A basic critique of TVP

Economics Political Theory
1

The points I make in this thread will seem obvious and repetitive to many of you. The arguments made here are targeted towards a very specific audience. If any of you have any complaints or anything to add, please feel free to do so.

Traditional economic theory says that consumption is only constrained by production, and that individual’s are always willing to replace a less satisfactory state of affairs with a more satisfactory one (a higher standard of living). A higher standard of living, for most people, entails higher quality food, additional food to sustain growing population levels, more advanced technology, medicine, etc. In other words, most individuals prefer conditions of material abundance relative to material deprivation and perpetual and profound scarcity. Thus, the economy’s main function is to maximize total output with the limited amount of resources available at any given time (expressed by constrained optimization equations in economics) in line with consumer desires. This, in turn, increases the amount of resources available and facilitates additional consumption (satisfies additional desires). This process entirely depends upon the existence of private property and voluntary exchange and economics does not judge the subjective value scales of others; it is value free.

Those at TVP and TZM hold entirely different positions. They claim that individuals should prefer conditions of relative material deprivation to relative material abundance. The desire to elevate one’s standard of living is seen as a moral vice, a plague on humanity. This is why they continuously stress that there must be a “social paradigm shift,” away from material desires, towards a primitivist society. You’ll find that they romanticize earlier historical periods, when there “was balance between man and nature.” Of course, no such glorious period ever existed; earlier human epochs were characterized by frequent periodic famines, high infant mortality, an average life expectancy at around 30, and human population levels remained fairly constant for thousands of years (dominated by Malthusian principles). Additionally, they claim that population levels should fall dramatically (which is precisely what would happen if they ever had their way).

They argue that society has “everything that it needs,” and any progression beyond this point would be “excessive.[1]” But if this were true, and if demand actually did reach its limit, then production would have reached its limit as well. We would have arrived at some sort of steady-state, where any movement in either direction (more or less production) would yield a relatively inefficient social condition. In other words, the utility gained by producing and consuming more goods would be out-weighed by the labor required to produce those goods. 20 hours of labor today can easily buy you what 50 hours of labor could have bought you just 30-40 years ago. The fact that people continuously work, save, and invest proves that society does not have “everything that it needs.”

Of course they would argue that such behaviors persist solely because of some sort of conditioning by some evil and mysterious force, which takes the form of advertising and marketing[2]. But advertising and marketing can only get you to try a product; it can’t force you to continuously buy that product if it doesn’t truly satisfy or remove some sense of felt uneasiness. But again, the existence of this uneasiness, they would argue, is manufactured by this evil mysterious force[3].

In other words, they completely dismiss the subjective valuations of society and supplant them with their own entirely arbitrary judgments, which they consider to be categorical and natural laws. They believe that individuals are not in a position to make the “correct choice” (defined by them) and therefore require the aid of their expertise. The fact that society does not value what they value, and therefore operates in a way which varies from their own ethical standard, somehow proves that it is inherently defunct and morally corrupt. There is simply no room for disagreement; those who see things differently are evil. So no matter how often those at TVP and TZM claim that they adhere the NAP, you must understand that their philosophy is diametrically opposed to it in every way. Either way, they plan to eliminate scarcity by forcing or persuading individuals to accept what is now called poverty (rather than increasing production).

Now even if we grant them that demand has somehow reached a limit, one important question still remains, namely how will they organize production and arrange and the original factors of production and capital in ways which satisfy the “legitimate needs” (again, defined by them) of those who survive this disastrous transition? Whenever pressed on this issue they refer to their omnipotent super computer which will measure entirely ordinal subjective value scales that are in continuous flux (this is, of course, impossible). They frequently assert that production is “automated” and mechanical, and that the processes of production, distribution, and economic coordination are now trivial thanks to modern technology (of course, one could ask how this modern technology was developed in the first place).

The fact the local supermarket has products which were produced from all over the world, and shipped to it, is something they take as given, a matter of course. This is how the market appears to operate to those who are unfamiliar with economic theory, but in reality, the market is characterized by entrepreneurial forecasting, a continuous process of trial and error, cost-benefit analysis, profit/loss accounting (all of which are designed to respond to continuously changing demand and supply conditions), and the attempt to gain market dominance by eliminating competition. This is what drives the market, and it’s why cities and nations get fed. This entire process will necessarily breakdown if society eliminates private property and exchange (which would, in turn, eliminate money and money prices).

Thus, many conditions are required in order to make the plans of TVP even remotely coherent:

  1. They must find a cardinal unit of value which can be measured and used for calculations
  2. Society must learn to prefer what is now called poverty
  3. Individual preferences and external conditions must remain fixed in perpetuity
  4. A large portion of society must be liquidated in a non coercive way
  5. The fixed structure of production that they plan to create must be indestructible/self-replenishable (it cannot depreciate).

In short, TVP is the opposite of economics and libertarianism.

[1] They don’t explicitly define what is warranted/legitimate production, but they do say, quite frequently in fact, that “most of the goods produced are wasteful.”

[2] The fact that I demand high speed internet, for example, somehow proves that I’ve been brainwashed by the “materialistic capitalist system.”

[3] This argument is closely related to Marx’s notion of the “capitalist superstructure.” The evil culprit, according to Marx, was the material forces of production and the relations of production which define each age. TVP, on the other hand, has not explicitly identified the main antagonist. It remains a mystery (some of them refer to the Illuminati, aliens, and Jewish bankers).

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3

Excellent summation Esuric. Thank you.

4

I never kinda fully understood that scence in Dr.Strangelove. Can someone explain it to me?

5

Esuric, this seems more like a critique of the overpopulation and finite-earther movements than of the venus project. Although the zeitgeist movement isn’t really uniform and some might blend in notions from those other movements, I think this is somewhat misrepresenting their position. The zeitgeisters don’t appear to be primitivists like the mainstream environmental movement. I don’t think their point is that we should prefer conditions of material deprivation. They seem fine with consuming all the food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc. that we need. I think what they are saying is that we shouldn’t chase consumption for the sake of consumption. That people buy stuff just because they need the rush of buying more stuff. And that it would be healthier to restrict ourself to what we really need. Then they go on to say that if we were reasonable in our buying decisions there would be a limited number of products and therefore they could calculate all economic activity without private ownership or money. And then they could use the superior efficiency of scientific planning - pause for laughter - to create super-abundance of those products.

6

They’re all getting hopped up in their fantasies how they can better control society. You see Dr Strangelove continuingly struggling with putting his arm up and giving the Nazi salute (Sieg Heil). This means they get off on giant power and wielding it, and for him this is totally reminiscent from when he was working under Hitler. So at the end he is so worked up and doped up chemically (the mind releasing them), that he doesn’t feel the pain in his legs and stands up and is under the illusion that he can walk. He shouts “Mein fuhrer, I can walk”; so he is now actually calling the American president his fuhrer. Then immediately after that we see all the bombs going off and the world dies. So what actually kills people and the world is power, and then people who usurped it to have it go completely to their heads and come up with insane ideas (generally revolving around imagined threats).

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Individual’s buy stuff because it makes them happy, which is precisely what wealth is (happiness). The assertion that people “buy too much” is entirely arbitrary and meaningless to most individuals. Asking individuals to restrict their consumption is asking them to accept a condition of relative material deprivation (by definition).

Again, this is known as poverty. The human body doesn’t need much to survive. Most people, around the world, consume only what is needed for survival.

Yes civilization would be replaced by small and dispersed agricultural communities (subsistence farmers). The argument I’m trying to make is that the pictures of giant floating cities on their websites doesn’t change the fact they are nothing but primitivists (whether they know this or not). This is why they continuously stress the need for some monumental “social paradigm shift,” which would eliminate our “excessive, wasteful, and materialistic culture.”

8

Wait so if you live a simple life without numerous “stuff”, that makes you a primitivst? Their whole concept of utopia begins with the idea that all the necessities will be super-abundant, it doesn’t say anything about not building high-tech societies. You could have a high-tech society and the people in it don’t have to slaver over the new sports car or the new iPad or anything of that sort. I’m inclined to believe that is more what they’re getting at when they talk about materialism. They say it with the idea in mind that advertisers socially manufacture desires in people who otherwise wouldn’t want the products.

9

Yes this is exactly what they mean. They criticize wealth and praise poverty, and they get to decide which desires are “legitimate” and which are not. Societies which produce more than the bare essentials are considered relatively prosperous/wealthy, while those that can only produce the bare essentials, required to sustain life, are considered poor, or “underdeveloped” by today’s standards. Those at TVP criticize the U.S. because it has already successfully satiated basic needs (food, water clothing), and now produces what care called luxury goods. In other words, America and the western pseudo-capitalistic world is evil because it is relatively wealthy (relative to non market economies).

There are many areas around the world where you can live the “simple life” right now. Your basic needs will be taken care of, but, of course, you wont have access to electricity, the internet, automobiles, air conditioners, etc. Most people find this problematic, which is why the natives in these areas migrate (or wish to migrate) to the western world, and why many westerners have no desire to live there. Now if TVP and TZM says that they will produce more than the bare essentials, then I could just easily as claim that they are “materialistic” and that they are promoting a “wasteful” and “excessive” culture. Let’s ignore the fact that they can’t explain how production and economic activity will be coordinated in a system without private property and the price mechanism.

And that’s precisely the point. Such value judgments are entirely arbitrary and subjective. Why is the demand for organic milk more legitimate than the demand for, say, an air conditioner, or a plasma screen TV? Why is the middle class man, who dreams of one day owning a Mustang, more noble than the upper middle class entrepreneur who one day dreams of owning a Ferrari? Who gets to decide what is and what is not legitimate in a free society? You?

This is obviously absurd. The demand for goods and services predates the introduction of advertising and marketing (I directly respond to this point in my OP). I mean, do you really believe that the demand for nice cars or O-Toro tuna would collapse if we banned all forms of marketing and advertising? If it does, it will only be because individual’s are unaware that such products exist. Why is it desirable to limit or ban consumer information?

Again, rather than producing and satisfying subjective desires, which is what the economy attempts to do, those at TVP and TZM merely claim that people shouldn’t desire them at all. This is how they plan to eliminate scarcity, namely by convincing people to accept a condition of relative material deprivation. It’s that simple.

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I’m mainly in agreement with you, but the sense I’m getting at is that they aren’t against technology per se. Obviously you’re right when they say they want to condition people out of desiring “superfluous” things. But their definition of superfluous only takes into account something in relation to a product such as food. They think if we directed resources (i.e., centrally plan) things in a certain manner that food will no longer be a problem for the world’s population and then we can move beyond that into sustainable resources and easily-available and robot-manufactured () technology that is “useful.”

Obviously there are so many holes in the Venus Project system that you covered and I agree with just about everything you said. I was only pointing out that I don’t think they explicity promote primitivsm in the sense that electricity or technology would be abolished or that they say it is not useful at-large. That could be a result of their program perhaps, but I’m not sure that’s what they have in mind. After all, while it’s probably just sophistry and propaganda, when Fresco puts those 3D images of a future society to wow credulous people I think they are sincere in saying that there is an “efficient” way to allocate technology to meet the needs of humans.

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And of course, what makes ‘capitalistic advertising’ wrong and akin to brainwashing, whereas advertising a primitive lifestyle is right and merely stating the truth? If people’s desires are so easily twisted, how do we know it is bad to twist their desires toward a more materialistic lifestyle but good to twist them toward a less materialistic lifestyle? It is all simply my say-so versus your say-so.

I also love when people say humanity once lived “in balance with nature.” Balance there means “nature” kills man with disease, disasters and want of food and water day after day, with man lucky to live long enough to bear a few offspring that don’t die from the ravages of “nature.” In contrast, today, man can live a long, healthy life while demanding less and less from nature, as we see wealthy nations give back more land to natural development. It seems to me like we’re on a much more level playing field today, and in better “balance” with “nature.”

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There are many socialists who have never come to grips in any way with the problems of economics, and who have made no attempt at all to form for themselves any clear conception of the conditions which determine the character of human society. There are others, who have probed deeply into the economic history of the past and present, and striven, on this basis, to construct a theory of economics of the “bourgeois” society. They have criticized freely enough the economic structure of “free” society, but have consistently neglected to apply to the economics of the disputed socialist state the same caustic acumen, which they have revealed elsewhere, not always with success. Economics, as such, figures all too sparsely in the glamorous pictures painted by the Utopians. They invariably explain how, in the cloud-cuckoo lands of their fancy, roast pigeons will in some way fly into the mouths of the comrades, but they omit to show how this miracle is to take place. Where they do in fact commence to be more explicit in the domain of economics, they soon find themselves at a loss–one remembers, for instance, Proudhon’s fantastic dreams of an “exchange bank”–so that it is not difficult to point out their logical fallacies. When Marxism solemnly forbids its adherents to concern themselves with economic problems beyond the expropriation of the expropriators, it adopts no new principle, since the Utopians throughout their descriptions have also neglected all economic considerations, and concentrated attention solely upon painting lurid pictures of existing conditions and glowing pictures of that golden age which is the natural consequence of the New Dispensation.

-Mises

http://mises.org/econcalc/intro.asp