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Present an argument here. Don’t just share a link.
The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in a free market is far superior to the limited wisdom of government bureaucrats. This is vital to improve the efficiency of the allocation of resources. This drives productivity growth that is the essential component for economic growth and the improvement of the human condition.
>Present an argument here. Don’t just share a link.
You can post your posts as you see fit. That's what I did.
>The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in a free market is far superior to the limited wisdom of government bureaucrats.
Apparently you didn't bother to read the article or you would know that Walmart has pioneered an excellent version of central planning as its marketing model. It is **THE** means by which Walmart plans and maintains its stock and the article details it out quite well. Try reading it.
The difference between the kind of central planning from Walmart and that of a government is that if Walmart fails, it is Walmart who loses wealth; if the government fails, it is us who lose wealth.
It is indeed outside of this topic. The topic is "*but capitalism also has central planning*" and my response is "*yes, but in capitalism the interest of central planners is aligned with economic efficiency (if they fail they loose)*".
Your answer to that does not negate that but instead wanders around it and indeed reiterates it ("*if central planners in socialism succeed all us succeed*", which doesn't negate that they aren't aligned with success).
And my response is that it doesn't matter that if they fail they loose and that gives them extra incentive to succeed, because their success is not our success. In fact the more profit a corporation has the lower our wages/higher product prices. The less profit a corporation has the better our wages/product prices. Our class interests do not align.
>And my response is that it doesn't matter that if they fail they loose and that gives them extra incentive to succeed, because their success is not our success.
Indeed it is: their success implies a better resource allocation, which is why capitalism brings countries out of poverty.
No, the greater the profit the higher our prices/lower our wages. That is a mathematical fact.
Also capitalism fails to allocate resources as to maximize overall good of people, as evidenced by the fact that $100 mil can be allocated to producing a private jet while millions starve.
Capitalism seeks the best resource allocation to maximize profit, not health, not happiness, not comfort, not poverty eradication.
You are just an evil man who prioritizes profit over people, that's all.
Walmart responds to price signal, price signals that would not exist in a centrally planned economy. Price signals that arise based off of the innumerable other transactions that voluntary actors make within a free, market economy. Despite’s Walmart relative size, it’s a still a rather large leap to go from the complexity of Walmart’s supply chain to the advanced modern economy of an entire nation.
Well that’s a pretty famous case of a market failure. To answer your question, I guess maybe for the public to recognize that the price is gonna have to come down at some point, and when a flower is trading for the value of an entire mansion estate, maybe it’s gonna happen sooner rather than later.
What does this have to do with Walmart being a good example of a centrally planned economy?
Food rationing is the rational alternative to some people hoarding so people starve. It happened even for toilet paper under capitalism when COVID hit, so your argument is irrelevant.
Anyway that's a different matter, you can't deny that speculative asset bubbles periodically happen only under capitalism and never under socialism.
Walmart isn’t doing central planning. FFS. A business organizing a supply chain is not central planning.
For all the obvious reasons that 1 company obviously doesn’t control the entire sector + doesn’t have the monopoly of force that a state government has.
Top socialist organizers and theorists cannot tell you exactly how central planning will look because it will evolve to fit and address the actual need based on the actual conditions at the time it is established. So HTF do you know what central planning would be? Ya DOPE!
Can’t you say that for quite literally anything though? I can’t tell you how my Flying Spaghetti Monster model of resource allocation will work, because it will evolve to fit and address the actual needs based on the conditions of the time. Are you convinced?
It simply cannot work. For the exact reason I laid out. The Knowledge Problem. As Hayek, Sowell, and so many others have shown before.
If socialist organizers and theorists cannot tell us how Government Central Planning would work… that clearly is a massive tell it’s based on vibes and not facts and reality.
You have no idea what central planning means.
Central planning is about centralizing economy-wide decisions, not business planning by a single economic actor.
Under central planning, some centralized authority decides how many kinds, colors, sizes, and styles of underwear are produced every year, where they are distributed, and how they’re allocated. They decide where, when, and how they’re produced, who produces them, who supplies raw ingredients, who designs the products - everything.
In theory - with perfect information - this is *superior* to a distributed economy, because it is more efficient. In practice, it is *far* worse, because the centralized decision make does not have enough information to make optimal choices.
If you run an underwear store and see lots of people asking for red underwear, and walking out of the store because you don’t have any, then you’ll order some red underwear from your distributor. Under central planning, the signals for demand never reach those who plan. They’ll be a chronic unrecognized shortage of red underwear, and no way to address it.
My example is silly, but it holds for every single product produced.
>You have no idea what central planning means.
You have no idea what "model" means.
>Under central planning, some centralized authority decides how many kinds, colors, sizes, and styles of underwear are produced every year, where they are distributed, and how they’re allocated.
So now the total idiocy of this comes out. You actually sit there and dictate how "central planning" must look. It has to comply with your fantasy or you say it's something else.
You're a fucking idiot.
> You have no idea what “model” means.
I’ve spent my entire career doing modeling. I ran the entire modeling team of a large, complex business for more than a decade. I used to give a presentation called “What Is A Model” (not the literal name, but close enough).
> So now the total idiocy of this cones out.
I gave an example, but we can pick another one if you prefer. I’ll let you decide which economic choice to focus on, and we can debate what it would look under central planning and a decentralized economy.
I’m not dictating anything. Central planning - by *definition* is when economic decisions are centralized.
> You’re a fucking idiot.
It doesn’t seem like you’re interested in a debate. I’ll take this as a signal that you really have no understanding of anything pertinent to this discussion. Best of luck to you.
Then tell us why central planning will comply with your fantasy?
You’ve said yourself that no one can say what central planning will look like. If that’s true, then how are you so certain it will comply with your fantasy?
> You can post your posts as you see fit. That's what I did.
There used to be a hard rule in this sub prohibiting link-only posts.
Because they are a type of shitpost.
Now we just shit on them instead
The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in 2000 bc has determined the earth is flat. It took a select class of technocratic scientists to prove that wisdom wrong.
The wisdom of the masses has limits no matter the field. To think millions of people can be wrong about the shape of the earth but they can't be wrong about what is the best use for 2 billion tons of steel is insane.
So you want Central Government Planning?
It’s the trillions of decisions made by individuals across the planet every day that allocates resources and capital. Continually providing feedback to market participants.
It's not about what i want, it's about what works best. Natural selection already proved cells making individual decisions is not optimal. What is optimal is collecting data from trillion of cells and sending the data to a central planner and then send commands back to the cells.
Exactly. Liberal, free markets work exceptionally well. It’s why the world no longer lives in subsistence poverty and how the world’s population was able to expand to 7 billion or so.
si walmart is now central planning? you don't see big differences when the state is doing it?
central planning done by the state means they have a monopoly to decide value. just look at the USSR- prices of the new cars were controlled by the government, and they were set artificially low to create an impression of affordability. The demand was much higher than the output of the domestic manufacturers, so they ended up with years long waiting lists.
Walmart doesn't have a monopoly, they are the biggest company, maybe, but they have strong competition regardless. they can't set their own prices. They have to adjust to competitors as well as consumers. there is a huge difference.
i often hear socialists making this argument that we should run our workplace like we run our states but the two are different and have different objectives.
your theory is never going to work, and we have so many examples of goods and comodities lacking in centrally planned economies. even the most basic ones.
So you object and reject because it probably won't be an exact copy of what Walmart is doing? Adaptation is a foreign and unknown approach in your "mind"?
No matter what, government central planning means people will be ordered to do what they do not want to do. Even if the majority of the population is stupid enough to want socialism, there will still be literally millions of people who are going to have to be forced to comply. You will have to imprison people for made up "crimes" like being a "class enemy" or a "wrecker". It will be too expensive to build prison cells for all of them, so you will set up concentration camps, just like every socialist state that has ever existed. Once you have imprisoned someone for being a "class enemy", it's not a big step to just murder them, which is why killing fields are another prerequisite for socialism.
>No matter what, government central planning means people will be ordered to do what they do not want to do.
Oh what a convenient assumption! It fits your hate and intolerance very well!
Jesus, what an incredibly long winded article.
If you rely on computer data from POS systems to inform production, you are always chasing trailing data. That leaves no room for innovation or small trends, or "hobbyist" consumerism. Now, I realize that Socialists hate the idea of people using purchasing power to foster happiness, but there is something to it. Some wasteful spending can add color to people's lives. I've gone through a bunch of weird phases. For a while I was really into paintball, then boutique guitar pedals, then I was into audiophile headphones and amps, then last year I got into vinyl, and not I've gotten into wet shaving with safety razors. I could only get into these things because they already existed. They are small markets that enthusiasts maintain. There isn't enough collectable data in them to make the needle move in a planned economy. Also, much of the businesses in these niche markets are small businesses, where the workers are the owners. They would get squashed in a planned economy with an algorithm running everything.
The things that make humans happy are unpredictable. They are also often wasteful. But that's OK.
Is it really so hard to imagine a broadly centrally planned economy that still provides spaces around the edges for the guy who wants to sell boutique guitar pedals he makes in his basement? I think there is something very wrong with a society that makes klon pedals a priority while other people are sleeping on the sidewalk, but I don't see why planning would necessarily eliminate the ability to make and trade klons.
Also, what stands out to me about most of the hobbies you mentioned is that there are not particularly innovative. We have been making safety razors for a long time; same thing with vinyl records, headphones, and guitar pedals. They're not even terribly quirky hobbies. In fact, they are mostly downright old fashioned ways of doing traditional things. I bet the businesses tied to them could be nationalized and production for them planned.
There might At some point in the distant future be some truly novel hobbies that it becomes harder to get into in a socialist economy, but at some point, I think it's reasonable to say to people: "OK, you have enough weird ways to spend your free time. If you are still looking something really far out to do, just go read Moby Dick."
But it isn't for someone else to decide how I spend my free time. If we use socialism to lessen the burdens of work so people have more free time, but then curtail the things people can do in that free time, what's the point?
We can argue about the morality or wisdom of buying yet another Klone pedal vs donating that money to a food bank, but that is ultimately the decision of the person to make. If you dictate what someone has to care about you are poisoning the experience of living life.
Should our tax system be different so that people don't end up on the streets? Yes. Could we rework the government's priorities in spending? Yes. But a computer system with the most well-meaning people in the world running it can't predict or provide for everyone's wants and needs. The advanced computer systems we have today still can't properly ID certain faces or draw hands correctly. Y'all are putting too much faith in a system that doesn't even exist yet.
>But it isn't for someone else to decide how I spend my free time.
Society always does this all the time.
>But a computer system with the most well-meaning people in the world running it can't predict or provide for everyone's wants and needs
We have long known what people's basic needs are. They are universal.
>Society always does this all the time.
It tries and fails. Societies aren't heterogeneous. What is considered "normal" in the US varies from region to region, state to state, and city to city. I'm a progressive atheist in a predominantly conservative suburb. Fuck them. They can give me dirty looks and kiss my ass.
>We have long known what people's basic needs are. They are universal.
We aren't talking about basic needs here. Yes, we understand the basics, but only living a subsistence life where you can only meet your most rudimentary needs is a gray and empty existence.
I grew up in the 80s in America. Soviet Russians defected to this country all the time and they all had the same stories about the drab unfulfilling lives they had. When the Wall fell, it wasn't because of high minded ideas, its because the West was a party Soviet Block countries wanted to be at. They wanted Coke, Levi's, and Rock N Roll. They wanted more than necessities. They wanted to *live*.
I'm on the socialist side and I think this is kinda a bad argument ngl, calculation problem was never about size or complexity. It was about finding the most efficient use of a certain amount of resources, although I dont apply it as broadly as a lot of libertarian capitalists do, and I dont think it precludes all government intervention.
While it would be theoretically possible for a government to take over and run walmart, it would have to do it within a larger market economy, otherwise it wouldn't know what amounts of what to put on the shelves at what price.
> How about an excellent and thorough article on how central planning CAN and DOES work from an advocate of socialism?
How about OP make his own damn argument instead of spamming us with somebody else's nonsense
In socialism labor becomes the purpose of production.
In capitalism the consumer is the purpose for production.
The incentives for efficiency no longer exist, the incentives that profit provide to insure the correct product and amounts cease to exist and the incentives that competition provide to innovate and reduce the cost to the consumer fail to exist .
It’s a failed idea, continually resurrected by autocrats using envy to control the masses …
I have spent 30 years battling all the components of it …
Years of real experience building something . Making Payroll, serving customers
Years of studying economics both formally and informally
What do you know of socialism?
Or Capitalism for that matter ?
I'm an advocate for generally democratic decentralised economic planning. This means people democratically identify community needs and then collectively meet those needs (and wants).
**Examples:**
Present day: The community identifies the community need for fresh produce. The community decides to organise to create gardens and grow food. It identifies suitable land and secures resources such as tools, seeds, and finds volunteers. Garden design and maintenance are planned so that this initiative has every chance to succeed. The gardens are created and seeds planted, and the community manages each garden. The community now has fresh healthy produce available for consumption. The gardens are collectively owned and managed, and the produce is distributed to the community in a sort of scheduled shipment. Residents place orders of their needs and the garden managers plan to ensure everyone is able to receive some produce by adjusting orders and changing the type of seeds planted if necessary. If many people want tomatoes, more tomatoes will be planted to meet the demand. This process would be transparent and subject to democracy. Produce is either delivered directly to homes or to a pick-up point. This system reduces food waste as demand is recorded and the meeting of demand is planned.
Post-scarcity: The community identifies the community want for PS10s. The children are especially keen on having the 4D VR console, so the automated factory that the community collectively owns is directed to make more. The people who want a PS10 say so, meaning the community is aware of the exact demand of the product. The community directs the factory to make slightly more than this number. This reduces waste and increases production efficiency as the factory has more time and materials to produce other goods that are in need. The PS10s are distributed to everyone who put in a demans for one. The extras are stored in the community warehouse for retreival in case someone's PS10 breaks.
In real life however, many local communities democratically decided that they don't want any more housing to be built, and we end up with housing shortage. Just because you let people decide what gets produced doesn't make them better off overall.
Also, what happens in the garden system when there is suddenly a blizzard that wipes out a communities gardens? Other communities might not vote to share because it is not in their self interest, and suddenly there is a food shortage because there is no market to buy food.
Alright, well you're calling real world scenarios nonsense. The [Michigan Urban Farming Initiative](https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/11/05/food-community-detroit-garden-agriculture)
is a nonprofit that provides produce free to all. It helps the disadvantaged have access to produce and attracts new residents and investments in the community. Some farms distribute to pantries and other organisations to get food to those who need it. Many places have farms and gardens like this. [Seikatsu Club](https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/seikatsu-club-consumers-cooperative/) in Japan has a planned order system and delivers goods to homes or pickup points. The producers are directly connected to the consumers and are even able to visit and work on the farms. This planned distribution reduces waste and cost of production and distribution.
That is a very local example. You simply cannot extrapolate That example to things at an economy wide scale.
Prices in free markets convey signals on what demand is. Price signals that are crucial to incentive producers to allocate resources and capital to efficiently meet this demand.
This competition amongst producers to meet demand with a market feasible price point forces productivity gains and the efficient allocation of resources. It’s also a primary incentive for new technological innovation.
Productivity gains are the magic behind economic growth and wealth creation.
The pursuit of profit in markets is a critical component to allocate investment capital to the most reasonable plan or firm that can deliver a cost-effective good/service to the market.
It’s this virtuous cycle that properly incentivizes human behavior that has done more to improve the human condition that any other economic system.
It’s why the human condition has seen unprecedented improvements in the last 2 centuries.
Without price signals in a free market none of this is possible.
Markets distribute based on purchasing power and for profit. This means those without money will not have access. These farms don't distribute based on this system, so resources are more equitably and efficiently distributed. There is less waste and more people receive what they need.
It is an example that every community can follow to ensure its people are fed well and that no one goes hungry. Society does not need prices to see supply and demand. Seikatsu Club measures demand and supply effectively. The producers and consumers collaborate directly, and technology will only make this easier, where consumers may simply make an order in an app and producers can keep track of production in a transparent way. This is quicker than markets that take time to adjust prices and knowledge on supply/demand lags, leaving consumers and producers to make educated guesses on decision making. Prices are often not an accurate representation of this information and markets are unpredictable, often leading to under/overproduction. It is wasteful and leaves many without resources. It is a more humane and efficient system to equitably distribute food based on need rather than purchasing power.
The organisations I mentioned are statewide/national, so your argument that it is a "very local" one isn't very strong. These ideas work in reality and they benefit people where markets have failed. If we didn't have these food distribution systems external to the market, society would face widespread hunger and starvation. In many places, society already is because there is an absence of these systems. Three million children starve to death annually. The market fails to adequately supply food to those in need. We need more than just a market.
Markets cannot function without price signals.
I’m certainly not against these types of organizations if a local community, or any community really, voluntarily enters them.
Mandating this type of system would lead to a global economic collapse and absolute human devastation.
Markets are not necessary to distribute food.
I never talked about mandating community gardens, and I have no clue how community gardens that feed hungry people would somehow lead to economic collapse.
>Just because you let people decide what gets produced doesn't make them better off overall.
I did not say this. It's not a perfect system. It is flawed and could lead to them being worse off. But it's better than being subject to decisions made by unelected individuals who have little/no stake in the wellbeing of the community.
The state and federal organisations would step in if there is an extreme food shortage, but these are just fresh produce gardens. People won't starve if they don't have tomatoes in their sandwiches.
Capitalism is the opposite of central planning. They're mutually exclusive. You cannot be have capitalism and central planning at the same time, as one will eat at the other.
Very useful and quite crucial to the total war that was waged. But the opposite of capitalism, though only possible due to the previous capitalist system that allowed such development and efficiency.
I guess socialism works then. Because that centrally planned system worked very well and grew the US economy, employment, and productivity incredibly, and helped to create the foundation for the post-war boom.
Yep. It also failed the 10 years prior, but if one wants to include the state of Total war authoritianism in the umbrella of socialism, it definitely worked for those 4 years.
I don't consider central planning to be socialism. I was just following the logic you presented.
No, central planning didn't fail 10 years prior. The Great Depression wasn't the result of central planning.
People have a lot of different opinions on this... go figure.
I consider myself a socialist, but I feel like the larger any organization is, the harder it is to manage efficiently.
That being said, in sectors like public transportation, hospitals, grid operations, roads, rails, etc, pretty much any utility and any large industry where realistic competition is infeasible, they should be run as independent, government created non profits, similar to the USPS, but at a scale that is reasonable for each region. Although they don't have to be run by the government, depending on the industry and region.
To me, eliminating the profit motive is far more important for creating an equitable society than making things government operated.
The fact that all mammals have a brain proves a centrally planned economy always has the best potential compared to a decentralized economy ie the octopus nervous system.
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Present an argument here. Don’t just share a link. The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in a free market is far superior to the limited wisdom of government bureaucrats. This is vital to improve the efficiency of the allocation of resources. This drives productivity growth that is the essential component for economic growth and the improvement of the human condition.
>Present an argument here. Don’t just share a link. You can post your posts as you see fit. That's what I did. >The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in a free market is far superior to the limited wisdom of government bureaucrats. Apparently you didn't bother to read the article or you would know that Walmart has pioneered an excellent version of central planning as its marketing model. It is **THE** means by which Walmart plans and maintains its stock and the article details it out quite well. Try reading it.
The difference between the kind of central planning from Walmart and that of a government is that if Walmart fails, it is Walmart who loses wealth; if the government fails, it is us who lose wealth.
But also if Walmart doesn't fail, it is Walmart that gains wealth. If the government does not fail, it is us who gain wealth.
That's outside of this debate, but ok
No, that's inside the debate. If most people do not profit from the profits of top corporations, then it's irrelevant to them.
It is indeed outside of this topic. The topic is "*but capitalism also has central planning*" and my response is "*yes, but in capitalism the interest of central planners is aligned with economic efficiency (if they fail they loose)*". Your answer to that does not negate that but instead wanders around it and indeed reiterates it ("*if central planners in socialism succeed all us succeed*", which doesn't negate that they aren't aligned with success).
And my response is that it doesn't matter that if they fail they loose and that gives them extra incentive to succeed, because their success is not our success. In fact the more profit a corporation has the lower our wages/higher product prices. The less profit a corporation has the better our wages/product prices. Our class interests do not align.
>And my response is that it doesn't matter that if they fail they loose and that gives them extra incentive to succeed, because their success is not our success. Indeed it is: their success implies a better resource allocation, which is why capitalism brings countries out of poverty.
No, the greater the profit the higher our prices/lower our wages. That is a mathematical fact. Also capitalism fails to allocate resources as to maximize overall good of people, as evidenced by the fact that $100 mil can be allocated to producing a private jet while millions starve. Capitalism seeks the best resource allocation to maximize profit, not health, not happiness, not comfort, not poverty eradication. You are just an evil man who prioritizes profit over people, that's all.
Walmart responds to price signal, price signals that would not exist in a centrally planned economy. Price signals that arise based off of the innumerable other transactions that voluntary actors make within a free, market economy. Despite’s Walmart relative size, it’s a still a rather large leap to go from the complexity of Walmart’s supply chain to the advanced modern economy of an entire nation.
Relying on price signals can lead to tulip mania. How to prevent that in a free market ?
Well that’s a pretty famous case of a market failure. To answer your question, I guess maybe for the public to recognize that the price is gonna have to come down at some point, and when a flower is trading for the value of an entire mansion estate, maybe it’s gonna happen sooner rather than later. What does this have to do with Walmart being a good example of a centrally planned economy?
A centrally planned economy can fix that. No tulip mania in the USSR.
Only breadlines. I’ll take the former any day.
Food rationing is the rational alternative to some people hoarding so people starve. It happened even for toilet paper under capitalism when COVID hit, so your argument is irrelevant. Anyway that's a different matter, you can't deny that speculative asset bubbles periodically happen only under capitalism and never under socialism.
Walmart isn’t doing central planning. FFS. A business organizing a supply chain is not central planning. For all the obvious reasons that 1 company obviously doesn’t control the entire sector + doesn’t have the monopoly of force that a state government has.
I’m more surprised that we have a bunch of socialists lauding the virtues of Walmart.
It’s all because of that 2019 book “The People's Republic of Walmart.” The book is a propaganda piece that is filled with logical fallacies.
Top socialist organizers and theorists cannot tell you exactly how central planning will look because it will evolve to fit and address the actual need based on the actual conditions at the time it is established. So HTF do you know what central planning would be? Ya DOPE!
Can’t you say that for quite literally anything though? I can’t tell you how my Flying Spaghetti Monster model of resource allocation will work, because it will evolve to fit and address the actual needs based on the conditions of the time. Are you convinced?
It simply cannot work. For the exact reason I laid out. The Knowledge Problem. As Hayek, Sowell, and so many others have shown before. If socialist organizers and theorists cannot tell us how Government Central Planning would work… that clearly is a massive tell it’s based on vibes and not facts and reality.
You have no idea what central planning means. Central planning is about centralizing economy-wide decisions, not business planning by a single economic actor. Under central planning, some centralized authority decides how many kinds, colors, sizes, and styles of underwear are produced every year, where they are distributed, and how they’re allocated. They decide where, when, and how they’re produced, who produces them, who supplies raw ingredients, who designs the products - everything. In theory - with perfect information - this is *superior* to a distributed economy, because it is more efficient. In practice, it is *far* worse, because the centralized decision make does not have enough information to make optimal choices. If you run an underwear store and see lots of people asking for red underwear, and walking out of the store because you don’t have any, then you’ll order some red underwear from your distributor. Under central planning, the signals for demand never reach those who plan. They’ll be a chronic unrecognized shortage of red underwear, and no way to address it. My example is silly, but it holds for every single product produced.
>You have no idea what central planning means. You have no idea what "model" means. >Under central planning, some centralized authority decides how many kinds, colors, sizes, and styles of underwear are produced every year, where they are distributed, and how they’re allocated. So now the total idiocy of this comes out. You actually sit there and dictate how "central planning" must look. It has to comply with your fantasy or you say it's something else. You're a fucking idiot.
> You have no idea what “model” means. I’ve spent my entire career doing modeling. I ran the entire modeling team of a large, complex business for more than a decade. I used to give a presentation called “What Is A Model” (not the literal name, but close enough). > So now the total idiocy of this cones out. I gave an example, but we can pick another one if you prefer. I’ll let you decide which economic choice to focus on, and we can debate what it would look under central planning and a decentralized economy. I’m not dictating anything. Central planning - by *definition* is when economic decisions are centralized. > You’re a fucking idiot. It doesn’t seem like you’re interested in a debate. I’ll take this as a signal that you really have no understanding of anything pertinent to this discussion. Best of luck to you.
Then tell us why central planning will comply with your fantasy? You’ve said yourself that no one can say what central planning will look like. If that’s true, then how are you so certain it will comply with your fantasy?
> You can post your posts as you see fit. That's what I did. There used to be a hard rule in this sub prohibiting link-only posts. Because they are a type of shitpost. Now we just shit on them instead
The aggregate wisdom of millions of individual actors in 2000 bc has determined the earth is flat. It took a select class of technocratic scientists to prove that wisdom wrong.
Huh? How in the world is market economics related to scientific inquiry? What a weird thing to say.
The wisdom of the masses has limits no matter the field. To think millions of people can be wrong about the shape of the earth but they can't be wrong about what is the best use for 2 billion tons of steel is insane.
So you want Central Government Planning? It’s the trillions of decisions made by individuals across the planet every day that allocates resources and capital. Continually providing feedback to market participants.
It's not about what i want, it's about what works best. Natural selection already proved cells making individual decisions is not optimal. What is optimal is collecting data from trillion of cells and sending the data to a central planner and then send commands back to the cells.
Exactly. Liberal, free markets work exceptionally well. It’s why the world no longer lives in subsistence poverty and how the world’s population was able to expand to 7 billion or so.
There never even existed a free market, it was always regulated. You are talking about an utopia that only exists in your head.
Everything is relative. To claim free markets have never existed is just a weird AnCap thing.
Is the statement "everything is relative" relative ?
si walmart is now central planning? you don't see big differences when the state is doing it? central planning done by the state means they have a monopoly to decide value. just look at the USSR- prices of the new cars were controlled by the government, and they were set artificially low to create an impression of affordability. The demand was much higher than the output of the domestic manufacturers, so they ended up with years long waiting lists. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly, they are the biggest company, maybe, but they have strong competition regardless. they can't set their own prices. They have to adjust to competitors as well as consumers. there is a huge difference. i often hear socialists making this argument that we should run our workplace like we run our states but the two are different and have different objectives. your theory is never going to work, and we have so many examples of goods and comodities lacking in centrally planned economies. even the most basic ones.
Governments have strong competition too, other governments.
Link-only posts are bullshit. Stop being lazy and formulate your own damn arguments
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So you object and reject because it probably won't be an exact copy of what Walmart is doing? Adaptation is a foreign and unknown approach in your "mind"?
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Price discovery is absolutely key to markets working. Price discovery in government central planning is essentially impossible.
No matter what, government central planning means people will be ordered to do what they do not want to do. Even if the majority of the population is stupid enough to want socialism, there will still be literally millions of people who are going to have to be forced to comply. You will have to imprison people for made up "crimes" like being a "class enemy" or a "wrecker". It will be too expensive to build prison cells for all of them, so you will set up concentration camps, just like every socialist state that has ever existed. Once you have imprisoned someone for being a "class enemy", it's not a big step to just murder them, which is why killing fields are another prerequisite for socialism.
>No matter what, government central planning means people will be ordered to do what they do not want to do. Oh what a convenient assumption! It fits your hate and intolerance very well!
>Oh what a convenient assumption! Yes, and it happens to be true.
So now your speculation is "true" because you found a biased pundit who echoes your agenda. LOL!!
Show me a government that doesn't use force...
Flat earth of economics. The OP
"ancap"
You didn't say I was wrong though
I mean capitalism is distributed planning.
Jesus, what an incredibly long winded article. If you rely on computer data from POS systems to inform production, you are always chasing trailing data. That leaves no room for innovation or small trends, or "hobbyist" consumerism. Now, I realize that Socialists hate the idea of people using purchasing power to foster happiness, but there is something to it. Some wasteful spending can add color to people's lives. I've gone through a bunch of weird phases. For a while I was really into paintball, then boutique guitar pedals, then I was into audiophile headphones and amps, then last year I got into vinyl, and not I've gotten into wet shaving with safety razors. I could only get into these things because they already existed. They are small markets that enthusiasts maintain. There isn't enough collectable data in them to make the needle move in a planned economy. Also, much of the businesses in these niche markets are small businesses, where the workers are the owners. They would get squashed in a planned economy with an algorithm running everything. The things that make humans happy are unpredictable. They are also often wasteful. But that's OK.
Is it really so hard to imagine a broadly centrally planned economy that still provides spaces around the edges for the guy who wants to sell boutique guitar pedals he makes in his basement? I think there is something very wrong with a society that makes klon pedals a priority while other people are sleeping on the sidewalk, but I don't see why planning would necessarily eliminate the ability to make and trade klons. Also, what stands out to me about most of the hobbies you mentioned is that there are not particularly innovative. We have been making safety razors for a long time; same thing with vinyl records, headphones, and guitar pedals. They're not even terribly quirky hobbies. In fact, they are mostly downright old fashioned ways of doing traditional things. I bet the businesses tied to them could be nationalized and production for them planned. There might At some point in the distant future be some truly novel hobbies that it becomes harder to get into in a socialist economy, but at some point, I think it's reasonable to say to people: "OK, you have enough weird ways to spend your free time. If you are still looking something really far out to do, just go read Moby Dick."
But it isn't for someone else to decide how I spend my free time. If we use socialism to lessen the burdens of work so people have more free time, but then curtail the things people can do in that free time, what's the point? We can argue about the morality or wisdom of buying yet another Klone pedal vs donating that money to a food bank, but that is ultimately the decision of the person to make. If you dictate what someone has to care about you are poisoning the experience of living life. Should our tax system be different so that people don't end up on the streets? Yes. Could we rework the government's priorities in spending? Yes. But a computer system with the most well-meaning people in the world running it can't predict or provide for everyone's wants and needs. The advanced computer systems we have today still can't properly ID certain faces or draw hands correctly. Y'all are putting too much faith in a system that doesn't even exist yet.
>But it isn't for someone else to decide how I spend my free time. Society always does this all the time. >But a computer system with the most well-meaning people in the world running it can't predict or provide for everyone's wants and needs We have long known what people's basic needs are. They are universal.
>Society always does this all the time. It tries and fails. Societies aren't heterogeneous. What is considered "normal" in the US varies from region to region, state to state, and city to city. I'm a progressive atheist in a predominantly conservative suburb. Fuck them. They can give me dirty looks and kiss my ass. >We have long known what people's basic needs are. They are universal. We aren't talking about basic needs here. Yes, we understand the basics, but only living a subsistence life where you can only meet your most rudimentary needs is a gray and empty existence. I grew up in the 80s in America. Soviet Russians defected to this country all the time and they all had the same stories about the drab unfulfilling lives they had. When the Wall fell, it wasn't because of high minded ideas, its because the West was a party Soviet Block countries wanted to be at. They wanted Coke, Levi's, and Rock N Roll. They wanted more than necessities. They wanted to *live*.
I'm on the socialist side and I think this is kinda a bad argument ngl, calculation problem was never about size or complexity. It was about finding the most efficient use of a certain amount of resources, although I dont apply it as broadly as a lot of libertarian capitalists do, and I dont think it precludes all government intervention. While it would be theoretically possible for a government to take over and run walmart, it would have to do it within a larger market economy, otherwise it wouldn't know what amounts of what to put on the shelves at what price.
Right. The central planning has to get down into the weeds. The article considers and provides for that.
> How about an excellent and thorough article on how central planning CAN and DOES work from an advocate of socialism? How about OP make his own damn argument instead of spamming us with somebody else's nonsense
IOW what you want is a fight and not information.
In socialism labor becomes the purpose of production. In capitalism the consumer is the purpose for production. The incentives for efficiency no longer exist, the incentives that profit provide to insure the correct product and amounts cease to exist and the incentives that competition provide to innovate and reduce the cost to the consumer fail to exist . It’s a failed idea, continually resurrected by autocrats using envy to control the masses …
PLEASE! If you want to discuss this, first, GO LEARN SOMETHING.
I have owned a business I built myself for almost 30 years. I’ve learned plenty
Maybe so. But obviously it didn't include anything about socialism.
I have spent 30 years battling all the components of it … Years of real experience building something . Making Payroll, serving customers Years of studying economics both formally and informally What do you know of socialism? Or Capitalism for that matter ?
I'm an advocate for generally democratic decentralised economic planning. This means people democratically identify community needs and then collectively meet those needs (and wants). **Examples:** Present day: The community identifies the community need for fresh produce. The community decides to organise to create gardens and grow food. It identifies suitable land and secures resources such as tools, seeds, and finds volunteers. Garden design and maintenance are planned so that this initiative has every chance to succeed. The gardens are created and seeds planted, and the community manages each garden. The community now has fresh healthy produce available for consumption. The gardens are collectively owned and managed, and the produce is distributed to the community in a sort of scheduled shipment. Residents place orders of their needs and the garden managers plan to ensure everyone is able to receive some produce by adjusting orders and changing the type of seeds planted if necessary. If many people want tomatoes, more tomatoes will be planted to meet the demand. This process would be transparent and subject to democracy. Produce is either delivered directly to homes or to a pick-up point. This system reduces food waste as demand is recorded and the meeting of demand is planned. Post-scarcity: The community identifies the community want for PS10s. The children are especially keen on having the 4D VR console, so the automated factory that the community collectively owns is directed to make more. The people who want a PS10 say so, meaning the community is aware of the exact demand of the product. The community directs the factory to make slightly more than this number. This reduces waste and increases production efficiency as the factory has more time and materials to produce other goods that are in need. The PS10s are distributed to everyone who put in a demans for one. The extras are stored in the community warehouse for retreival in case someone's PS10 breaks.
In real life however, many local communities democratically decided that they don't want any more housing to be built, and we end up with housing shortage. Just because you let people decide what gets produced doesn't make them better off overall. Also, what happens in the garden system when there is suddenly a blizzard that wipes out a communities gardens? Other communities might not vote to share because it is not in their self interest, and suddenly there is a food shortage because there is no market to buy food.
Exactly. This idea is just complete nonsense.
Why is it nonsense? Are you sure this is nonsense? Have you thought deeply about this?
Markets depend on price signals to efficiently distribute resources. Your idea basically nearly eliminates market based price signals.
Alright, well you're calling real world scenarios nonsense. The [Michigan Urban Farming Initiative](https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/11/05/food-community-detroit-garden-agriculture) is a nonprofit that provides produce free to all. It helps the disadvantaged have access to produce and attracts new residents and investments in the community. Some farms distribute to pantries and other organisations to get food to those who need it. Many places have farms and gardens like this. [Seikatsu Club](https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/seikatsu-club-consumers-cooperative/) in Japan has a planned order system and delivers goods to homes or pickup points. The producers are directly connected to the consumers and are even able to visit and work on the farms. This planned distribution reduces waste and cost of production and distribution.
That is a very local example. You simply cannot extrapolate That example to things at an economy wide scale. Prices in free markets convey signals on what demand is. Price signals that are crucial to incentive producers to allocate resources and capital to efficiently meet this demand. This competition amongst producers to meet demand with a market feasible price point forces productivity gains and the efficient allocation of resources. It’s also a primary incentive for new technological innovation. Productivity gains are the magic behind economic growth and wealth creation. The pursuit of profit in markets is a critical component to allocate investment capital to the most reasonable plan or firm that can deliver a cost-effective good/service to the market. It’s this virtuous cycle that properly incentivizes human behavior that has done more to improve the human condition that any other economic system. It’s why the human condition has seen unprecedented improvements in the last 2 centuries. Without price signals in a free market none of this is possible.
Markets distribute based on purchasing power and for profit. This means those without money will not have access. These farms don't distribute based on this system, so resources are more equitably and efficiently distributed. There is less waste and more people receive what they need. It is an example that every community can follow to ensure its people are fed well and that no one goes hungry. Society does not need prices to see supply and demand. Seikatsu Club measures demand and supply effectively. The producers and consumers collaborate directly, and technology will only make this easier, where consumers may simply make an order in an app and producers can keep track of production in a transparent way. This is quicker than markets that take time to adjust prices and knowledge on supply/demand lags, leaving consumers and producers to make educated guesses on decision making. Prices are often not an accurate representation of this information and markets are unpredictable, often leading to under/overproduction. It is wasteful and leaves many without resources. It is a more humane and efficient system to equitably distribute food based on need rather than purchasing power. The organisations I mentioned are statewide/national, so your argument that it is a "very local" one isn't very strong. These ideas work in reality and they benefit people where markets have failed. If we didn't have these food distribution systems external to the market, society would face widespread hunger and starvation. In many places, society already is because there is an absence of these systems. Three million children starve to death annually. The market fails to adequately supply food to those in need. We need more than just a market.
Markets cannot function without price signals. I’m certainly not against these types of organizations if a local community, or any community really, voluntarily enters them. Mandating this type of system would lead to a global economic collapse and absolute human devastation.
Markets are not necessary to distribute food. I never talked about mandating community gardens, and I have no clue how community gardens that feed hungry people would somehow lead to economic collapse.
>Just because you let people decide what gets produced doesn't make them better off overall. I did not say this. It's not a perfect system. It is flawed and could lead to them being worse off. But it's better than being subject to decisions made by unelected individuals who have little/no stake in the wellbeing of the community. The state and federal organisations would step in if there is an extreme food shortage, but these are just fresh produce gardens. People won't starve if they don't have tomatoes in their sandwiches.
Capitalism is the opposite of central planning. They're mutually exclusive. You cannot be have capitalism and central planning at the same time, as one will eat at the other.
What are your thoughts on the central planning that the U.S. had implemented during WWII?
Very useful and quite crucial to the total war that was waged. But the opposite of capitalism, though only possible due to the previous capitalist system that allowed such development and efficiency.
Are you saying that the U.S. was communist during WWII? The USSR had central planning and that is what many people think is communism.
And many people are stupid. No, I don't think the US was communist during WW2. Communism doesn't have the monopoly on central planning.
Was the US socialist then?
It had temporarily embraced a system that could fall under the socialist umbrella, depending on how one defines it.
I guess socialism works then. Because that centrally planned system worked very well and grew the US economy, employment, and productivity incredibly, and helped to create the foundation for the post-war boom.
Yep. It also failed the 10 years prior, but if one wants to include the state of Total war authoritianism in the umbrella of socialism, it definitely worked for those 4 years.
I don't consider central planning to be socialism. I was just following the logic you presented. No, central planning didn't fail 10 years prior. The Great Depression wasn't the result of central planning.
People have a lot of different opinions on this... go figure. I consider myself a socialist, but I feel like the larger any organization is, the harder it is to manage efficiently. That being said, in sectors like public transportation, hospitals, grid operations, roads, rails, etc, pretty much any utility and any large industry where realistic competition is infeasible, they should be run as independent, government created non profits, similar to the USPS, but at a scale that is reasonable for each region. Although they don't have to be run by the government, depending on the industry and region. To me, eliminating the profit motive is far more important for creating an equitable society than making things government operated.
A centrally planned economy will never work, and comparing Walmart's operation to one is incredibly stupid.
The US had a centrally planned economy during WWII. Spoiler: it worked.
The fact that all mammals have a brain proves a centrally planned economy always has the best potential compared to a decentralized economy ie the octopus nervous system.
That makes literally no sense.
Learn more biology, it will.
Learn more economics, it won't.
Marxist or Capitalist economics ?
You pick. It's the same result.
According to Marxist economics central planning is more efficient.