[Robert Urbanek]

In Finland, speeding fines are based on how much income you make. But even in the US, your level of income may determine how much you pay for certain goods and services, such as the discounts given for low-income housing, medical care and, in some jurisdictions, discounts on utility bills.

One could see how such “Marxist” pricing could become more pervasive, particularly on internet purchases. Conceivably, if you had a history of purchasing luxury goods or even browsing on high-end retail sites, a logarithm might determine you are an affluent buyer and automatically set a higher price on goods that other people would pay less for.

Should we have legislation to preemptively ban such a practice or are you okay with the concept that rich people should pay more for products?

[BlutoSays]

Unconstitutional. Equal protection clause.

But I'm sure democrats will try it.

[late]

In Finland, speeding fines are based on how much income you make. But even in the US, your level of income may determine how much you pay for certain goods and services, such as the discounts given for low-income housing, medical care and, in some jurisdictions, discounts on utility bills.

One could see how such “Marxist” pricing could become more pervasive, particularly on internet purchases. Conceivably, if you had a history of purchasing luxury goods or even browsing on high-end retail sites, a logarithm might determine you are an affluent buyer and automatically set a higher price on goods that other people would pay less for.

Should we have legislation to preemptively ban such a practice or are you okay with the concept that rich people should pay more for products?

It's a good idea, but you have to go case by case.

Btw, Docs and hospitals used to do that. It wasn't required, but adjusting the payment was common.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Unconstitutional. Equal protection clause.

But I'm sure democrats will try it.

Discounts for people over a certain age, or for active or retired military, seem to survive the US Constitution OK. Does the constitution have anything about those being special categories? Or are you saying that it's Democrats who offer those already, and it's a slippery slope from there?

[Robert Urbanek]

Discounts for people over a certain age, or for active or retired military, seem to survive the US Constitution OK. Does the constitution have anything about those being special categories? Or are you saying that it's Democrats who offer those already, and it's a slippery slope from there?

I wasn’t claiming the pricing differences were unconstitutional, but I could see a problem with transparency. Given the covert nature of data collection and logarithms, the customer might not know that the price he was quoted was not the price offered to other people.

[Rancid]

I feel like this is just more games. If we fixed the tax system, there would probably be enough funds to help the lower classes with things like housing/education/healthcare.

Side point, corporations already do this though.

Walmarts in more affluent neighborhoods charge more for the same products. Here in Austin, trades people will charge based on your zip code. If you are in a more affluent zipcode they will up charge 20% for the same exact job.

[Unthinking Majority]

More expensive fines for breaking the law make sense. Rich people won't be disincentivized to breakthe law if they don't feel any meaningful consequence.

Goods and services i'm not sure.

There's some privacy issues here of course.

[JohnRawls]

In Finland, speeding fines are based on how much income you make. But even in the US, your level of income may determine how much you pay for certain goods and services, such as the discounts given for low-income housing, medical care and, in some jurisdictions, discounts on utility bills.

One could see how such “Marxist” pricing could become more pervasive, particularly on internet purchases. Conceivably, if you had a history of purchasing luxury goods or even browsing on high-end retail sites, a logarithm might determine you are an affluent buyer and automatically set a higher price on goods that other people would pay less for.

Should we have legislation to preemptively ban such a practice or are you okay with the concept that rich people should pay more for products?

Fines based on your income is fine. Pricing based on income should be outright banned and the person advocating such a thing should be sent to a gulag. In case of internet companies then corporate people should be sent to jail for discrimination of some sort. (Incomism? Whatever)

Come to think of it, fines based on wealth/income would fix a lot of problems that we have against the super rich and corporations. Notice how shitlessly scared the corporations are when EU goes after their ass for violating something.

[Steve_American]

Not to throw water in your face, but there is the opposite in some cases.
The poor pay more for many things, starting with credit.

[ckaihatsu]

I feel like this is just more games. If we fixed the tax system, there would probably be enough funds to help the lower classes with things like housing/education/healthcare.

Side point, corporations already do this though.

Walmarts in more affluent neighborhoods charge more for the same products. Here in Austin, trades people will charge based on your zip code. If you are in a more affluent zipcode they will up charge 20% for the same exact job.

---


Occupy organizer calls for guaranteed income: Cost of poverty greater than eliminating it

https://www.rawstory.com/2014/10/occupy ... nating-it/

[ckaihatsu]

Today's computational prowess means that society now has the logistical means to determine relative preferences without resorting to the private sector, or without even being dependent on the use of money *at all*:

The social use of the 'labor credits' vehicle [...] would also allow for keeping the material-economic and socio-political realms *separate*, so that one would *not necessarily* have to be personally invested in what they're doing as (liberated) labor, as would be inherently necessary in a strictly-voluntary communist-type gift economy. (One could work at *whatever* work roles are available, if allowed-to by whatever project, simply to amass *labor credits* instead of necessarily having to 'like' a work-role both personally *and also* for its material output to the social good, as would happen in a non-labor-credits communistic gift economy.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20201211050 ... ?p=2889338

[ckaihatsu]

[N]ecessarily having to 'like' a work-role both personally *and also* for its material output to the social good [...] would happen in a non-labor-credits communistic gift economy.)

(You don't have to work for your favorite charity.)

[ckaihatsu]

Gotta add that the *default* way of thinking about this could very well be *communalism*, where fuck-money turns into crude, even brutal, *localism*:


Rotation system of work roles

Spoiler: show

[late]

Today's computational prowess means that society now has the logistical means to determine relative preferences without resorting to the private sector

, or without even being dependent on the use of money *at all*

Ummm, no. Your magic wand is more powerful than the one Harry Potter had.

When Star Trek started, Roddenberry wanted to have a future without money. He had to give up, because we have no idea how to do it. You can replace money with anything, but if it doesn't 'keep score'; it will fail.

[wat0n]

Today's computational prowess means that society now has the logistical means to determine relative preferences without resorting to the private sector, or without even being dependent on the use of money *at all*:

Hell no.

Even today, the optimization problem you'd need to solve would take forever to run in a supercomputer, making that idea unfeasible even if we were ruled by a benevolent and well-meaning dictator who has all the necessary information.

This is from 2012, but even if you account for Moore's Law we're still many years away from even considering that possiblity:

https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in ... olves-you/

[ckaihatsu]

Ummm, no. Your magic wand is more powerful than the one Harry Potter had.

When Star Trek started, Roddenberry wanted to have a future without money. He had to give up, because we have no idea how to do it. You can replace money with anything, but if it doesn't 'keep score'; it will fail.

Well, all I can say then is... You're Welcome. (grin)

Yes, I certainly appreciate the empirical 'problem' / 'situation' there, and I *have* accounted for the material-economic component of 'value', roughly, that you're referring to here.

Once past exchange-values and labor-vouchers, the communist-type *gift economy* would be the desired direction *to* and for a post-capitalist political economy.

The current political-economy societal concept and use of '[exchange-]value' can be superseded *altogether*, I'd say, by socially *detaching* social-production material *supply*, from social-production material *demand*. It's up to *society* at that point to 'connect' whatever available supplies of collectivist *supplies*, to '[organic] *demand*'.

Labor vouchers imply a political economy that *consciously* determines valuations, but there's nothing to guarantee that such oversight -- regardless of its composition -- would properly take material realities into account. Such a system would be open to the systemic problems of groupthink and elitism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way, and uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind. In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations. The labor credits would represent past labor hours completed, multiplied by the difficulty or hazard of the work role performed. The difficulty/hazard multiplier would be determined by a mass survey of all work roles, compiled into an index.

[ckaihatsu]

Hell no.

Even today, the optimization problem you'd need to solve would take forever to run in a supercomputer, making that idea unfeasible even if we were ruled by a benevolent and well-meaning dictator who has all the necessary information.

This is from 2012, but even if you account for Moore's Law we're still many years away from even considering that possiblity:

https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in ... olves-you/

You're describing the inevitable complexities / difficulties that arise from reliance on the *market mechanism*.

[W]e know that the *dynamics* of capitalist functioning are far from sound. There's constant *overproduction*, *overextension* of capital and its leveraging, and an overimportance of social function for the role of finance / capital.

Just look at how *depersonalizing* you're allowing capital to get, here, with a *fetishizing* of its social role -- if this functioning of capital, as 'lifeblood', falters at all, as it has in 2019, 2020, and now 2021, then our overdependence on it and its fragility becomes apparent to all, with resulting *slowdowns* necessary for 'economic maintenance'.

I can simply counterpose, to your 'capitalist circuit', the political economy of 'a landscape of piles of stuff', meaning that *everything* could be in 'the commons', for workers to *replenish* local piles of stuff, with their labor, or not, depending on how all of society consciously *decides* to use stuff from all of the piles in socially constructive ways.

This post-capitalist approach replaces the capitalist 'hands-off' market mechanism, with a mass-conscious 'hands-on' *social* mechanism, so that nothing is ever again 'accidental' or a 'market failure'.

viewtopic.php?p=15181515#p15181515

[wat0n]

You're describing the inevitable complexities / difficulties that arise from reliance on the *market mechanism*.

No. This is under central planning.

[ckaihatsu]

No. This is under central planning.

For *you* and capitalism's middle-layer of *exchange values* the question / issue revolves around the 'independent variable' of *value*, economically -- the *political* aspect, that *you're* speaking to, is separate but related.

Markets:capitalism::central planning:Stalinism

Social-democracy:capitalism::central planning:Stalinism


Not a Stalinist / statist myself -- workers of the world can all respectively co-administrate over proletarian-collectivized means of mass industrial production.


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show

[late]

Well, all I can say then is... You're Welcome. (grin)

Yes, I certainly appreciate the empirical 'problem' / 'situation' there, and I *have* accounted for the material-economic component of 'value', roughly, that you're referring to here.

Once past exchange-values and labor-vouchers, the communist-type *gift economy* would be the desired direction *to* and for a post-capitalist political economy.

The current political-economy societal concept and use of '[exchange-]value' can be superseded *altogether*, I'd say, by socially *detaching* social-production material *supply*, from social-production material *demand*. It's up to *society* at that point to 'connect' whatever available supplies of collectivist *supplies*, to '[organic] *demand*'.

That is complete, and utter, BS.

You keep assuming you can replace something when you only have a vague understanding of what it is you are trying to replace, and no idea whatsoever as to how your proposal would actually work in the real world.

As I've pointed out before, you need a demonstration project. But I suspect you know you couldn't do it.