Communism: Persuade Me

[The Merchant Republics]

Cargo Planes, Heavy Freight ships, Cargo Trucks, Railroads etc. With all the options it's actually a given.

Right, but the rate determining step is actually tracking the 'need' and coordinating the response - and that technology is also now readily available.

That however does not make such a thing desirable. Nor for that matter near as efficient as the current market system.

[Sibirsky]

I think it's pretty fucking belittling to call communism a 'half-assed religion' without anything actually intelligent to back it up. You point to the class of the original architects of Communist theory. Damn, wow, you've totally busted communist theory. Man I'm totally reformed now.

The real world backs him up.

Jealousy my ass, it's opposition to concrete systematic exploitation of the masses for the gain of only a few at any time.

Exploitation of the masses for the gain of only a few sounds exactly like any real world attempt at this failure. While Russian peasants starved, Lenin had a fleet of Rolls-Royces. OTOH in the West, the masses enjoy very high standards of living, large houses, cars, vacations and so on.

I'm not jealous! I don't want the pools and limos and ridiculous luxury. I want
FREEDOM FROM NECESSITY.

Oh, I'll be honest though. I'd like something better than Mr. Noodles for dinner!

That's a contradiction of terms. Necessity is, by definition necessary. Since it's necessary, you cannot be free from it.

[Sibirsky]

Source.

Cargo Planes, Heavy Freight ships, Cargo Trucks, Railroads etc. With all the options it's actually a given.

Way to miss the point. By several miles.

[Bataloqr]

Cargo Planes, Heavy Freight ships, Cargo Trucks, Railroads etc. With all the options it's actually a given.

Way to miss the point. By several miles.

Oh? How's that? The way I read it, that section of the discussion was about the modern ease of resource allocation. So how is the means of transporting resources not related to the process of moving resources to where they need to be? Or are you talking about the part about data transfer, in which case I will direct you to the bottom of the previous page? I'm not an idiot, I'm just slow...wait, that came out wrong.

[Sibirsky]

Way to miss the point. By several miles.

Oh? How's that? The way I read it, that section of the discussion was about the modern ease of resource allocation. So how is the means of transporting resources not related to the process of moving resources to where they need to be? Or are you talking about the part about data transfer, in which case I will direct you to the bottom of the previous page? I'm not an idiot, I'm just slow...wait, that came out wrong.

Transportation of goods has nothing to do with their allocation. How much of what goes where?

[Grave_n_idle]

Read your techy journals? We even have names for this phenomenon creeping slowly into the public consciousness. "Sky drive", "cloud", "dropbox", just for example. Continuous remote access to centralised data handling. Just the sorts of tools that would be needed.

But it needs to be such that a few technocrats, assessing a bunch of subjective values of a population of millions, susceptible to massive measurement error from people lying on surveys requesting their needs, which also currently still take years to administer and audit in an industrialised country (e.g. see the census in UK), and planning accordingly, is somehow better than millions of people spread all across the country who are far less susceptible to asymmetric information and corruption, all planning for themselves or their firm/charity/coop/household etc...

I don't see the difference.

Why wouldn't local groups still have input? What relevance do surveys and censuses have?

Perhaps more to the point, where did you get the ridiculous idea that firms and families currently allocate resources efficiently?

[Grave_n_idle]

Right, but the rate determining step is actually tracking the 'need' and coordinating the response - and that technology is also now readily available.

That however does not make such a thing desirable. Nor for that matter near as efficient as the current market system.

Desirable? Sounds like a value judgement.

All I'm saying is that the historical argument of failure of communication to meet need is no longer true.

[Bataloqr]

Oh? How's that? The way I read it, that section of the discussion was about the modern ease of resource allocation. So how is the means of transporting resources not related to the process of moving resources to where they need to be? Or are you talking about the part about data transfer, in which case I will direct you to the bottom of the previous page? I'm not an idiot, I'm just slow...wait, that came out wrong.

Transportation of goods has nothing to do with their allocation. How much of what goes where?

Allocation includes means through which resources arrive where they need to be. How does the "what" go "where" without being transported? And how is anything transported without an efficient means to do so?

[Hydesland]

Why wouldn't local groups still have input?

They only have endogenous or internal capabilities for planning, under central planning they are forbidden to trade or create supply contracts with other firms (I honestly cannot see how anyone but a lunatic could think that is efficient, seriously) and must rely entirely on a central hub of technocrats for all of those decisions.

What relevance do surveys and censuses have?

Almost every model, if not every model, I have ever seen for central planning involves collecting weekly, or even daily, census or survey reports of all capital flows, and the requirements and demands of each citizen or firm

Perhaps more to the point, where did you get the ridiculous idea that firms and families currently allocate resources efficiently?

Roughly 200 years of research.

[Sibirsky]

Transportation of goods has nothing to do with their allocation. How much of what goes where?

Allocation includes means through which resources arrive where they need to be. How does the "what" go "where" without being transported? And how is anything transported without an efficient means to do so?

Yourself.

You think resources where not efficiently allocated in the USSR because they didn't have trucks? That wasn't the question. Transportation is not involved in the decision of how much, of what goods, go where.

[Staenwald]

Let's say that I know nothing about communism, other than the fact that the USSR existed for 90 years and lots of people hate it.

Persuade me to become a Communist supporter using all the good things about Communism.

Meanwhile, if you're anti-Communism, you can try and persuade me otherwise by pointing out all of Communism's faults.

If this thread goes as planned, I'd think that I would come to a personal happy medium that incorporates all the good aspects of communism into my personal political ideology.

Please use support for your statements. LET THE DISCUSSION BEGIN!

the hegelian dialetic that marx ascribed to will not work to your advantage.

[Grave_n_idle]

Why wouldn't local groups still have input?

They only have endogenous or internal capabilities for planning, under central planning they are forbidden to trade or create supply contracts with other firms (I honestly cannot see how anyone but a lunatic could think that is efficient, seriously) and must rely entirely on a central hub of technocrats for all of those decisions.

What relevance do surveys and censuses have?

Almost every model, if not every model, I have ever seen for central planning involves collecting weekly, or even daily, census or survey reports of all capital flows, and the requirements and demands of each citizen or firm

Perhaps more to the point, where did you get the ridiculous idea that firms and families currently allocate resources efficiently?

Roughly 200 years of research.

I'm not convinced you've even been alive for 200 years, if we're being entirely honest.

On the other hand, given how much produce, for example, goes to waste in American families, the restaurant inustry, etc on a daily basis, I'm going to have to assume your evidence is worthless anyway, since 'efficiency' is clearly not present in allocation.

I think the problem you're having here, is that you're looking for reasons a thing won't work, rather than thinking of how it could. So you keep creating strawman versions to attack, rather than making assumptions that - for example - the storage of data might be centralised (probably not in one 'center,' per se) while the allocation is still propelled by demand rather than supply.

[Eurivor]

Communism in my mind is what a Christian should believe in. Jesus has said it is hard for a rich man to get in to heaven, and He and his disciples have treated all equally. Communism has since dropped its atheist views for the most part. Communism = Christian. It's a possibility, just saying. Don't say it's blasphemy. It's just logic.

[Staenwald]

Communism in my mind is what a Christian should believe in. Jesus has said it is hard for a rich man to get in to heaven, and He and his disciples have treated all equally. Communism has since dropped its atheist views for the most part. Communism = Christian. It's a possibility, just saying. Don't say it's blasphemy. It's just logic.

tell the conservatives that....and also god doesn't exist.

[Hydesland]

I'm not convinced you've even been alive for 200 years, if we're being entirely honest.

I'm not talking about my research. I'm talking about at least the 200 years of research that has gone into market economies, and many decades of research into the many forms of heavily planned economies that have existed, and why they have almost always crumbled or provided sub optimal living standards, due to problems like attempts soft budget constraints etc...

On the other hand, given how much produce, for example, goes to waste in American families, the restaurant inustry, etc on a daily basis, I'm going to have to assume your evidence is worthless anyway, since 'efficiency' is clearly not present in allocation.

Is this one of those cases where unless everything is absolutely, inhumanly perfect, the word cannot be applied at all? I'm talking about relative efficiency, as in market economies are significantly more efficient than every command economy model I have ever seen, not that it's pareto perfect in itself. Also, to clarify, I wasn't saying one individual firm or family is better at planning than any individual government, but that millions of firms and millions of households are more efficient and making the millions of economic decisions required every minute to retain our standards of living, than one central hub of technocrats (because if planning is not centralised, it's not central planning). Apart from in a few special cases.

the storage of data might be centralised (probably not in one 'center,' per se) while the allocation is still propelled by demand rather than supply.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

[Staenwald]

They only have endogenous or internal capabilities for planning, under central planning they are forbidden to trade or create supply contracts with other firms (I honestly cannot see how anyone but a lunatic could think that is efficient, seriously) and must rely entirely on a central hub of technocrats for all of those decisions.



Almost every model, if not every model, I have ever seen for central planning involves collecting weekly, or even daily, census or survey reports of all capital flows, and the requirements and demands of each citizen or firm



Roughly 200 years of research.

I'm not convinced you've even been alive for 200 years, if we're being entirely honest.

On the other hand, given how much produce, for example, goes to waste in American families, the restaurant inustry, etc on a daily basis, I'm going to have to assume your evidence is worthless anyway, since 'efficiency' is clearly not present in allocation.

I think the problem you're having here, is that you're looking for reasons a thing won't work, rather than thinking of how it could. So you keep creating strawman versions to attack, rather than making assumptions that - for example - the storage of data might be centralised (probably not in one 'center,' per se) while the allocation is still propelled by demand rather than supply.

yeah but computer data weighs nothing and travels at light-speed. not to mention that disk space is in great abundance. Then again people are scared that we're gonna run out of website addresses soon because there are so many.

[Terra Agora]

Technology has finally reached a level where efficient resource distribution is entirely possible.

Source.

He's part of the Zeitgeist movement.

[Terra Agora]

Because only a market economy can allocate resources efficiently.

While that might have been true for large interconnected groups, in the past - it's never been true for small groups, and it's no longer true for large groups. Technology has finally reached a level where efficient resource distribution is entirely possible.

[Bataloqr]

Allocation includes means through which resources arrive where they need to be. How does the "what" go "where" without being transported? And how is anything transported without an efficient means to do so?

Yourself.

You think resources where not efficiently allocated in the USSR because they didn't have trucks? That wasn't the question. Transportation is not involved in the decision of how much, of what goods, go where.

What does the USSR have to do with anything? The USSR had no desire to allocate resources so efficiency was never required.

2nd: Unless resources go somewhere, there is no allocation; what you're talking about is "arbitrary numbers on a page" in the hands of "someone who isn't doing anything."

Here's the economic demonstration:
Corportion A (Inc A) has a product called "Widgit." They intend to market to Group B (GBs) at a location.
Situation 1: Shipping cost to GB costs more than Inc.A expects to bring in. Thus they ignore GB without allocating any Widgits to them
Situation 2: Shipping prices plummet, thus leaving the cost of shipping as less than they expect to bring in. Thus, shipping Widgits to GB becomes viable meaning that Inc.A will allocate these goods to GB.

[Sibirsky]

Yourself.

You think resources where not efficiently allocated in the USSR because they didn't have trucks? That wasn't the question. Transportation is not involved in the decision of how much, of what goods, go where.

What does the USSR have to do with anything? The USSR had no desire to allocate resources so efficiency was never required.

2nd: Unless resources go somewhere, there is no allocation; what you're talking about is "arbitrary numbers on a page" in the hands of "someone who isn't doing anything."

Here's the economic demonstration:
Corportion A (Inc A) has a product called "Widgit." They intend to market to Group B (GBs) at a location.
Situation 1: Shipping cost to GB costs more than Inc.A expects to bring in. Thus they ignore GB without allocating any Widgits to them
Situation 2: Shipping prices plummet, thus leaving the cost of shipping as less than they expect to bring in. Thus, shipping Widgits to GB becomes viable meaning that Inc.A will allocate these goods to GB.

That's great and all. The question was, how does the central planning authority decide which resources, and how much of them, to allocate to whom?

The answer is, without prices it's not going to be efficient.

The USSR was an example of central planning failure. While there was enough food produced for everyone, not everyone got the food they wanted. Even though transportation was in place to deliver that food.

[Mongolian Khanate]

What does the USSR have to do with anything? The USSR had no desire to allocate resources so efficiency was never required.
.

...What?

[Bataloqr]

That's great and all. The question was, how does the central planning authority decide which resources, and how much of them, to allocate to whom?

The answer is, without prices it's not going to be efficient.

The USSR was an example of central planning failure. While there was enough food produced for everyone, not everyone got the food they wanted. Even though transportation was in place to deliver that food.

Actually, the question was: "In what way is a central distribution system capable of being efficient?" The answer to that was primarily two-fold:
1- Modern communication allows societies in need to request aid.
2- Modern transportation allows societies to provide aid.

Nowhere is there suggested that there not be prices.

And again with the USSR? I still fail to see the relevance. The USSR was not, as you say, a "central planning failure," as the central plan was to give all the wealth and power to an aristocracy, which is what happened. So it was a "central planning success" within an unstable autocracy.

[Staenwald]

What does the USSR have to do with anything? The USSR had no desire to allocate resources so efficiency was never required.

2nd: Unless resources go somewhere, there is no allocation; what you're talking about is "arbitrary numbers on a page" in the hands of "someone who isn't doing anything."

Here's the economic demonstration:
Corportion A (Inc A) has a product called "Widgit." They intend to market to Group B (GBs) at a location.
Situation 1: Shipping cost to GB costs more than Inc.A expects to bring in. Thus they ignore GB without allocating any Widgits to them
Situation 2: Shipping prices plummet, thus leaving the cost of shipping as less than they expect to bring in. Thus, shipping Widgits to GB becomes viable meaning that Inc.A will allocate these goods to GB.

That's great and all. The question was, how does the central planning authority decide which resources, and how much of them, to allocate to whom?

The answer is, without prices it's not going to be efficient.

The USSR was an example of central planning failure. While there was enough food produced for everyone, not everyone got the food they wanted. Even though transportation was in place to deliver that food.

Im pretty sure that a lot of people didn't get any food at all...like in Ukraine and many other places.

[The Merchant Republics]

Because only a market economy can allocate resources efficiently.

While that might have been true for large interconnected groups, in the past - it's never been true for small groups, and it's no longer true for large groups. Technology has finally reached a level where efficient resource distribution is entirely possible.

Not true, market distribution is just as much more efficient than central planning in small groups as well as it is in large, it's simply less necessary as the weaknesses of central planning are less obvious. Consider the end of a childhood Halloween trick or treating, you and your friends would or at least in my case we did, set about all of our candy at the end of the night, and trade it with each other. Despite being only about five participants it's clear that this is a much more efficient and fair system then if we simply gave them all to one central authority (let's call it MOM) and she provided us with exactly with exactly equal shares of all the candy subject to the pull of our whinging for more Butterfingers than Jimmy because we love Butterfingers.

The only reason market systems tend not to be used in small groups is generally because of either reciprocal altruism in which case the market system is merely disguised, the trade of gifts being a method to strengthen relationships, it is a trade of gifts for friendship or because most parties do not have any means to produce or operate in the market. I.E. in a family, where children have no method of producing something of market value to their parents and have an almost impossible to overcome asymmetry of information. As well as the obvious moral implications of making your friends trade you favours. Central planning puts a happy face on it all, so that even being glaringly inefficient it seems more fair. The same as it is for large scale, it's just the inefficiencies in a friendship generally are overlooked.

But as in the above scenario, when you do use market distribution in small groups it does become more efficient, it just comes at an apparent moral hazard. So it's avoided.

[Staenwald]

That's great and all. The question was, how does the central planning authority decide which resources, and how much of them, to allocate to whom?

The answer is, without prices it's not going to be efficient.

The USSR was an example of central planning failure. While there was enough food produced for everyone, not everyone got the food they wanted. Even though transportation was in place to deliver that food.

Actually, the question was: "In what way is a central distribution system capable of being efficient?" The answer to that was primarily two-fold:
1- Modern communication allows societies in need to request aid.
2- Modern transportation allows societies to provide aid.

Nowhere is there suggested that there not be prices.

And again with the USSR? I still fail to see the relevance. The USSR was not, as you say, a "central planning failure," as the central plan was to give all the wealth and power to an aristocracy, which is what happened. So it was a "central planning success" within an unstable autocracy.

In response to your answer, how do you manage scarcity and decide who gets which resource and of what amounts, when the only way it appears to do it is to assess everyone's claims to these resources. That's a classic ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'...this does not work.

The central plan claim thing is bullshit.