It is not my version, the lack of money (or rather, the lack of any need for money) is a basic anarcho-communist tenet, and an important point that separates anarcho-communism from other forms of anarchism.
As Rob already explained, "Calculation in kind is only one feature of interlocking system of coordinated features each serving a different function."You can’t take the problem out of context. Yes, in natura calculation is a part of it; but so is for example deliberation.
Rob, check your PM for more info on the Zeitgeist connection if you haven’t already.
Dave,
I never said you didn’t decide for yourself. In fact I thought I made it pretty clear that you did, only excersising self-control and refraining from being greedy and ruining it for everyone else. No force, no coercion. Just responsibility, maturity, adulthood. We all learn at some point taking all the toys is not OK, other kids want to play to - the same kind of realisation must occur on a global level before a anarcho-communist society can exist.
I never said Marx messed up. I don’t agree with him 100%, but those where different times. His theory needs to be updated sometimes.
I agree that psychology is important; even financial analysts recognize this (thus the field of behavioural finance). This is one reason that I first became interested in the works of Jaque Fresco (though I am more doubtful now), since he places such a great importance of behaviour and environment
"As Rob already explained, "Calculation in kind is only one feature of interlocking system of coordinated features each serving a different function.“You can’t take the problem out of context. Yes, in natura calculation is a part of it; but so is for example deliberation.”
I’m still waiting for rob to respond to eliotn’s post concerning the the flaws in his manufacturing example. If he can’t address those flaws then there is no point on me giving him an even more difficult problem.
So Marx never said capitalism would collapse, but Mises said communism [to use Marx’s word] would.
As usual , Smiling Dave, your grasp of the argument is completely inept.
I specifically defined what I meant by “collapse” - capitalism imploding through the agency of some mechanism internal to itself. If you are familiar with the literature (which I doubt) you will be aware that the most commonly identified mechanism to which capitalism’s anticipated collapse is attributed is the falling rate of profit
You quote Marx thus
“The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable”
Yesbut this is NOT A THEORY OF CAPITALIST COLLAPSE . It is a theory about capitalism creating the conditions that will lead to its ABOLITION. I dont subscribe to the inevitablism of Marx’s argument but saying that it is inevitable that capitalism will be abolished - through working class political organisation and action - is NOT the same as saying capitalism will collapse.
Try to be a little more subtle and discerning in your theoretical ruminations in future. You are constantly making blunders of this sort and putting your foot in it…
As far Mises predicting the collapse of Communism he was, as usual, talking tripe. And, incidentally, celebrating the collapse of so called “communism” in the Soviet Union - actually state run capitalism- may be a little premature, its seems , if Ian Bremmer is right and we are set to see a significant resurgence of state capitalism based on the phenomenon of sovereign wealth funds, at the expense of the so called free market. Different from the old fashioned state capitalism of the soviet union in not being particularly ideologically grounded but state capitalism nevertheless
So we entirely agree about the conditions characterizing this period, but it’s not “real communism” because it doesn’t fit your own, personal, and entirely revised definition of communism. Wonderful.
First, Marx’s explanation for the inevitable demise of capitalism revolves around his theory of accumulation, of which his so-called “law of the declining rate of profit” is merely one component (they key factor revolves around the so-called “organic composition of capital”). Marx’s theory of accumulation predicts a slow and gradual decline towards the complete and systemic destruction of capitalism. In other words, his framework cannot explain the cyclical fluctuations that we perceive; it cannot account for the “boom” which always precedes the “bust.”
You haven’t shown any familiarity with Marx’s actual economic framework. I’m convinced, therefore, that a serious and fruitful conversation with you is absolutely impossible. I will respond when/if you make a serious point.
[EDIT]
Please substantiate this claim. Marx’s theory entirely ignores relative disproportionalities; it is a theory of overproduction.
Robbo’s solution of the calc problem has been ripped to shreds earliera few times over by the posters here. He made up his own version of the problem, and evaded the real problem by saying "Who cares? Anything will work. Votes, point systems, common sense, you name it
Yet another example ,Smilling Dave, of your complete inability to grasp what the argument is about. You are confusing so many different things that you are virtually drowning in your own incoherency.
You say my solution to the ca;lculation prtoblem has been ripped to shreds by the posters here. Really? Actually, what Ive noticed increasingly is just how remarkably slapdash such criticism has been and how poor the level of debate has been. What has been completelty ignored is that the solutionput forward consists of several interlocking components. The function of one component is different from another but they are all necessary to the overall functioning of the system itself
What has happened is this. My critics have looked at one particular component and deduced that, becuase it does not perform a particular function, that therefore my solution is invalid. What they fail to see is that that function is actually intended to be perfomed some other component, not the component under discussion. Its the total picture you need to grasp not just one aspect of it. Sadly this is what you and others have conscpicuously failed to do
There are four basic compenents to the model proposed
They are
1) calculation in kind
2) a self regulating system of stock control
3) the law of the minimum
4) a hierarchy of production goals.
Now please try to read the article again - this time carefully - and try to get a grasp of what the functions of these different components are . Also try not to confuse this with the issue of ratioining. The points system you refer to above doesnt actually have anything to do with the argument about economic calculation.
I really dont want to spend my time here constantly having to correct misunderstandings and point out non sequiturs
Oh, so abolition is not the same as collapse. Marx said it would be abolished inevitably, but not that it would collapse.
And “internal” is not the same as “cuts under its own feet” and “producing its own grave diggers”.
And Marx was all about “working class political organization and action”, but at the same time "Accordingly the Manifesto contained little discussion of political organization or revolutionary activity. Instead it presented communism as the direct product of a process of historical change"
And of course we have this gem from Uncle Karl:
The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.
In other words, the forces of capitalism endager its existence. But that is just abolishing it, not collapsing it.
To be fair, you seem to be making the following distinction.
Abolishing means that the proletariat will be so angry at their being screwed over that they will revolt. Whether Marx said or meant that they will do this on their own [powered by the fuel of historical inevitability], or that they will need some prodding [because they don’t know or care about all of civilization collapsing and have to be reminded], is an internal debate amongst the Marxists.
Collapsing means even if everyone is happy and have no reason to complain, because everything is peachy, something will go wrong. Hey, I don’t think that kind of collapse will happen either.
I notice you havent stopped replying to all of the critiques of your article once they left you no room to nit pick.
And did you really go to high school at age 53, as you claimed in an earlier post?
Sorry Esuric, that period, as was everything that happened on the face of this earth so far, even in so called Communist or Socialist or Soviet countries, was Capitalism. State Capitalism, but Capitalism nonetheless. No wonder it all “collapsed” or was “abolished”.
I am guessing that you or, any other anarcho-capitalist worth their salt, would claim that true capitalism has never existed. And if I where to say that >>it’s not “real capitalism” because it doesn’t fit your own, personal, and entirely revised definition of capitalism<< you’d tell me I’m wrong. You’d tell me >>it’s not real capitalism because it doesn’t follow the theories, and actually contradicts them on many points!<<
The exact same thing, in reverse, is true of Communism. And we’re not even discussing orthodox Marxism here, but anarcho-communism, which despite the word “communism” being in there is different. You know, kinda like anarcho-capitalism is not just the capitalism we see around us, but very different. Wow, seems that “anarcho-” changes a lot! A prefix changes the meaning of a word, who’d a thunk it?
Also, would anyone care to comment/correct my definition of the ECP, and perhaps enlighten us to what the real issue is, if we have misunderstood?
Let me make sure I understand you. This is what you think:
None of those four points solves the calculation problem. But the four of them put together will do the job. In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
What you put together in your paper, about do we use 10 of M and 9 of N, or 9 of N and 10 of M, or maybe even 10 and 10, is the calculation problem.
The longish quote from Mises describing the calculation problem is really just a verbose way of describing what you did so well in the paper in a few words. He was also talking about 10 M’s and 9 N’s.
The answer to Mises’ question “How should the director build his house?” is “Go through my 4 point checklist. Calculate in kind, self regulate your stocks, use the law of the minimum, and set up a heirarchy of production goals.”
Anything where people do not get according to their own self determined need is Capitalism. Socialism and Communism have never been tried in practice.
Self determined need excludes childish and selfish desires. Those are bourgeois, and will disappear after the revolution.
I see a relevance, in that it shows he is a liar. unless he really did finish high school at 53. But in that case, as Trump said to Obama, show me the paperwork.
I can ride a bicycle when it is whole and assembled. If I disassemble it, I can’t ride it. Does that mean that" the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"? Not really, maybe in a figurative way… mostly it just means that things tend to need to be whole, and not disassembled, in order to work the way they’re supposed to.
That is an example of a calculation problem, far from the whole thing.
Please do elaborate as to exactly what you consider the ECP to be.
No, but the Ns are a gross simplification that a person not familiar with the problem, that doesn’t understand the direct quote of von Mises, may require.
A “checkpoint” like that is more an example of different things that can be considered. An anarcho-communist approach rejects Cartesian rationalism and the algorithmic conception of practical reason.
Rather, the knowledge that informs decision making is taken to be uncertain, and the rules of rationality rarely determine a single answer given what is known. The answer, furthermore, can differ depending on the situation and context. It is the mark of the pseudorationalist, to paraphrase Neurath, to assume that for a rational choice, we need to find a method that can resolve any conflict. That reason requires not standards, measures or methods plural, but a standard, a measure, a method singular.
Anything that has markets and money is not socalism. If calling it a form of capitalism makes you uncomfortable because you envision capitalism to be something different, let’s call it “statist economy” or “bureaucratic centrally planned market statism”. Whatever, doesn’t matter - it’s neither true socialism nor true capitalism.
No, the “revolution” will not occur until they are gone. But we could call their disappearance a moral or philosophical “revolution” too . But yes, the change in society from being one based on selfishness and greed to one based on egalitarianism and sustainability is paramount to anarcho-communist thought.
But who is to say if I am being greedy etc? Do I decide whether my need is legitimate, or does somebody else? Either way you are in trouble.
The calculation problem is not what Robbo said it was. It is the last thing he addressed, the heirarchy of production.
I’m a bit buzzed now, so I will explain it this way. Imagine that Captain Kirk of Star Trek lands on a strange planet. It is one huge field of tiny little eggs, as far as the eye can see. Wherever he goes, he must step on an egg and kill it. All the eggs look alike. His mission is to collect a certain thousand eggs, or the universe explodes. Sadly, those thousand are indistinguishable from the others. So as he steps forward to collect what might be one of the thousand that save the universe, he is killing many others under his big feet. And those killed ones might be the very eggs he is looking for. Of course, if he does nothing, or just picks the ones closest to him, the odds are the same of the universe exploding. You can see that he has a problem.
Now if, hovering above ground, is an aircraft full of natives telling him “We need the egg at coordinate 57 longitude, 38 latitude, and at 2 longitude, 67 latitude, etc.”, his mission is easy. Sadly, some eggs will be crushed, but the universe will be saved.
Mises was saying that even if we have a heirarchy of production, food first, yachts later, the question remains unanswered, “What kind of food?” An answer such as “use the law of the minimum to decide” is absurd, because we can probably say with certainty that not everyone will like that food. Many would prefer to have tastier stuff than that garbage, even if it means their ipods will contain only 50,000 songs, not 100,000. On the other hand, music buffs would rather have the songs than the higher quality food. Someone will have to suffer, no matter what decision is made.
Of course, it would be nice if you could just take a poll, but the possibilities are so intertwined, and the variations so endless, that the list cannot be made. In fact, there are many unintended consequences as well. The innocent decision to use brick instead of wood to guarentee a solid house, may very well, somewhere down the road nobody even thought of, mean there won’t be enough brick for building a factory that makes things people want. And yet, if we use wood, the houses won’t last as long. Every single decision has to take into consideration every possible effect on everything else.
In other words, at every step of the way, whatever decision is being made about what to produce exactly, it makes untold other options impossible. [This is analogous to Captain Kirk’s problem. Choosing one egg means killing alot of others].
And who is to say what the right thing to produce is, in what quantity, of what materials, using what land and how much and what quality labor, how much time and material to put aside for seeking new stuff? As well as many thousands and thousands of other questions.
As an aside, Robbo’s answer of “Just keep replenishing what you have” is ridiculous. Is the population number to be static? Is it’s composition eternal, with every poll showing us the same amount of men, women, children, as yesterday? If I wanted a certain book today, will I want the same book tomorrow, or a book at all? Will I always want to live in the same place? If Robbo took over the world before Ipods were on the market, we would never have Ipods, because there would be no budget for them in our stock, which we mindlessly [remember, he thinks a computer will be ideal for this work] replenish over and over, allocating it always to the same place for the same thing.
Enter the alien craft, guiding us to the right eggs. this is the price mechanism. Smith. a talented entrepeneur, not a computer, risking his very fortune on every decision [so that he is very likely to be as sure as can be], takes his best guess as to what people will want. He thinks they want Ipods. Ipods with some steel in them [I don’t know if they do or not in reality, but they do in this example] so he goes to the steel mill to buy some.
“Sorry”, he is told. “Jones wants all my steel to build microwaves. None left for you. Unless you pay me more than he does.”
So a bidding war begins between Smith and Jones. Smith has a growing sense of horror, because if he matches Jones’ bid for the steel, he will have to raise the price of the Ipods beyond what he thinks people are willing to pay. He retreats from the field. “I guess I’ll have to make those Ipods out of plastic.”
Jones is perfectly happy, because he thinks people are so desperate for microwaves they will pay the higher price caused by this bidding war for steel.
The Ipod egg has been shattered to save the microwave egg. But the correct decision has been made.
Summing up, the existence of a price for Ipods, for microwaves, and for steel have automatically [assuming Smith and Jones have estimated the people’s desires correctly] gotten people exactly what they want. Cheap plastic Ipods and sturdy steel microwaves.
Of course, it is more complicated than that, because of thousands of products need steel. All are bidding for it. And for every other factor of production under the sun. But they are all taken care of by the same principle, the price system.
Now Robbo raised a few objections to this.
First, it is all founded on guesswork. Smith and Jones have to guess as to what people want. And if they guess wrong, resources have been wasted. Had he read up on the calculation problem, he would have known that Mises addressed himself to this problem. The posters here also addressed it, calling it the nirvana fallacy. Meaning, true it’s not perfect, but it sure beats Captain Kirk’s situation.
I don’t remember the other objections now. The buzz has taken over.
After all, sheep have no use for money or markets, and yet – through a carefully constructed set of interlocking components (mainly paddocks, doors, and fences) – they still get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Lucky bastards.
Oh, yeah. Now I remember. His other objection was “Why can’t everyone have what they want for free? Why does everything have to be paid for? This is unfair to the poor.”
Damm, but that sounds so foolish reading it. I mean, really.
So we entirely agree about the conditions characterizing this period, but it’s not “real communism” because it doesn’t fit your own, personal, and entirely revised definition of communism. Wonderful
No , “ridiculous”. would be more accurate. If you knew anything about the history of communism you would soon realise that my definition of communism is neither my own personal one. Nor is it an “entirely revised definition of communism” . Actually the opposite is the case - yours is the revisionist definition of “communism”, not mine. Up to the Russian Revolution and indeed beyond, communism was generally understood to be more or less synonymous with "socialism " - a moneyless wageless stateless society in which individuals would give according to their ability and take according to their needs, Even the Bolsheviks, despite the tremendous disservice they did to the communist cause, plainly recognised this. If you dont believe I would be more than happy to supply you with a barrow load of quotes
You know, the more I’m on this site the more I am coming to realise just how woefully ignorant you anarcho caps actually are about the very thing you profess to have competently refuted. Its actually come as quite a shock to me, I guess I expected more from a site that sets out to promote a particular world view through argumentation. Do you guys do any reading, any research, outside of the narrow horizons of such a worldview?
Oh, so abolition is not the same as collapse. Marx said it would be abolished inevitably, but not that it would collapse.
And “internal” is not the same as “cuts under its own feet” and "producing its own grave diggers".
Bingo! Got it in one! Give the boy a lollipop!
Collapsist theories of capitalism generally assume capitalisrm will disappear of its own accord without human intentionality being invoked or involved. In other words that there is some flaw or defect in the very mechanism of capitalist production itself that will cause the system to implode.
