What about the fact that this intervention is done on your back, through your taxes, through your efforts - all for supporting the status quo? Is that not directly affecting you?

Your argument here is ... that I'm wrong? You're already assuming that I can't win because of the presumption the government "is the only force" keeping the system intact. I might as well say that you're wrong because socialism never worked before. It's not a valid argument.

You did mention the green lights... representing conditions that make it favourable for you to make a purchase or not to make a purchase, correct? If you do exclude the macroeconomic picture and focus on just the individual purchase, what is the meaning of those red or green lights? Sure, you'll make your decision based on the lights. But how does that change the fact that those conditions, as far as you're concerned, are imposed upon you arbitrarily? And how does it change the fact that, in the overall picture, the system, if left to it's own devices without above control and intervention, will collapse?

I told you: prices. Prices change, then I act accordingly. They're not arbitrary because they are based on input based on the value and cost of people in relation to everything else supplied: one item bought affects, in a sense, everything else, from the real to the yet unmade. They're only arbitrary notion is that people, in their own choices and whimsies, made these results apparent, but their choices had rational consequences that I, as someone pursing the excess of a situation and trimming it back to dynamic equilibrium for my gain (the lights), attempt to alleviate. For a simplistic example, if I see that demand for being a teacher is higher than for being a doctor, then I would have financial inclination to become a doctor and, by doing so, alleviate the demand for teachers.
#13908446
Michaeluj wrote:There are other reasons, but most obvious is that labor value is different for each person. There are factors of education costs which (ought to) bring up their labor costs; ... there's luck; there's that the cost of a machine is not proportional to how much it adds to labor *value*, and so on
You're thinking along capitalist market economy lines. Socialism isn't just about making a change in the determination of prices and how people are paid and leaving it at that. If implemented correctly, it's a complete paradigm shift where the rules of capitalist markets no longer apply. When you get down to it, nobody's labour is worth more than anyone else's, excepting for individual variances in productivity and efficiency -- which can be measured and compensated for proportionally.

there's the innate rarity of skill and how it ought to be incentivised to go to the correct places (would you prefer that a guy become an expensive doctor rather than the best damn cheap chicken feeder in the world, especially if they cost the same?)
Every society needs both, and neither is inherently more valuable if we possess the need for both and the resources to train both. I'll delve more into this below.

Well, I guess you could average all wages, but then why should one dumb person have the same pull as a genius who has the skill to invest in skyscrapers?
This is addressed by paying the individual a full worker's wage to complete their education. You cannot demand a higher wage for becoming an architect if you chose to become an architect out of your own accord and had society pay you for developing your own skills. Of course there would need be a gradual transitory phase*.

In a system which would cut out the waste of profit and essentially bring the value of each individual's labour to be worth approximately double the current average (the equivalent of $70,000/year in the USA) and bring down costs of all goods, there isn't much incentive anyway to earn more money for a particular job anyway - you've already satisfied your basic needs, your recreational needs, and then some.

Understandably, you might ask why anyone would want to do something complicated for a living, right? I don't know the root cause of it, but if we look at the Cuban situation, where doctors are not only well-respected but also world-class, we find it is a country with one of the highest number of doctors per capita in the world - despite the fact that there is no real monetary advantage to choosing this potentially difficult job for a living. I can only assume this 'anomaly' is not really that weird considering human nature is to strive to better ourselves. But our modern Capitalist society has distorted our perception of wants, needs and values so much that we evaluate everything through the warped lens of monetary gain. This would be unthinkable to a commoner even 100 years ago, and it is obviously unthinkable to the Cubans who choose to become doctors not for the love of money, but for the love of their work and the prestige it brings them.

Your argument here is ... that I'm wrong? You're already assuming that I can't win because of the presumption the government "is the only force" keeping the system intact. I might as well say that you're wrong because socialism never worked before. It's not a valid argument.
Are you suggesting a market economy can exist without government interference to keep the system from collapsing? I'm being a little crude and oversimplifying here -- but the purpose of government in a Capitalist market economy is to restrain the market in such a way as to preserve the status quo. Unrestrained, it is "a contest amongst wolves." They'll cannibalise themselves and destroy their own foundations, without any regard for anything except a perceived chance at short-term profit. An economist and former banker explains this much better than myself here.

Though I understand where your argument against socialism is coming from, I must disagree in that declaring socialism to have failed is akin to having declared (as many did) that the bourgeoisie and capitalism were dead with the defeat of Napoleon.

For a simplistic example, if I see that demand for being a teacher is higher than for being a doctor, then I would have financial inclination to become a doctor and, by doing so, alleviate the demand for teachers.
So what we are playing with here is a simple question of financial probabilities and potentials. There is then no real value behind any of these determinations -- just the imaginations of men who make it possible. Consequences of a chaotic and directionless market. One could indeed make the argument that such pressures would exist in a socialist economy as well: Should I buy the car or should I not, considering how much the car costs and how much money I have in the bank? The differences would be that the relationships between the costs of items and demand would appear to be much more rational when the only determining force isn't "the market."

* I concede that I don't know the details of how the gradual shift of the economic structure would be implemented; I will be honest and tell you that I have toyed with a few ideas in my mind and don't yet have enough information or research to decide for myself. As it stands, there is massive amounts of research and tireless efforts by those who hold stakes in our system to keep our system functional as it is, and to keep our faith in it. Workable solutions to this problem will be found in time if those very resources were to be directed towards the gradual implementation of the shift towards the socialist economy, but they will only be valid if they are tailored to the material conditions at the time and place of the shift. In essence, airing any of my thoughts on this would be in vain.
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You're thinking along capitalist market economy lines. Socialism isn't just about making a change in the determination of prices and how people are paid and leaving it at that. If implemented correctly, it's a complete paradigm shift where the rules of capitalist markets no longer apply. When you get down to it, nobody's labour is worth more than anyone else's, excepting for individual variances in productivity and efficiency -- which can be measured and compensated for proportionally.

See, even you admit that labor should be adjusted for productivity. I, however, want it to be based on relative supply and demand as well, which involves tallying the needs that others have of a specific service in relation to their ability to pay and their proclivity to do so at that amount in relation to all other buyers; the amount of that service availability in relation to all other opportunity costs ...

Actually, I'll stop talking about this until you rectify your argument or elucidate it so that, in your opinion, change in labor value is not modified based on consumer spending and demand. I won't try to waste too much breath until you EXACTLY get to how changes in labor value should be done and when.

Also, saying that the system is different, and only that, is not an argument to explain why making decisions in that system is unnecessary/different or computational through formula.


Understandably, you might ask why anyone would want to do something complicated for a living, right? I don't know the root cause of it, but if we look at the Cuban situation, where doctors are not only well-respected but also world-class, we find it is a country with one of the highest number of doctors per capita in the world - despite the fact that there is no real monetary advantage to choosing this potentially difficult job for a living.

Alas, I made my example so obvious that you missed the point. How about we choose between doctors, mechanics, engineers, teachers, and organizers? Cuba has many doctors. Calculate, for me, the opportunity costs between just these five different options for that potential doctor, and make it easier for yourself and imagine that he can be any of those at the same exact skill level as anyone else who can take those jobs as well, and try to do it without any one person paying him directly. Also, have each one cost within 5 percent of each other to train and have all of their skills be equivalent. Or just show me, even in a simplified form, how this can be done.


Quote:
Well, I guess you could average all wages, but then why should one dumb person have the same pull as a genius who has the skill to invest in skyscrapers?
This is addressed by paying the individual a full worker's wage to complete their education. You cannot demand a higher wage for becoming an architect if you chose to become an architect out of your own accord and had society pay you for developing your own skills. Of course there would need be a gradual transitory phase*.

That makes no real sense. Are you saying that the sum annual "labor-hour" wages of an architect is equivalent to the labor-hour costs of the work his teachers put into his education and the resources that others put into it, therefore meaning that his value, which is derived purely from the educational costs that others spent to upgrade him from baby to his final state, is only one year? Of course not, but I want to make you actually think.

In a system which would cut out the waste of profit and essentially bring the value of each individual's labour to be worth approximately double the current average (the equivalent of $70,000/year in the USA) and bring down costs of all goods, there isn't much incentive anyway to earn more money for a particular job anyway - you've already satisfied your basic needs, your recreational needs, and then some.

Again, where do socialists get these numbers!?

After, let's say, 200 years of industrialization and fully-fledged capitalism, it is evident that each capitalist only has, basically, 2000 dollars per person in just money. And that's in the USA, which is quite unequal. Factories and so forth are pretty expensive and require upkeep, and so, because of this reinvestment of profits, the amount of spending increase that can be given to everyone from the capitalist surplus is actually quite minor, after annual reinvestment every year for several centuries. If you think investment right now is at a good level, or should be increased, there is no actual reason why that 2000 dollars per person will not be given again for at least another century. Sure, things like mansions will not be spent any longer, but how could that money even remotely double the spending amounts of others?
Basically, everyone will get a few grand, then get it again when they're ancient.

Are you suggesting a market economy can exist without government interference to keep the system from collapsing? I'm being a little crude and oversimplifying here -- but the purpose of government in a Capitalist market economy is to restrain the market in such a way as to preserve the status quo. Unrestrained, it is "a contest amongst wolves." They'll cannibalise themselves and destroy their own foundations, without any regard for anything except a perceived chance at short-term profit. An economist and former banker explains this much better than myself here.

Yes, you're arguing against everything about me, thus avoiding the responsibility of ever losing to this argument. You're fixated, here, on the subject matters that just aren't pertinent to this discussion; I could beat you here, regarding calculation, but then you'll just say that I'm wrong because I automatically lost a *bigger* argument that we shouldn't even bother to discuss.

Though I understand where your argument against socialism is coming from, I must disagree in that declaring socialism to have failed is akin to having declared (as many did) that the bourgeoisie and capitalism were dead with the defeat of Napoleon.
Why?

So what we are playing with here is a simple question of financial probabilities and potentials. There is then no real value behind any of these determinations -- just the imaginations of men who make it possible. Consequences of a chaotic and directionless market. One could indeed make the argument that such pressures would exist in a socialist economy as well: Should I buy the car or should I not, considering how much the car costs and how much money I have in the bank? The differences would be that the relationships between the costs of items and demand would appear to be much more rational when the only determining force isn't "the market."

Why? You're trying to implement the market for pencils, but when it's done to labor the whole thing becomes chaotic? I'm sensing cognitive dissonance.
Traffic lights are based on the probability of cars going to the intersection, but I still know exactly when it's more convenient for me to move when I see what lights are green.
#13910287
Michaeluj wrote:See, even you admit that labor should be adjusted for productivity. I, however, want it to be based on relative supply and demand as well, which involves tallying the needs that others have of a specific service in relation to their ability to pay and their proclivity to do so at that amount in relation to all other buyers; the amount of that service availability in relation to all other opportunity costs ...Also, saying that the system is different, and only that, is not an argument to explain why making decisions in that system is unnecessary/different or computational through formula.
I don't think that, objectively speaking, the value of the work I do changes based on how many other people are currently trained or willing to do it. This only matters when I have to compete with others for a job in a free market, when we, in an overcrowded market of architects or doctors or chicken feeders or whatever, are willing to work for less, since the alternative would be financial ruin through unemployment.


Actually, I'll stop talking about this until you rectify your argument or elucidate it so that, in your opinion, change in labor value is not modified based on consumer spending and demand. I won't try to waste too much breath until you EXACTLY get to how changes in labor value should be done and when.
According to the model I've quoted, only based on productivity/efficiency relative to average.

Alas, I made my example so obvious that you missed the point. How about we choose between doctors, mechanics, engineers, teachers, and organizers? Cuba has many doctors. Calculate, for me, the opportunity costs between just these five different options for that potential doctor, and make it easier for yourself and imagine that he can be any of those at the same exact skill level as anyone else who can take those jobs as well, and try to do it without any one person paying him directly. Also, have each one cost within 5 percent of each other to train and have all of their skills be equivalent. Or just show me, even in a simplified form, how this can be done.
Why are you trying to have equal skill levels? No one will be equally skilled. You're asking me to do the impossible. They also don't need to cost the same to train. I don't see why you find this relevant at all. Are you suggesting that the free market precisely and fairly delegates cost/pay based on skill level, and that this is something a socialist system would be incapable of? Again, your focus is on how much profit can be made relative to the investment. It doesn't matter; it is completely irrelevant.

That makes no real sense. Are you saying that the sum annual "labor-hour" wages of an architect is equivalent to the labor-hour costs of the work his teachers put into his education and the resources that others put into it, therefore meaning that his value, which is derived purely from the educational costs that others spent to upgrade him from baby to his final state, is only one year? Of course not, but I want to make you actually think.
No, what I am saying is that his "value" derives from his work. If he works for an hour, he is compensated for an hour. This includes his time spent studying, whether in high school or in university. That way, he is unable to claim higher value for his skilled labour, because he willingly undertook the responsibility to become skilled, and was paid for it at the expense of the people.


After, let's say, 200 years of industrialization and fully-fledged capitalism, it is evident that each capitalist only has, basically, 2000 dollars per person in just money. And that's in the USA, which is quite unequal. Factories and so forth are pretty expensive and require upkeep, and so, because of this reinvestment of profits, the amount of spending increase that can be given to everyone from the capitalist surplus is actually quite minor, after annual reinvestment every year for several centuries. If you think investment right now is at a good level, or should be increased, there is no actual reason why that 2000 dollars per person will not be given again for at least another century. Sure, things like mansions will not be spent any longer, but how could that money even remotely double the spending amounts of others?
Basically, everyone will get a few grand, then get it again when they're ancient.
First thing is that I'll tell you I don't know what you mean by 'just money' and that there is only $2000/person.

You are intentionally ignoring the inflationary effects of money accumulation and freely available credit. I'm going by real data and also some anecdotal confirmations: The old folks who sit on our city labour council say that 50 years ago, an average worker with a steady job would need not more than a couple of years of savings to buy a home. Now it is 40 years of indentured servitude through paying half of his or her income. This difference is arrived at simply by adding "cheap" credit to the market. If we remove this, we have a return to more affordable goods (consider that wages would have to go up as well, because cheap credit was introduced as a shortsighted remedy to wage reduction). If we remove the ability for massive accumulation, the relative price of everything drops further, and the returns on each hour of labour increase.

Yes, you're arguing against everything about me, thus avoiding the responsibility of ever losing to this argument. You're fixated, here, on the subject matters that just aren't pertinent to this discussion; I could beat you here, regarding calculation, but then you'll just say that I'm wrong because I automatically lost a *bigger* argument that we shouldn't even bother to discuss.
That's where I can say with certainty that you are wrong. I don't care in the least bit about "winning" or "losing" this argument. At most, I'm interested in having an honest discussion.

Why?
It can be (and was) argued that this was the birthplace of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, and that the feudal kingdoms rushed to crush it.

Traffic lights are based on the probability of cars going to the intersection, but I still know exactly when it's more convenient for me to move when I see what lights are green.
So, again, why do you care if that green light / red light is determined by a calculation based on maximising profit, or determined by a calculation based on fair compensation, if you are going to be following it anyway?
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