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I see. But at the same time, idc tbh. I would still love to see a planned economy model given another try. I mean, *EVERY* model has flaws and downfalls; and I think it would be interesting to see a socialist project in the 21st century utilize this technologies to the best of their abilities and study how to remedy the blindspots.
>A planned economy must be self-sufficient and not reliant on trade. Hard to do unless enough countries participate or really the whole world does it.
True, true. I suppose it'd be yet another ideal that could only truly be realized in a global communist world.
For communism to effectively work and to fulfil its own goals, resources need to be distributed rather than traded for "value." The communist society is meant to be harmonious.
To introduce trade, I believe, creates a dynamic that is difficult for central planning to account for and invariably, you will have shortfalls.
>For communism to effectively work and to fulfil its own goals, resources need to be distributed rather than traded for "value." The communist society is meant to be harmonious.
Marx advocated for using labor vouchers to trade for goods and services in a communist society. Why do you believe that resources need to be distributed and can’t be traded when even Marx didn’t advocate for that?
>To introduce trade, I believe, creates a dynamic that is difficult for central planning to account for and invariably, you will have shortfalls.
How so? That’s only a concern if you assume that a planned economy can never produce a surplus to accommodate for accidents, errors, unanticipated demand, etc.
I'm not a staunch Marxist follower, I'm merely stating my observations on how communism could actually work with what we have tried and what we know today.
Wouldn't vouchers in itself be a defacto currency? Hence money?
Sure a planned economy could produce surplus but again that comes under the assumption that the economy is already self sufficient. Trading with non communist countries creates a market and if you have ever traded you know how unpredictable markets can be.
>Wouldn't vouchers in itself be a defacto currency? Hence money?
Money circulates, buys means of production, and changes in value over time. How Marx phrased things, a “moneyless” society would be better understood as an “investment capitalless” society. Vouchers would be a currency, but not money in the sense that Marx used the word.
>Sure a planned economy could produce surplus but again that comes under the assumption that the economy is already self sufficient. Trading with non communist countries creates a market and if you have ever traded you know how unpredictable markets can be.
Some resources only exist in sufficient quantities exist in some parts of the world so it’s rare, if not outright impossible, for a country to be completely self sufficient with our current levels of technology. If a single countries economy is communist-controlled, they could interact with the rest of the world as if they were a single company; analogous to how many large companies in the present day plan their economies internally but interact with the external economy as a corporation on a market.
Side note: communism as an economic system is meant to describe what economics naturally emerge after capitalism has run its course. The description of an international “classless, stateless, moneyless” society isn’t a list of goals, it’s just trying to describe aspects of a future economy if the working class leads technological development and production over the long term across the entire world.
Fair points.
To me as well, I think the works of great communists before us were not meant to be taken as doctrine but something to be built upon and adapted as we progress as a civilisation.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion, I don't think I have anything further to add haha.
I agree; their works are their own visions of a better world, but not a doctrine to be obeyed. Following class interests and adjusting methods based on material realities and practicality is the best approach.
Thanks for the discussion too!
Lol. That would be news to all the countries and multinational companies that base critical aspects of their economies/businesses on consistent, predictable international trade. The entire “just in time” business model is based on companies being able to consistently predict international trade down to the day and amount of goods.
From your link:
>>The decision about which companies of which size to nationalize would need to be taken based on an opening of the books of these companies, the nationalization of the banks, etc. **But the nationalized part of the economy would need to represent the big majority of production.** In Venezuela recently and in Nicaragua in the 1980’s only a minority of production was nationalized and not based on democratic councils of the masses. This gave a platform to reaction to sabotage the economy and prepare the political counter-revolution.
Apparently, Venezuela didn't nationalize enough of its economy.
Of course your link doesn't talk about how they are going to rob the capitalists of their property, or how they are going to handle millions of "class enemies", "wreckers" and other "dangerous elements". They answer is they are going to put them in concentration camps or murder them.
Capitalism is killing citizens now. At least the problematical capitalist will be given the opportunity to comply and cooperate and live a very good and wealthy life, which is much more than what the capitalist system offers to many citizens who suffer today. So your scare tactics are bullshit.
>At least the problematical capitalist will be given the opportunity to comply and cooperate
And if he doesn't comply or cooperate, he gets murdered or placed in a concentration camp.
Wonderful ideology you have there.
>How many lives are you willing to sacrifice for this next attempt?
Lives are sacrificed no matter what. This is a moot point to me.
Plus, I view capitalism as a death machine. I'm going to assume you live a comfortable middle class life and have never suffered from physiological need insecurity like food insecurity or housing insecurity.. and I walk past at least three homeless people a day everyday in my neighborhood.[ There's a reason Black Americans (especially young Black Americans) like me view capitalism more negatively than positively](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/08/black-americans-view-capitalism-more-negatively-than-positively-but-express-hope-in-black-businesses/). We've been failed by the system.
THEORETICALLY, I'm not opposed to capitalism. But realistically, some level of state intervention will always be needed to thwart the bad actors who hold positions of power and wealth. It's honestly just as utopian as Capitalism will never bridge the disparity gap, because it's a feature, not a bug. So a socialist project is my, and many other people's, only hope at at least attempting to minimize the gap.
Everything is people -- if your society is full of 'bad actors', then the state is just another bad actor. There's no solution to this other than radical decentralization.
Anyone who wants to take control of other people's affairs in pursuit of utopian ideology ought to be regarded as *hostis humani generis*.
I actually agree. What if I told you I was a libertarian socialist? I definitely acknowledge that decentralization is a necessity.. because decentralization is inevitable, anyway. Might as well embrace it.
You sound like a lot of African Leaders after gaining independence after WW2. You should read the history of their experiments of African Socialism and how shitty that went for most of them…
That would be a source heavy argument and I don’t feel like engaging in a source heavy argument on my phone rn tbh.
I will say this though: what was wrong with Thomas Sankara? Seems like he did a great job, and would have continued to done a great job had he not been assassinated.
His spiritual successor, Ibrahim Traoré, seems promising.
So you will selectively engage with a benevolent dictator but make excuses why you won’t engage farther??? Did I read that right?
How about I help you out a little?
>By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power. They included Senegal’s Léopold Senghor, after twenty years in office; Cameroon’s Ahmadu Ahidjo, after twenty-two years in office; and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, after twenty-three years in office.
Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence (pp. 378-379). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.
Sources of (failed) African Socialist States with a shift to liberal governments: [Benin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Benin) (1972 to 1990), [Mozambique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Mozambique) (1975 to 1990), [Zambia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kaunda#One-party_state_and_%22African_socialism%22) (1973 to 1991), [Tanzania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania#Modern) (1967 to 1992), [Angola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Angola) (1975 to 1992), [Ethiopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Democratic_Republic_of_Ethiopia) ([1977\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam)\-1991), [Ghana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Nkrumah) (1960s to [1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana)), [Guinea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea#Post-colonial_rule_(1958%E2%80%932008)) (1960 to 1992), [Mali](https://www.jstor.org/stable/421479) ([1960 to 1992](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881978)).
Lastly, I can't summarize the entire history book above. But [here is a pretty good article.](https://www.africanliberty.org/2019/03/14/how-socialism-destroyed-africa/) The important thing to add is how the Cold War post WWII gave African Leaders and Nations their independence and their shopping (if you would) between the USSR and the USA. The African Leaders and rightfully so looked at capitalism with disdain from the centuries of (exploitation) colonial capitalism. They also saw how well the USSR had done with going from very poor to a superpower. They wanted to model that system and large swathes of African Leadership model single-party rule systems with their version of African Socialism. This, in a lot of ways, was a disaster ([e.g., famine](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/10/31/us-aid-to-ethiopia-stirs-controversy/53307ae3-f243-498b-81da-890fbd392647/)).
> So you will selectively engage with a benevolent dictator but make excuses why you won’t engage farther??? Did I read that right?
No, I just have a life and I have other plans for today, so I decided to be honest as to why I couldn’t produce an adequate response at this time. But honestly, I think I saved my time, because I doubt you would have shifted my perspective.
Yea, I’ll admit previous socialist projects have failed. But, external factors contribute significantly to said failures—the only takeaway I have from socialism in the 20th century is that socialism in one state is doomed in a global capitalist world. We need international socialism.
So, it would have been a fruitless argument. Use a different point to try to deter me from socialism with.
It’s not up to me to “change your mind”. Why? Because evidence doesn’t seem to matter to you otherwise you would be supporting your position *WITH EVIDENCE*.
This is the problem with many socialists. They think a criticism of “capitalism” is proof socialism will work. In no way does it. And that’s why you likely pushed the onus on me.
This is also often known as the appeal to ignorance fallacy. That is a person just assume they are right and leave it to others to prove them wrong.
You want to go through life that way as a “believer”? That’s your prerogative but that is not in anyway based in science.
It does matter to me; it’s just that the point you were trying to reinforce with said evidence wasn’t a compelling point in the first place. Evidence doesn’t matter if the point is weak in the first place—that’s not how effective persuasion works. But tonight, I’ll bother coming back with more in-depth responses. For now, I’ll leave you with one more response after I pose this question, then I really have to divert my attention elsewhere:
Why put “capitalism” in quotation marks like that? What does that imply regarding your stance on it?
Well if history isn’t compelling then what will be?
Edit: I put words often in “” marks because the definitions are not agreed upon us yet and are disputed. Also they are disputed in academia.
Hmmmm, typically “American” liberals hate colonialism. That’s one reason why the USA presidents got dragged into the 2nd Indochina War. It’s not to forgive the “Vietnam War” mistakes. But all the Presidents had disdain for the French being colonists. This, imo, made the CIA prop up the anti French government and help push France out. I’m reading between the lines of several sources I read many years ago but the clear indication was France kept threatening Eisenhower they would leave NATO if he didn’t capitulate their military demands and when France left Vietnam with USA taking over with the puppet state so did France leave NATO.
Anyway, I’m just saying typically USA is anti-colonialism because of our history. This narrative we are not is retconned by political activists imo.
The US was born as a settler colonial project, has engaged in colonialist practices all over Latin America and supported europeans whenever their colonies in Africa revolted
America SAYS it is anti colonialist, in practice it is colonialist as hell. The only few times the US has ever supported anticolonial struggle, like Cuba against Spain, was so that they could become unnoficial colonial masters of the country after the original colonizers were expelled
After the Civil War and with a flair up Teddy Rosevelt’s ass there was a bit of colonist vibe with the more so engaging in the USA hegemony and becoming a super power, yes.
But the USA is not “colonist as hell”.
The real argument is the imperialism of the USA with the western frontier and especially Manifest destiny. Colonialism however is setting up colonies to subjugate and extract resources. It’s not expansionism of frontier process. So, imo, that is an entire different argument.
Tl;dr Where are these colonies?
Every country or society was born out of one group defeating and subjugating another. The Native American societies and tribes that were defeated and subjugated by the Europeans also got where they were by defeating and subjugated others
> Psychopathic.
No, it’s reality. I simply made an objective, neutral statement.
What’s psychopathic is how capitalism requires an underclass. The quality of life for Black Americans and Latin Americans are systemic sacrifices for White Americans to live comfortably.
> People regularly died of hunger until 100 years ago (less in communist countries, btw).
True, I haven’t heard of anyone whose starved to death. But I purposefully starved myself throughout school because I didn’t want to poison my body with that Aramark slop. I would say Aramark is a prime example of why putting private profit over public welfare is wrong, but I’m on my phones so I can’t realize my argument to the fullest since I don’t feel like pulling up the sources. Back to the main point—The fact that disparity in food access and food quality is intentional by design in a capitalist system will forever align me with socialism.
Like, food deserts don’t HAVE to exist.
And I’ll admit—I very much recognize that I enjoy the privileges OF a first world country. But I’ll never be privileged WITHIN that first world country.. and again, that’s psychopathic to me.
How many wars would we be fighting among the human race if the world was communist rather than capitalist? By definition, we should have zero.
Poverty, hunger, as well? Zero. Not in a true communist society anyway.
Imagine what we could achieve if we all could focus on advancing the human race instead of just fighting to survive or living in fear of the bogeyman.
It's all possible with the advancement in technology that is available today, but for it to happen, the few need to lose so the many would gain. But unfortunately, it is the few that truly hold power in the world.
Hayek, like all capitalist economists, began with an agenda. That agenda is to prove 1. capitalism is superior to anything else, and 2. socialism cannot work. All their assumptions, determinations, and conclusions are shaped, honed, and engineered to produce those results.
Can you imagine a CAPITALIST pundit of CAPITALIST theory coming to the conclusion that socialism would be superior alternative? LOL!!!! Never happened. This is a purely ideological argument.
Capitalist here,
While I do agree with OP's overarching prognosis, I disagree with the reasons that OP thinks that AI will not succeed at making central planning work. What OP claims "cannot be done successfully", is already done successfully by the big data industry. Hayek claimed in his day that "tacit data could not be measured". Since his death, empirical techniques used in psychology (ie. SEM) have emerged to do exactly that. Those techniques have been borrowed, first by marketing, and by behavioral finance, two fields which borrow from psych.
But since the rise of the big data industry, AI and ML techniques used by the private sector to predict tacit, conditional, and hierarchical preferences (among other complex decision structures) have been developed, which far, far outweigh research of the late 20th century. The whole Big Data industry demonstrate in dollars exactly how poorly Austrian claims of "markets are too complicated for data-based methods to work" idea aged in the 21st century.
[**How powerful is FB's algorithm? Apparently, by 2017, which was 7 years ago, with 120 likes, FB can predict a person's preferences as accurately as their spouse can.**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zvqtx)
My view is that OP is right for a different reason. The wisdom of crowds. A large enough crowd has empirically been demonstrated in many fields, settings, and situations to be able to outperform single experts in a number of fields. This is why markets work. This is why democracy works. The way I see it, AI-based central planning could likely be outperformed in terms of its accuracy or efficiency by a landscape of competing AIs (i.e. a crowd). Even if the central planning AI were to have more resources than any given member of the crowd.
> Hayek argued that some information is tacit, meaning that it will never be articulated in a form that can be input to a computer.
I mean our entire modern data Industry pretty much disproves that theory. Obviously in the 50s the idea of acquiring and centralizing accurate user data dynamically seemed more like science-fiction but today that's a pretty normal industry standard. We already use phones to basically track our desire and preferences, and by moving more of our lives to the Internet that data pool will only grow in the future.
So from a purely data analysis position the idea of simulating an economy would definitely be possible.
I mean even with the tech, how would this even work?
Do citizens have to fill in surveys every day of what they might want the future, a week from now, a month from now? I assume products can't be made instantaneously to order, so you must be asking consumers to predict their future needs?
The same way we already do it right now. Essentially using various sources to analyze your habits and preferences. Like your phone tracking that you like to drive to the tennis court therefore being able to deduce that you might be more interested in tennis equipment in the future, analyze your grocery list on what you usually buy or what you might be seasonally interested in.
This is already the new biggest marketing trend simply because you‘re able to direct yourself at customers without the need of surveys or more direct contact.
Obviously for a full system we‘d need more ways to acquire data but that‘s already a pretty growing trend.
>The trial-and-error process of markets, using prices, profits, and losses, addresses these challenges.
MVT already does exactly this for eComm and marketing software.
It’s “distributed” but generally only because each company wants to fine tune for their products.
Any centrally planned economy isn’t really 100% centrally planned. One person can’t make every decision. Decision making is always delegated and distributed. It’s just whether the top level of that decision making is a corporate dictator (CEO) or a governmental dictator (Stalin and the like).
Or, as some predict, even the top level could perhaps someday be an AI.
But none of that really matters in the socialism vs capitalism debate. All that matters is- where do the profits go? Do they go to c suite management and capital investors? Or are they distributed to labor?
>Economists have a saying that "all costs are opportunity costs." That is, the cost of any good is the cost of what you have to forgo in order to obtain it.
You will be hard pressed to find socialists here that engage on points of opportunity cost or choice among alternatives and the implications thereof. There is an intellectual block in place
ALL your "heroes" whom you quote have only produced THEORIES shaped by capitalist ideology and BS. Try being more realistic.
[https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/)
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I see. But at the same time, idc tbh. I would still love to see a planned economy model given another try. I mean, *EVERY* model has flaws and downfalls; and I think it would be interesting to see a socialist project in the 21st century utilize this technologies to the best of their abilities and study how to remedy the blindspots.
A planned economy must be self-sufficient and not reliant on trade. Hard to do unless enough countries participate or really the whole world does it.
>A planned economy must be self-sufficient and not reliant on trade. Hard to do unless enough countries participate or really the whole world does it. True, true. I suppose it'd be yet another ideal that could only truly be realized in a global communist world.
Why does it need to be self sufficient without trading?
For communism to effectively work and to fulfil its own goals, resources need to be distributed rather than traded for "value." The communist society is meant to be harmonious. To introduce trade, I believe, creates a dynamic that is difficult for central planning to account for and invariably, you will have shortfalls.
>For communism to effectively work and to fulfil its own goals, resources need to be distributed rather than traded for "value." The communist society is meant to be harmonious. Marx advocated for using labor vouchers to trade for goods and services in a communist society. Why do you believe that resources need to be distributed and can’t be traded when even Marx didn’t advocate for that? >To introduce trade, I believe, creates a dynamic that is difficult for central planning to account for and invariably, you will have shortfalls. How so? That’s only a concern if you assume that a planned economy can never produce a surplus to accommodate for accidents, errors, unanticipated demand, etc.
I'm not a staunch Marxist follower, I'm merely stating my observations on how communism could actually work with what we have tried and what we know today. Wouldn't vouchers in itself be a defacto currency? Hence money? Sure a planned economy could produce surplus but again that comes under the assumption that the economy is already self sufficient. Trading with non communist countries creates a market and if you have ever traded you know how unpredictable markets can be.
>Wouldn't vouchers in itself be a defacto currency? Hence money? Money circulates, buys means of production, and changes in value over time. How Marx phrased things, a “moneyless” society would be better understood as an “investment capitalless” society. Vouchers would be a currency, but not money in the sense that Marx used the word. >Sure a planned economy could produce surplus but again that comes under the assumption that the economy is already self sufficient. Trading with non communist countries creates a market and if you have ever traded you know how unpredictable markets can be. Some resources only exist in sufficient quantities exist in some parts of the world so it’s rare, if not outright impossible, for a country to be completely self sufficient with our current levels of technology. If a single countries economy is communist-controlled, they could interact with the rest of the world as if they were a single company; analogous to how many large companies in the present day plan their economies internally but interact with the external economy as a corporation on a market. Side note: communism as an economic system is meant to describe what economics naturally emerge after capitalism has run its course. The description of an international “classless, stateless, moneyless” society isn’t a list of goals, it’s just trying to describe aspects of a future economy if the working class leads technological development and production over the long term across the entire world.
Fair points. To me as well, I think the works of great communists before us were not meant to be taken as doctrine but something to be built upon and adapted as we progress as a civilisation. Anyway, thanks for the discussion, I don't think I have anything further to add haha.
I agree; their works are their own visions of a better world, but not a doctrine to be obeyed. Following class interests and adjusting methods based on material realities and practicality is the best approach. Thanks for the discussion too!
Trade with external capitalist forces can't be predictable enough to plan around.
Lol. That would be news to all the countries and multinational companies that base critical aspects of their economies/businesses on consistent, predictable international trade. The entire “just in time” business model is based on companies being able to consistently predict international trade down to the day and amount of goods.
> A planned economy must be self-sufficient and not reliant on trade. Why would it need to be non-trade-reliant?
>I would still love to see a planned economy model given another try. How many lives are you willing to sacrifice for this next attempt?
Stop spewing scare stories! [https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/)
From your link: >>The decision about which companies of which size to nationalize would need to be taken based on an opening of the books of these companies, the nationalization of the banks, etc. **But the nationalized part of the economy would need to represent the big majority of production.** In Venezuela recently and in Nicaragua in the 1980’s only a minority of production was nationalized and not based on democratic councils of the masses. This gave a platform to reaction to sabotage the economy and prepare the political counter-revolution. Apparently, Venezuela didn't nationalize enough of its economy. Of course your link doesn't talk about how they are going to rob the capitalists of their property, or how they are going to handle millions of "class enemies", "wreckers" and other "dangerous elements". They answer is they are going to put them in concentration camps or murder them.
Capitalism is killing citizens now. At least the problematical capitalist will be given the opportunity to comply and cooperate and live a very good and wealthy life, which is much more than what the capitalist system offers to many citizens who suffer today. So your scare tactics are bullshit.
>At least the problematical capitalist will be given the opportunity to comply and cooperate And if he doesn't comply or cooperate, he gets murdered or placed in a concentration camp. Wonderful ideology you have there.
Except you made that up to fit your agenda of making socialism look as horrible as possible. IOW you're completely dishonest.
What would happen to those who don't comply?
What happens to criminals in your country today? Do you oppose a similar remedy in this case?
So, "prison" instead of a concentration camp? Great job, real significant difference.
>Except you made that up to fit your agenda of making socialism look as horrible as possible. I don't have to make it look horrible, it is horrible.
Yes . . . . -to a committed, loyal defender of capitalist horror.
Would you prefer to live in North Korea or the USA?
>How many lives are you willing to sacrifice for this next attempt? Lives are sacrificed no matter what. This is a moot point to me. Plus, I view capitalism as a death machine. I'm going to assume you live a comfortable middle class life and have never suffered from physiological need insecurity like food insecurity or housing insecurity.. and I walk past at least three homeless people a day everyday in my neighborhood.[ There's a reason Black Americans (especially young Black Americans) like me view capitalism more negatively than positively](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/08/black-americans-view-capitalism-more-negatively-than-positively-but-express-hope-in-black-businesses/). We've been failed by the system. THEORETICALLY, I'm not opposed to capitalism. But realistically, some level of state intervention will always be needed to thwart the bad actors who hold positions of power and wealth. It's honestly just as utopian as Capitalism will never bridge the disparity gap, because it's a feature, not a bug. So a socialist project is my, and many other people's, only hope at at least attempting to minimize the gap.
Everything is people -- if your society is full of 'bad actors', then the state is just another bad actor. There's no solution to this other than radical decentralization. Anyone who wants to take control of other people's affairs in pursuit of utopian ideology ought to be regarded as *hostis humani generis*.
I actually agree. What if I told you I was a libertarian socialist? I definitely acknowledge that decentralization is a necessity.. because decentralization is inevitable, anyway. Might as well embrace it.
You sound like a lot of African Leaders after gaining independence after WW2. You should read the history of their experiments of African Socialism and how shitty that went for most of them…
That would be a source heavy argument and I don’t feel like engaging in a source heavy argument on my phone rn tbh. I will say this though: what was wrong with Thomas Sankara? Seems like he did a great job, and would have continued to done a great job had he not been assassinated. His spiritual successor, Ibrahim Traoré, seems promising.
So you will selectively engage with a benevolent dictator but make excuses why you won’t engage farther??? Did I read that right? How about I help you out a little? >By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power. They included Senegal’s Léopold Senghor, after twenty years in office; Cameroon’s Ahmadu Ahidjo, after twenty-two years in office; and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, after twenty-three years in office. Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence (pp. 378-379). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition. Sources of (failed) African Socialist States with a shift to liberal governments: [Benin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Benin) (1972 to 1990), [Mozambique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Mozambique) (1975 to 1990), [Zambia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kaunda#One-party_state_and_%22African_socialism%22) (1973 to 1991), [Tanzania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania#Modern) (1967 to 1992), [Angola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Angola) (1975 to 1992), [Ethiopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Democratic_Republic_of_Ethiopia) ([1977\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam)\-1991), [Ghana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Nkrumah) (1960s to [1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana)), [Guinea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea#Post-colonial_rule_(1958%E2%80%932008)) (1960 to 1992), [Mali](https://www.jstor.org/stable/421479) ([1960 to 1992](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881978)). Lastly, I can't summarize the entire history book above. But [here is a pretty good article.](https://www.africanliberty.org/2019/03/14/how-socialism-destroyed-africa/) The important thing to add is how the Cold War post WWII gave African Leaders and Nations their independence and their shopping (if you would) between the USSR and the USA. The African Leaders and rightfully so looked at capitalism with disdain from the centuries of (exploitation) colonial capitalism. They also saw how well the USSR had done with going from very poor to a superpower. They wanted to model that system and large swathes of African Leadership model single-party rule systems with their version of African Socialism. This, in a lot of ways, was a disaster ([e.g., famine](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/10/31/us-aid-to-ethiopia-stirs-controversy/53307ae3-f243-498b-81da-890fbd392647/)).
> So you will selectively engage with a benevolent dictator but make excuses why you won’t engage farther??? Did I read that right? No, I just have a life and I have other plans for today, so I decided to be honest as to why I couldn’t produce an adequate response at this time. But honestly, I think I saved my time, because I doubt you would have shifted my perspective. Yea, I’ll admit previous socialist projects have failed. But, external factors contribute significantly to said failures—the only takeaway I have from socialism in the 20th century is that socialism in one state is doomed in a global capitalist world. We need international socialism. So, it would have been a fruitless argument. Use a different point to try to deter me from socialism with.
It’s not up to me to “change your mind”. Why? Because evidence doesn’t seem to matter to you otherwise you would be supporting your position *WITH EVIDENCE*. This is the problem with many socialists. They think a criticism of “capitalism” is proof socialism will work. In no way does it. And that’s why you likely pushed the onus on me. This is also often known as the appeal to ignorance fallacy. That is a person just assume they are right and leave it to others to prove them wrong. You want to go through life that way as a “believer”? That’s your prerogative but that is not in anyway based in science.
It does matter to me; it’s just that the point you were trying to reinforce with said evidence wasn’t a compelling point in the first place. Evidence doesn’t matter if the point is weak in the first place—that’s not how effective persuasion works. But tonight, I’ll bother coming back with more in-depth responses. For now, I’ll leave you with one more response after I pose this question, then I really have to divert my attention elsewhere: Why put “capitalism” in quotation marks like that? What does that imply regarding your stance on it?
Well if history isn’t compelling then what will be? Edit: I put words often in “” marks because the definitions are not agreed upon us yet and are disputed. Also they are disputed in academia.
Liberal defends european colonialism but is too chicken to say so: part 1
Hmmmm, typically “American” liberals hate colonialism. That’s one reason why the USA presidents got dragged into the 2nd Indochina War. It’s not to forgive the “Vietnam War” mistakes. But all the Presidents had disdain for the French being colonists. This, imo, made the CIA prop up the anti French government and help push France out. I’m reading between the lines of several sources I read many years ago but the clear indication was France kept threatening Eisenhower they would leave NATO if he didn’t capitulate their military demands and when France left Vietnam with USA taking over with the puppet state so did France leave NATO. Anyway, I’m just saying typically USA is anti-colonialism because of our history. This narrative we are not is retconned by political activists imo.
The US was born as a settler colonial project, has engaged in colonialist practices all over Latin America and supported europeans whenever their colonies in Africa revolted America SAYS it is anti colonialist, in practice it is colonialist as hell. The only few times the US has ever supported anticolonial struggle, like Cuba against Spain, was so that they could become unnoficial colonial masters of the country after the original colonizers were expelled
After the Civil War and with a flair up Teddy Rosevelt’s ass there was a bit of colonist vibe with the more so engaging in the USA hegemony and becoming a super power, yes. But the USA is not “colonist as hell”. The real argument is the imperialism of the USA with the western frontier and especially Manifest destiny. Colonialism however is setting up colonies to subjugate and extract resources. It’s not expansionism of frontier process. So, imo, that is an entire different argument. Tl;dr Where are these colonies?
Every country or society was born out of one group defeating and subjugating another. The Native American societies and tribes that were defeated and subjugated by the Europeans also got where they were by defeating and subjugated others
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> Psychopathic. No, it’s reality. I simply made an objective, neutral statement. What’s psychopathic is how capitalism requires an underclass. The quality of life for Black Americans and Latin Americans are systemic sacrifices for White Americans to live comfortably. > People regularly died of hunger until 100 years ago (less in communist countries, btw). True, I haven’t heard of anyone whose starved to death. But I purposefully starved myself throughout school because I didn’t want to poison my body with that Aramark slop. I would say Aramark is a prime example of why putting private profit over public welfare is wrong, but I’m on my phones so I can’t realize my argument to the fullest since I don’t feel like pulling up the sources. Back to the main point—The fact that disparity in food access and food quality is intentional by design in a capitalist system will forever align me with socialism. Like, food deserts don’t HAVE to exist. And I’ll admit—I very much recognize that I enjoy the privileges OF a first world country. But I’ll never be privileged WITHIN that first world country.. and again, that’s psychopathic to me.
How many lives does capitalism take every day?
If you give capitalism this so-called agency then it saves far more lives than it destroys.
Only bad things happen because of capitalism. The good things would've happened anyway.
How many wars would we be fighting among the human race if the world was communist rather than capitalist? By definition, we should have zero. Poverty, hunger, as well? Zero. Not in a true communist society anyway. Imagine what we could achieve if we all could focus on advancing the human race instead of just fighting to survive or living in fear of the bogeyman. It's all possible with the advancement in technology that is available today, but for it to happen, the few need to lose so the many would gain. But unfortunately, it is the few that truly hold power in the world.
Isn't this a John Lennon song?
Gotta dream big for big things to happen right? Lennon was one of us.
Ok but this is the LAST time we try and if it doesn’t work socialists have to move on. Deal?
Hayek, like all capitalist economists, began with an agenda. That agenda is to prove 1. capitalism is superior to anything else, and 2. socialism cannot work. All their assumptions, determinations, and conclusions are shaped, honed, and engineered to produce those results. Can you imagine a CAPITALIST pundit of CAPITALIST theory coming to the conclusion that socialism would be superior alternative? LOL!!!! Never happened. This is a purely ideological argument.
Capitalist here, While I do agree with OP's overarching prognosis, I disagree with the reasons that OP thinks that AI will not succeed at making central planning work. What OP claims "cannot be done successfully", is already done successfully by the big data industry. Hayek claimed in his day that "tacit data could not be measured". Since his death, empirical techniques used in psychology (ie. SEM) have emerged to do exactly that. Those techniques have been borrowed, first by marketing, and by behavioral finance, two fields which borrow from psych. But since the rise of the big data industry, AI and ML techniques used by the private sector to predict tacit, conditional, and hierarchical preferences (among other complex decision structures) have been developed, which far, far outweigh research of the late 20th century. The whole Big Data industry demonstrate in dollars exactly how poorly Austrian claims of "markets are too complicated for data-based methods to work" idea aged in the 21st century. [**How powerful is FB's algorithm? Apparently, by 2017, which was 7 years ago, with 120 likes, FB can predict a person's preferences as accurately as their spouse can.**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zvqtx) My view is that OP is right for a different reason. The wisdom of crowds. A large enough crowd has empirically been demonstrated in many fields, settings, and situations to be able to outperform single experts in a number of fields. This is why markets work. This is why democracy works. The way I see it, AI-based central planning could likely be outperformed in terms of its accuracy or efficiency by a landscape of competing AIs (i.e. a crowd). Even if the central planning AI were to have more resources than any given member of the crowd.
>A central computer is not going to know how you as an individual would trade off between two goods. [Not yet...](https://neuralink.com)
> Hayek argued that some information is tacit, meaning that it will never be articulated in a form that can be input to a computer. I mean our entire modern data Industry pretty much disproves that theory. Obviously in the 50s the idea of acquiring and centralizing accurate user data dynamically seemed more like science-fiction but today that's a pretty normal industry standard. We already use phones to basically track our desire and preferences, and by moving more of our lives to the Internet that data pool will only grow in the future. So from a purely data analysis position the idea of simulating an economy would definitely be possible.
I mean even with the tech, how would this even work? Do citizens have to fill in surveys every day of what they might want the future, a week from now, a month from now? I assume products can't be made instantaneously to order, so you must be asking consumers to predict their future needs?
Don't overthink it, the point is that capitalism will be gone! That's all that matters. Socialism will make everyone happy. By force if necessary
The same way we already do it right now. Essentially using various sources to analyze your habits and preferences. Like your phone tracking that you like to drive to the tennis court therefore being able to deduce that you might be more interested in tennis equipment in the future, analyze your grocery list on what you usually buy or what you might be seasonally interested in. This is already the new biggest marketing trend simply because you‘re able to direct yourself at customers without the need of surveys or more direct contact. Obviously for a full system we‘d need more ways to acquire data but that‘s already a pretty growing trend.
>The trial-and-error process of markets, using prices, profits, and losses, addresses these challenges. MVT already does exactly this for eComm and marketing software. It’s “distributed” but generally only because each company wants to fine tune for their products. Any centrally planned economy isn’t really 100% centrally planned. One person can’t make every decision. Decision making is always delegated and distributed. It’s just whether the top level of that decision making is a corporate dictator (CEO) or a governmental dictator (Stalin and the like). Or, as some predict, even the top level could perhaps someday be an AI. But none of that really matters in the socialism vs capitalism debate. All that matters is- where do the profits go? Do they go to c suite management and capital investors? Or are they distributed to labor?
Walmart engages in central planning.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t really understand what “AI” is under the hood or how you’d use it for planning
>Economists have a saying that "all costs are opportunity costs." That is, the cost of any good is the cost of what you have to forgo in order to obtain it. You will be hard pressed to find socialists here that engage on points of opportunity cost or choice among alternatives and the implications thereof. There is an intellectual block in place
All your questions are answered [***HERE***](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/). <<––––
ALL your "heroes" whom you quote have only produced THEORIES shaped by capitalist ideology and BS. Try being more realistic. [https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/](https://www.socialistalternative.org/2020/08/13/socialism-how-would-a-planned-economy-work/)