[Wolfman]

So, these are somethings I see brought up every now and then, which seem to be either ignored or brushed aside like nothing happened:

How would the "price" of an item be determined at "market" (I say "price" for lack of a better term)
Will "currency" be based on labor expelled, and if so how will that be figured?
I've also see some references to basing currency on labor-hours required to make the item, yes, no?
How will the central planners know how much of an item to make, and where in the society to put it?
On a related note, how will employees get paid (ie, will all burger king fry-cooks get paid the same?)

[Eauz]

How would the "price" of an item be determined at "market" (I say "price" for lack of a better term)

I am doubtful that the concept of price would continue to manifest itself, considering the structure of liquidating the capitalist market would be the main goal of developing socialism/communism.

Will "currency" be based on labor expelled, and if so how will that be figured?

No idea. A culture of eliminating the concept of labour-slavery would have to be changed through socio-economic policies.

I've also see some references to basing currency on labor-hours required to make the item, yes, no?

Within the early stages of socialism, its possible.

How will the central planners know how much of an item to make, and where in the society to put it?

I am a major supporter of central planning, however, I believe that the local communities/societies must play a major part in aiding what is or would be required, similar to that of a grocery store, which also has to use central planning in its business model.

On a related note, how will employees get paid (ie, will all burger king fry-cooks get paid the same?)

Possibly in the early stages, labour-hours or something similar, however, in the long-term, eliminating the concept of labour-hours (labour-slavery), for more ownership over the means of production and ownership of the community structure.

[Wolfman]

I am doubtful that the concept of price would continue to manifest itself, considering the structure of liquidating the capitalist market would be the main goal of developing socialism/communism.

How are central planners going to figure out how much I (as a worker in a communist society) will have to give to the store to acquire a pencil?

I am a major supporter of central planning, however, I believe that the local communities/societies must play a major part in aiding what is or would be required, similar to that of a grocery store, which also has to use central planning in its business model.

OK. And?

Possibly in the early stages, labour-hours or something similar, however, in the long-term, eliminating the concept of labour-hours (labour-slavery), for more ownership over the means of production and ownership of the community structure.

I'm... I'm not sure how that answers my question.

[daft punk]

have a look at this

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/books_ ... _Growth/13

talks about prices and planning mechanisms.

[Daktoria]

So, these are somethings I see brought up every now and then, which seem to be either ignored or brushed aside like nothing happened:

How would the "price" of an item be determined at "market" (I say "price" for lack of a better term)
Will "currency" be based on labor expelled, and if so how will that be figured?
I've also see some references to basing currency on labor-hours required to make the item, yes, no?
How will the central planners know how much of an item to make, and where in the society to put it?
On a related note, how will employees get paid (ie, will all burger king fry-cooks get paid the same?)

One word - emotions.

This is why Marxism depends upon dialectic materialism - everyone needs to be able to objectify relationships and understand how to play social games to behave accordingly.

[Beren]

How will the central planners know how much of an item to make, and where in the society to put it?

Although total central planning is such an absurd thing as anarchism, it's not just central planning that is problematic.

In his 1980 book, Economics of Shortage, perhaps his most influential work, Kornai argued that the chronic shortages seen throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1970s (and which continued during the 1980s) were not the consequences of planners’ errors or the wrong prices, but rather systemic flaws. In his 1988 book, The Socialist System, The Political Economy of Communism he argued that the command economy based on the unchallenged control by a Marxist-Leninist communist party leads to a predominance of bureaucratic administration of state firms, through centralized planning and management, and the use of administrative pricing to eliminate the effects of the market, leading to individual responses to the incentives of this system, ultimately causing observable and inescapable economic phenomena known as the shortage economy. Kornai is very skeptical of efforts to create market socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1nos_Kornai#Works

[Wolfman]

One word - emotions.

This is why Marxism depends upon dialectic materialism - everyone needs to be able to objectify relationships and understand how to play social games to behave accordingly.

Oh go to hell. No one is talking to you, you have no idea what you're talking about, just shut the fuck up.

talks about prices and planning mechanisms.

I'm only really seeing references to planning, and that's mostly in the context of sustainability.

[Daktoria]

Oh go to hell. No one is talking to you, you have no idea what you're talking about, just shut the fuck up.

Fine by me. You can learn the hard long way if you want.

[daft punk]

First thing is - Russia was not socialist. Marxists never thought you would have socialism with a bureaucratic dictatorship. The slow, poor decision making was entirely due to the existence of the bureaucratic dictatorship. Having said that they had a planned economy which grew very fast up to the 1970s and looked for a while like it might even overtake America. One problem was getting innovation put into practice. There were a number of things that made it difficult to get factory managers to implement change. Socialism needs decision making to be undertaken by the whole population. The person on the shop floor knows what is needed on the shop floor. The dock worker knows not to leave tractors by the sea for too long. Of course we would also have mathematicians and so on planning at global levels.

[Daktoria]

Daft, how would you define the demand side of the equation?

The fundamental issue with socialist calculation is nobody knows what demand is going to be in the future. Supply is imputed on the basis of risk management, but socialism doesn't understand this.

Syndicalism doesn't work either because workers are only familiar with their own little worlds. They don't manage. Yes, you can throw analysts in as managers, but analysts are always working with past data. General equilibrium modeling doesn't account for how people change over time.

Statistical models can be built to include flexibility, but how much flexibility, and what kind?

That's why socialism fundamentally boils down to emotions in the end. Flexibility ends up becoming defined by what you and the people around you feel.

[The Immortal Goon]

Marxism is a way to explain history as much as anything else. Why were the Romans different than Feudal Europe?

If you asked a Tuscan King what he thought about the astonishment of the Corn Laws - he would have no fucking idea. You could explain to him the costs and benefits, and he might stumble on some correct answer on accident - but you couldn't possibly expect him to answer that kind of a question.

The same is true of a socialist economy in a lot of ways. We can use what we know about a capitalist economy - the same kind of economic base and superstructure in which we all grew up - to try and come up with answers. However, they're always going to be incomplete because we're products of the time in which we live. The transition to a communist society will be difficult, and there will be errors.

The reason it will happen has to do with organized defiance and advancement, sure. But underpinning that - and more important - is the fact that no system, least of all capitalism, is perfect. These imperfections will continue to make contradictions that will become increasingly obvious and troublesome as time goes on. Eventually, we know because this has been true for all class-based societies, it will transition into something that will make the contradictions irrelevant.

How exactly things will be after that is difficult to say and depends a lot on how the transition takes place. No Marxist claims to know for sure because, at that point, Marxist theory is kind of irrelevant as it itself was based on contradictions in capitalism.

[Daktoria]

TIG, the issue isn't whether or not socialism is perfect.

The issue is risk management. When you collectivize losses, you end up with principal-agent conflict all over the place. Charismatic people don't suffer, but uncharismatic people do.

[The Immortal Goon]

Dak, that has nothing to do with anything I wrote. I have no idea how to respond.

[Eauz]

How are central planners going to figure out how much I (as a worker in a communist society) will have to give to the store to acquire a pencil?

First, we must understand the actual reasons for such pencils and other consumer goods. In our present structure of society, in order to sustain economic growth, we have to promote and create the demand for these goods and services. I am doubtful that the same structure of socio-economic policies would exist to promote massive consumerism within the society. Nevertheless, people are going to need goods and services for various reason, but they would greatly vary from the current needs of the consumer. A major investment would be to automate a large part of the manufacturing and service positions to reduce the amount of wasteful labour and minimise the initial cost of goods and services available for the collective society.

OK. And?

...?

I'm... I'm not sure how that answers my question.

Instead of a one-liner, you could have explain your answer in more detail, if you feel that I did not answer it correctly.

[Wolfman]

First, we must understand the actual reasons for such pencils and other consumer goods. In our present structure of society, in order to sustain economic growth, we have to promote and create the demand for these goods and services. I am doubtful that the same structure of socio-economic policies would exist to promote massive consumerism within the society. Nevertheless, people are going to need goods and services for various reason, but they would greatly vary from the current needs of the consumer. A major investment would be to automate a large part of the manufacturing and service positions to reduce the amount of wasteful labour and minimise the initial cost of goods and services available for the collective society.

I don't see how that answers my question. Am I just going to get pencils for nothing, will I have to hand over random labor-hour vouchers, will I have to barter?

...?

I don't see how that answers my question. How is the central planning group, however centralized or decentralized they may be, going to know how many pencils to make?

Instead of a one-liner, you could have explain your answer in more detail, if you feel that I did not answer it correctly.

I don't think I can explain my question any clearer.

I don't know, maybe I'm stupid, but every time I ask Communists a question about something specific under Communism, I always seem to get some vague answer that kind of relates to the question, but not really, and then when I say that I don't understand how it relates to my question, I seem to regularly get some backhanded insult.

[daft punk]

Daft, how would you define the demand side of the equation?

The fundamental issue with socialist calculation is nobody knows what demand is going to be in the future. Supply is imputed on the basis of risk management, but socialism doesn't understand this.

Syndicalism doesn't work either because workers are only familiar with their own little worlds. They don't manage. Yes, you can throw analysts in as managers, but analysts are always working with past data. General equilibrium modeling doesn't account for how people change over time.

Statistical models can be built to include flexibility, but how much flexibility, and what kind?

That's why socialism fundamentally boils down to emotions in the end. Flexibility ends up becoming defined by what you and the people around you feel.

Goon is correct, it's a question nobody can answer exactly, least of all me. I do know it will be a question of trial and error, which is actually how capitalism works too. I know we have computers so any 'calculation' should be doable. I know that multinationals do quite a bit of planning for themselves. We just need to integrate it and control it for need not profit. See my link and other articles. Price will be used during the transition towards socialism. A moneyless society (communism) would take generations to achieve. Basically you make something free at the point of use, eg healthcare, then another eg public transport, and so on. You can only do this as shortage (want) is eliminated. This is one reason socialism was not possible in Russia in isolation, only a sort of half baked pseudo-socialism with an inevitable limited life span.

In communism, pencils would be free as would everything else.

[USB]

Your query does not create ideal conditions for socialism. Money can be abolished and replaced by barter as Marx has envisioned. I am now translating a book about personalities who lived in communes, abolished money inside the communes and replaced them with barter. One by one, I would publish them in this thread and you will see how influential they were. I would publish them here one by one in alphabetical order. I hope the moderators would not mind publishing their biographies one by one here in this thread. If there is opposition, please give notice and I would not.

[Daktoria]

Goon is correct, it's a question nobody can answer exactly, least of all me. I do know it will be a question of trial and error, which is actually how capitalism works too. I know we have computers so any 'calculation' should be doable. I know that multinationals do quite a bit of planning for themselves. We just need to integrate it and control it for need not profit. See my link and other articles. Price will be used during the transition towards socialism. A moneyless society (communism) would take generations to achieve. Basically you make something free at the point of use, eg healthcare, then another eg public transport, and so on. You can only do this as shortage (want) is eliminated. This is one reason socialism was not possible in Russia in isolation, only a sort of half baked pseudo-socialism with an inevitable limited life span.

In communism, pencils would be free as would everything else.

Why are you entitled to experiment with the lives of others?

The difference between capitalism and socialism is in capitalism, people are in control of their own risk management. You might not think so because you'd make the argument that workers have to work for capitalists or starve.

However, that's not the capitalists' fault. The capitalists didn't bring those workers into the world. Their parents did.

Therefore, the only real reason to excuse socialism is because you're too awkward to address the matter of out of control sex drives.

[daft punk]

Ok, lets not experiment. Lets' keep everything the same forever. Lets pretend we are discussing this 200 years ago, or 2000 years ago. Lets go back to the paleolithic. Lets devolve and go back in the trees.

Trial and error just means as Marx said that truth can only be what is proven in practice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.All science is trial and error. Every theory must be tested. All practical life is the testing of theories. In practice, capitalism gives us world wars and world hunger, in a world where there is enough food and too many weapons.

But capitalism is trial and error in the sense that capitalists think of shit they might be able to sell, then get it made, and then see if they can sell it. Sometimes they manage to con some sucker into buying the rubbish they often make. Sometimes they dont. Occasionally they even make something half decent.

[Daktoria]

There's nothing wrong with experimenting, daft.

The problem is that in socialism, you don't have boundaries, so it's impossible to control your own experiments. It's also impossible to prevent yourself from being involved in experiments you don't approve of. Without private property, you can't have rights to privacy.

As for thinking about shit to sell, capitalism isn't all about money. Real profits are about free time, having experiences, and living creatively. In a socialist world, these values get thrown out the window because of the pursuit of equality. Anyone who isn't struggling gets chopped down to fit the norm. Heck, to figure out an effective marketing strategy, you need to have a successful personal life in order to relate with the culture of your customers.

As it pertains to food and weapons, merely fulfilling the demand for resources isn't what society is built around. Society is built around trustworthy relationships which depends upon agency.

Well when you guarantee that suppliers are obligated to fulfill demanders, that leads to free rider problems all over the place. In turn, that leads to more hunger and more wars because production gets sabotaged out of laziness, and wars take place as people argue over who's actually doing their job.