Didn’t you hear? Your replacement is “in the database” and will be allocated to you shortly. Now shut up before I throw you in the Gulag.
Sorry for the DP. 
And I suppose this mystical database will also be clairvoyant and be able to look into my mind and extract all the details it knows?
Let’s say I’m a woodworker. My tools are getting dull, and I could sure use a new set. But there’s only so much steel around, and my neighbor says he needs a new plow because his old one isn’t working well.
How does your database decide between us? In a market system, it’s simple: I bid for tools, and he bids for a plow. The price of steel will rise. If it goes too high, one of us will decide that we need our money more than the new plow or tools.
In a communist system, I suppose we both fill out Requisition form A: “Request for new materials to aid in the production of the glorious state.”. So your database gets two orders, and can only fill one. HOW DOES IT DECIDE?
In the real world, the bureaucrat decides by noticing that I happen to be the nephew of a local governor. Or perhaps my file mentions that I said something against the state. Or maybe he just flips a coin. But either way, the decision CAN’T be as efficient, because he or his miraculous database have no way to gather all the information that I have and my neighbor has.
And then of course, after allocating some new tools to me, he now has to increase the production of steel. But that means more drill bits, and carborundum is in short supply for the bit. So he orders some, but now there’s a sandpaper shortage. And because there’s no sandpaper, people move from wood to plastic and steel. Now the steel shortage is worse! Oh my…
There is no way any human or any database can keep up with the incredible inter-connected effects that ripple through modern economies. And even if the computing power existed, there is no way to collect the information, because much of it is domain knowledge held in the brains of the citizenry.
There are ways to elicit honest preferences. I don’t recall to what extent they are inefficient, in the sense that a truth revealing outcome is less than optimal. Some are not too inefficient. Here’s an example: Suppose you are a city assessor and you want to find out what people’s home & land is really worth to them so that property tax may truly reflect how much they value their property, as well as cutting bureaucracy. The problem is that if you just ask, they’ll low ball you in order to pay less tax.
One way is to have every property owner report what she thinks her property is worth, under the proviso that any purchase offer for any amount over that valuation must be honored. So if you say your property is worth a dollar, and I offer $1.01, you are legally obligated to sell. Under this system a person has three options:
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State a price less than her true valuation: If she does this, then she pays taxes less than what she should, but she can be forced to sell her house for less than she thinks its worth.
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State a price more than her true valuation: If she does this, then she will be paying more tax than what she should pay since the valuation is artifically high. But any offer to buy will be higher.
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State a price equal to her true valuation: If she does this, then any offer to buy will be greater than her valuation and she’s better off (by a penny:rolleyes: so perhaps the offer needs to be higher for moving fees, etc.–we can hammer out the details later when we run our own city). On the other hand, she pays taxes on a correct amount as well.
This is a pretty simple program. Sometimes (usually?) they can be very, very complicated. But they do exist. I don’t know how much of economic life can be subject to this sort of thing. But I’d bet that it’s more than you’d expect. Of course, I’m not so sure I’d want the gov’t. to have that much information about me…
You might be able to model a few big things, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The same problems exist all the way down to my toothpaste preference and how firm I like my pillow. The economy is massively complex.
Hopefully I’ve been clear that to do so in any practical sense it would be more or less impossible for a planned economy. I’m merely saying that it’s possible (well, for alot of things it’s possible), which is a pretty amazing fact, IMO.
Ok, this communism thing has been done to death but yet again I find myself getting involved in another thread. Here’s the problem with communism:
IT DOESN"T FUCKING WORK!!!
First. The idea of the uneducated ditchdigger earning the equivalent standard of living as a doctor or phd sounds good to the ditchdigger but it sounds terrible to the educated professional. Why put in the extra effort if there is no reward?
Second. You can’t have the entire economy be a planned economy because it just wouldn’t work. Please pick up an economics book and get a basic understanding of how the economy works. It is not simply a matter of tallying up all the orders for widgets and doohickees and then producing them. It’s about making choices. Given a finite amount of resources, what is most important? You can’t produce everything for everyone.
Finally. There is no inherent value in ANYTHING!!! You can’t say “oh my house is worth $300,000 because that’s what I think it’s worth”. It’s worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it! If no one wants to pay $300,000 then its not a freakin $300,000 house!
And this idea, if I understand it correctly:
js_africanus quote:
One way is to have every property owner report what she thinks her property is worth, under the proviso that any purchase offer for any amount over that valuation must be honored. So if you say your property is worth a dollar, and I offer $1.01, you are legally obligated to sell.
is so freakin dumb that it makes me shudder! How about this idea? MY FUCKING HOUSE IS NOT FUCKING FOR SALE AT ANY FUCKING PRICE BECAUSE I LIKE LIVING THE FUCK IN IT!
AHHHHH!!! This communism stuff is so idiotic to me I feel like starting a pit thread!! All communism does is take away peoples rights. Their right to ownership. Their right to property. Their right for fair compensation for extraordinary ability. Their right to decide what products and services are important to them. And replaces it with what? Some mediocre existance where no one has a hope of rising above their station?
Yeah communism!! Lets all live in government housing and be thankful for our ration of chocolate and bread, Brother!
AND, if I understand correctly, nobody is arguing with Olentzero that those who cannot afford cheese should go without.
Well, there are degrees of planning, for one thing. Having a central bank set a bank prime lending rate is central planning on some level. Having the government sell huge numbers of securities is central planning. I mean, virtually any large federal governmental action which moves billions of dollars is central planning.
So, what I wonder is how can anybody trust Communists when many people like a mixed economy with some of the best elements of capitalism and some redistributive programs, subsides, programs, etc., for the poor? Seriously, we do have most elements of central planning that the Communists of the 1930s wanted. A short list would include a pension for the elderly, medical assistance for the poor, emergency treatment for everyone, food stamps, etc. I mean, you must know all that.
Could we do a better job of helping the poor, sure. But, for example: let’s say you give a huge amount of food to a poor nation. Good, you prevent starvation. But, you may drive whatever few farmers there are out of business. Then, you subsidise the farmers. If you continue giving food to the starving masses the farmers may not invest the money in farming. Then, you come in to farm for the poor nation. So on, and so on. Read the price information above posted by sailor. I think it helps explain why pricing simply cannot be done properly in a command economy. Even a large enough tax on, say, luxury goods ends up hurting those who manufacture the stuff. Tobacco taxes, a favorite of the left, disproproportionatley affect the poor. Sure, everyone should quit smoking. But, a regressive tax is a regressive tax.
Let’s say, in a command economy, our wise leader decides to ban cigarettes. Which, by the way, seems to never happen in Communist countries - usually everyone smokes like a chimney. Well, that’s great for people’s lungs until the inevitible smuggling, illicit growing, etc. See, drugs. Anyway, our leader knows what is good for us, so he cracks down, and so on.
Sooo, it is hard not to think of (sorry): Stalin (the purges, summary executions, torture - the real kind - not sleep deprivation. I’m talking George Orwell’s 1984 kind of torture. Repeated, over and over in one Communist country after the other. How about the massacre in Katyn forest the Soviets tried to blame on the Germans? That’s a twofer, invasion of your neighbors and summary execution of innocents. Chumpsky, I’m sure, would find some good reason that the Soviets split Poland in two with Hitler.
That’s what scares me about that “world socialism” stuff. If you want to take over the world to try out an economic system, expect to ruffle some feathers.
Furthermore, trying to plan the ?!world’s economy?! is going to make the problem worse, not better.
I just reread every post to date and I don’t see anything before the post in question that actually explains where the idea ‘communism restricts freedom of speech and the power of the vote’. I see a lot of people assuming that is the case and using that assumption as a con… but where do we get that idea from?
>> Why would Marx critcize his own system? And, if he did, why would he be a good source?
The argument people are making is that it is part of the Communist theory to restrict basic freedom. If it truly is part of the theory, it would be written down with the rest of the theory would it not? If we blame Marx for writing the theory… and we say part of the theory leads to lack of free speech… wouldn’t he be the BEST source?
One thing is for sure… I don’t see any cites. Still waiting for the part of Communist theory that restricts free speech/vote… and I’m still willing to shut up when I see it.
Excellent post! I appreciate it! 
I guess what I’m advocating is a constitutional republic or parlimentary system with guarantees for basic individual rights. If you want to call Sweden, Spain, or the Netherlands communist, fine, let’s all be commies. But, everyone knows that is crap. You can pry my guns from my hands even, so long as we get hookers and hemp. I digress.
LostOne, Marx did not say that the implementation of his system would lead to mass starvation, executions, invasions, and Iron Curtains, so we should ignore all that and argue in a vacuum without the benefit of reality like they used to do in the Soviet Parliament? Is that about it?
Marx did talk about worker’s revolutions. Those seem to turn out rather badly. Some are less violent than others. Often Communists mention Nicaragua. A pretty mild form of Communism, to be sure. Still, what happened? The former private property owners - ARMED BY THE UNITED STATES, see, now nobody has to say it - rebelled against the new regime. Why? Because if you are going to take someone’s property you better pay them just compensation. Check out the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Can you have land reform? Sure, but if you are not careful, you will starve your nation and start a civil war.
Is our system perfect. Not even close. Right now I’ve had about all the Total Information Awareness I can stand. So, maybe we are learning that a lot of what used to go on in Stalinist countries can happen right here. (Note proviso: Yes, the scale matters. No, Bush is not Stalin.) But, with the new sweeping federal powers, who knows what may happen down the road.
On that note, goodnite everyone. Have a pleasant tomorrow.
LostOne, I see you revere Marx like he was the Bible. So, just because he did not say something means it can’t be true? What kind of logic is that. We have common sense telling us loss of liberty is an inevitable consequence. We have the examples of countless countries. But Marx didn’t say it so it can’t be true? So how about I counter your argument with a similar argument? Hayek said it in The Road to Serfdom so, it has to be true.
Which means, essentially, that, the more you please the consumer, the more the consumer is willing to pay and the more money you make. I think it is a brilliant system. You want to make money from me? You have to please me. In the measure I consider you are solving my needs and desires you get my money. Brilliant. I like it.
OTOH, if you have a central planning board decide the allocation of resources, then you are all slaves of the guys at the planning board.
We have had this discussion many times before. Who gets the house by the beach? There are only so many houses by the beach. The value of a particular and unique house may be higher for me than for others. In a free market, buyer and seller can strike a deal according to their own valuations of the house. In a system where a board decides who gets the house, I have to please the guys in the board because everybody wants to live by the beach and nobody wants to live in a slum by the railway tracks.
The price system in a free market is the best system yet devised to please the highest amount of people and to allocate resources efficiently and, most important of all, to allow people the most freedom in their own lives.
The idea that you can have a centrally planned economy and not restrict freedom is just patently and obviously ludicrous. In a free market people are free to buy and sell their labor or their property or their rights and any price at which they can find a partner to the transaction. That is the definition of a free market. You plan to take away my freedom to buy and sell labor or property or rights as I wish and you are telling me you are not taking away freedom from me? That sounds tremendously stupid to me. So what if I retain the freedom to protest? Well, since the very next day you are dealing with the entire population protesting, then you either a) go back to a free market or b) suspend the right to free speech. The next day after you suspend the right to free speech, people begin to leave the country in droves so you either (a) let them leave, in which case you are left king of an empty country or (b) restrict their freedom of movement. There’s no way around it. The definition of a centrally planned economy is that the power and freedom to decide on buying and selling is taken away from the individual and given to a planning board.
Even gouging gets products to an area that need them quickly and efficiently. Gouging gets bottled water to disaster areas as quickly as charity or the federal government. I’m not saying gouging is equal in morality to charity - hardly. But, the “invisible hand” does work.
When a gouger manages to sell a huge supply of water to disaster victims, he turns around with the profits and buys more water. The profits he made encourage others to do the same thing. Eventually, when enough suppliers do the same thing, the price begins to stabilize.
Of course, luckily, we do not have to choose between disaster relief and capitalism.
Subject / verb agreement, arrgh.
The only countries which can afford large redistributive programs aimed at helping the poor are capitalist nations with mixed economies. Communist nations - traditionally part of the poor - have always needed handouts from the capitalist nations to get by. From wheat to the Soviets to wheat to Cuba. Fortunately, capitalism tends to produce surplus goods and food.
In an effort to make a Great Leap Forward Chinese Communists melt down their plows to meet steel quotas and starve. This is not atypical of what happens in Communist countries. The scale of the starvation was huge, but the event not atypical. Little mistakes in planning can cause huge catastrophes.
You know, js was arguing your side… it might be me, but I think attacking people for believing as you do for making theoretical points is not the best way to elicit support for your side.
It’s not that I don’t not have a lack of knowledge of what I’m not doing.
Crosspost, Beagle? Or did I miss something?
Rich fat people would love this. Can you imagine having the power to drive poorer people from their homes? Now, your boss not only has the power to fire you but he has the power to evict you because he can buy your house for twice what it’s worth and you can’t. Every house you buy, someone can drive you out of it. And they can keep hounding you forever. Lovely.
Sometimes I have to wonder about the stupidity of some of the proposals I see here.
A not atypical error I just made is using the double negative. I think “typical” might have been a better choice. That’s ok, in the tenth Newspeak dictionary you can use up to quadruple negatives.
JohnT, if you missed the wonderful use of the double negative by myself, go back and enjoy. :o
So this is not abject post padding:
Read Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter, LostOne. I think that and Hayek would be a great start on the road to understanding the critiques of Marx.
I’m surprised you think Marx himself would be the best critic. That is somewhat like being a Marxist fundamentalist. “I say-ah the people-ah must rise up-ah!” “Throw off-ah those chains-ah!”