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?
You need a nap robbo
You win the Ockham Award.
Again, like Picard said, “I think we can all exercise some self-control”. Meaning, sorry, no authority, no one to hold your hand. Common, do you need your mum to call you up and tell you when to go to bed? No, you’re an adult, you can take that responsibility yourself. That is what I mean with a maturing of our culture - that we must learn to act like adults and take responsibility. You don’t eat a pound of fudge just before dinner without anyone telling you because you know it’s not good for you, just like you don’t steal from the honesty bar even when no one is looking because you consider it petty and wrong. In the same way, you don’t decide you want 15 cars and a golden yacth in a anarcho-communist society.
I enjoyed reading your post, maybe 'cause I’m a bit buzzed too… in a way I hope this discussion dissolves into a drunken Picard vs. Kirk nerd-off 
Regarding the point you make, it does not apply in an anarchist society. See me previous post about the rejection of Cartesian rationalism (and with it, central planning). This is exactly why, because there can never be an optimal solution. You always make some sacrifice.
The whole point of anarchism can be said to be that “decisions ought to be made by those affected by them”. That is the answer to “And who is to say what the right thing to produce is?”
What you eat, what music player you listen to, etc, should be decided by you and you alone. Communal decisions, like “do we build a sports stadium or a hospital”, things that effect an entire community, should be decided by everyone in that community.
Same goes for investments of resources into research and new inventions. Maybe we wouldn’t have iPods, maybe we would. The point is that the decision to research a better music player would not be made by a corporation because they see a window for profit - it would be made by the people affected by that decision. So maybe you’d have a situation where you can’t fit every song ever made into one mp3 player, but you’d have better medicine.
An anarcho-communist society would in essence be a “polis” as described by Aristotle (though he did not acknowledge the need for freedom, bear in mind!). The “best good”, a bundle of all possible goods relevant to human happiness subject to human needs, as we understand them through science (psychology, neurology, anthropology, sociology, etc…) and philosophy; containing the fulfilment for all physical, mental, moral, personal, spiritual, etc. desires.
There is room for individuals to choose differently; this reasoning fully supports pluralism, as it is perfectly possible to have different life plans, ways of life and cultures, that arrive at different bundles of goods, which are still coherent, admissible and admirable.
The price mechanism guides us - to more profit. That is the only thing it can do, the only information it carries. The price mechanism cannot help us make environmentally or ethically sound decisions, unless there are monetary consequences. As Mises himself admits:
“If… we are considering whether a hydraulic power-works would be profitable we cannot include in the computation the damage which will be done to the beauty of the waterfalls unless the fall in values due to fall in tourist traffic is taken into account.”
That is why you wind up with a world with wanton ecological destruction; “If we know precisely how much we have to pay for beauty, health, honour, pride, and the like, nothing need hinder us from giving them due consideration." (Mises) Things only matter if they have a price tag. It may “pain” some “sensitive people” but hey, "it is in the nature of things.”
Furthermore, only the subjective opinions of those with purchasing power matter to the entrepreneur. This is why you wind up with a world with a kick-ass entertainment device like the Wii, and millions of people starving. Those people have no money, so their desire for food is nothing compared to my desire to play virtual bowling.
Robbo,
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 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.”
Do I have it right?
Sigh. No, you havent got it right and if you are determined to engage in silly caricaturisation you never will get it right. If you want to just piss around and play one upmanship with words thats fine by me. Ive got better things to do with my time. If you want to engage in serious exchange of ideas on the other hand then start behaving like you meant it. Ive tried to the best of my ability in the paper to talk the reader through the actual process by which the rational allocation of resources could be effected. I suggest you read it again if you seriously want the answers to the questions you have so obviously disingenuously raised.
What’s an internet debate without someone poking their head in and making fun out of someone else without contributing anything, and interrupting the discussion in the process?
Ah, internet forums! Never change!
No “stealing”. I’d be taking what I need, right?
Have you tried it? It’s a lot of fun. I may still decide. Would I have a chance to go before the Proper Behavior Board and present my case?
Apfelstrudel, I am not sure quoting Picard is a good idea, he was a captain of a ship run along military lines, him having ultimate authority on all matters.
I think it’s quite humorous that the communists constantly add additional requirements that must be met before we reach the Garden of Eden. Marx starts off by saying that communism is the inevitable event of human history. Then Lenin rejects that notion by saying that society needs a group of trained revolutionaries to throw off the yoke of capitalism. And now, apparently, a vague psychological transformation must happen in society where we have to suppress our natural urge to improve our lot in life before communism can be established. Just an observation.
Anyways. What if I want fifteen cars and a golden yacht? Are you going to stop me from doing so?
This is just hand-waving SmilingDave’s argument. Calculation applies in an anarchist society. Opportunity cost, too, applies in an anarchist society. All the philosophizing in the world won’t overcome the fact that it is impossible to gague scarcity and consumer demand without prices, or that it is incredibly inefficient and a waste of resources to use steel to make an iPod as opposed to a factory. This would be an unrealizable outcome in a capitalist society, as the price of steel would be so high that it would be eviscerate any profit made from producing the iPod. This is the situation that faced the Soviet Union, where people were starving to death because resources were being spent on capital accumulation as opposed to satisfying immediate consumer demands such as, say, eating and having clothes. Again, in a capitalist society the high demand for food would push up its price and make it more profitable to produce. This, in turn, would enable to producers of food to bid away resources from areas of production where their output is less highly-demanded.
Capitalism produces the goods and services that are demanded by consumers. Whether this is “right” is opinion.
You contradicted yourself in those two sentences. First, you say that individuals should be able to choose the goods and services that they desire. Good, I doubt you’ll find anyone here who disagrees with you on that. But then you go on to say that an abstract entity called “the community” should decide what to produce when this producton effects “the community”. As every unit of output involves some opportunity cost in the form of lost resources to society as a whole, then literally every decision on what to make will have to be decided by popular vote. To produce the songs I listen to land, labor, and capital are all spent. The same goes for any consumption good or production good.
Reduction ab absurdum, if I decide that I want toast for breakfast a communal vote will be necessary to decide if the lost resources of a slice of bread, butter, the dulling of my butter knife, etc, is too detrimental to the community as a whole.
I won’t repeat what I and others have said on this thread about the rationing function of prices. I highly suggest you read through all the posts again pertaining to it, as you seem to fail to understand where exactly profit comes from and what even determines prices to begin with.
I will add, however, that mass production is for the masses. The reason capitalism does not produce goods and services just for the elite is because there is a much wider profit margin if they target society as a whole.
Apfel,
There is deep stuff hidden in here. Let us put aside the slur that all rich people have gotten that way by theft and extortion. I see no evidence for it. Now Marx claimed it must be the case, because that’s where profits come from, exploitation of the workers. But he has been debunked, I hope we can agree.
So that if a person has money, there is a reason for it. He has been given that money voluntarily by someone. Why? Because he has satisfied that person’s need or want. Robbo wants an Ipod. Smith gives him one. Out of gratitude, and not to feel like an exploiter of Smith’s hard work, [which Marx would excoriate], he gives Smith money in return. That’s what the free market is about. That’s how people get rich. More on this later.
Just winging it as the occasion arises might be a good idea, and even praiseworthy as thinking outside of the box. I do not know. Mises argued that it is like rolling ten thousand dice and hoping they all come up ace. In other words, it’s like Kirk using non rational thinking on that planet. What good does that do him? He still has no clue which way to turn.
Under capitalism [and without govt meddling, which we both hate], communal decisions ARE decided by the comunnity. Some entrepeneur sniffs around to see if people [= the comunnity] want a sports stadium badly enough to pay for it. If he thinks they do, he builds one, and charges admission to get in. If he sees he will make more money building a hospital, meaning people want the hospital with more intensity, so badly they will pay more for it, he will build that.
Now we come to the a very basic and important thing. You wrote: “…the decision to research a better music player would not be made by a corporation because they see a window for profit - it would be made by the people affected by that decision.”
A “corporation seeing a window for profit” and “people affected by it making the decision” are two ways of saying the exact same thing. How does a corporation make profits? By selling something. That’s the only way. And you can only sell something if people buy it. And people will only buy it if they want it. So “a corporation making a profit” means “giving people what they want”. If there is no profit to be made, it means people don’t want it.
People who scorn capitalism talk about the greed of the capitalist. But they forget that he has only one way to feed his greed: by making other people happy, the more the better [for him!]. So happy they will actually pay him for what he gives.
Paradoxically, a person who brags that he is not greedy is at the same time saying he is going to make no effort to help people. [Unless he works totally for free the same amount of time as a worker, which is rare indeed and an unreliable way to support a country. How long is he going to have food?]
I’m glad to see you quoted Mises in Socialism. What do you think of the book?
At any rate, what Mises meant was, even though we cannot put a price on beauty, we can put a put a price on how much you will have to pay to keep it. In other words, someone can buy out the power plant and keep the place beautiful. If many people want it, they can all chip in and buy it, and pay the higher price for electricity.
The difference is the exact difference that we see between communist China and current day China, or East Germany and West Germany, or North and South Korea. In the poor starving countries, there is a govt that stops people from free market operations. In the rich countries, there is a free market. And there is a logical reason for a free market leading to wealth. Robbo claims Marx said the same thing [and he knows more about Marx than I], that capitalism leads to incredible productivity. Do you know of a counterexample?
Esuric
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.
Marx’s theory entirely ignores relative disproportionalities; it is a theory of overproduction
Well thats a bit rich! You say I havent shown any familiarity with Marx 's actual economic framework and confidently assert that Marx.s theory entirely ignores relative disproportionalities. “it is theory of overproduction”. Well, blow me over! Who would have thought of that.? Marxian crisis theory is a theory of overproduction. Wow. How profound!
Why is that I get the distinct impression that you scrambled this hasty assessment of marxian economics from quick read of some third rate free market hack laying into Marx and marxism. We all know the type. Empty barrels that make the most noise
Actually if you consult your well thumbed copy of Capital vol 2 (hint - Im being ironic here) go to chapters 20 and 21 where Marx presents a simplified model of the economy consisting of DEPT I, producing means of production or “capital goods”, and DEPT II, producing means of consumption, or “consumer goods”. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that for accumulation to proceed on a steady basis there would have to be balanced growth between these two departments, disproportiuonate growth would cause a rupture in the process of capital accumulation leading to overproduction in one department that would rebound against the other - and hence a crisis. Overproduction is certainly involved in the theory of Marxian crisis but the questiuon is how does it come about. That is where the disproportionality argument comes on
So Mr Clever Clogs who allegedly knows his Marx inside out, after you have carefully wiped all the egg from your face perhaps you go on to enlighten us all as to where “Marx’s theory of accumulation predicts a slow and gradual decline towards the complete and systemic destruction of capitalism”. Oh and while you’re at it please explain you sentence immediately following that viz. “In other words, his framework cannot explain the cyclical fluctuations that we perceive”. If Marx argued that the trade cycle is built into capitalism how can this be squared with your claim that he predicted a “slow and gradual decline towards the complete and systemic destruction of capitalism”?
A thing regarding the two communists, they both argue that wanting bling and yachts is a childish thing and that in their society all these things must be shared like adults would, or would magically disappear as human nature has transformed itself into only being poetry readers.
A childish thing to think is: “not fair, why should they have it”, a mature mind will say: “well good for him”, they will probably want to turn this into a personal attack and therefore invalidate as worthy to their high brow thinking, but honestly, until the day they can accept and tolerate the fact that some dumb football star will be wealthier and have a better life than they will ever have, despite all their superior dialectice, they are nothing but immature little children.
z1235,
I am calling you out.
I said very clearly: “no authority, no one to hold your hand” and “No force, no coercion”
Now you mention a “Proper Behavior Board”. It is very clear from what I wrote, and my allegiance to anarchism that I would oppose such an institution. Your post is therefore nothing but an attempt to ridicule me, and what’s worse, do so without any basis.
And yes, I bet having 15 cars is great fun in a society where it is a sign of great wealth, and great wealth gives you respect, women and power. Having them makes you special, one of the few who can have it. It means you must be a movie- or rock star, or something.
The reason no one would think it’s “fun” in a anarcho-communist society is that such an association would not exist. If potentially anyone could have 15 cars, then it doesn’t say anything about you or make you special. The incentive to possess them disappears. A guy with 15 cars would be considered as weird as someone who fills giant containers with sand and keeps them in his apartment, and maybe a bit of a dick since he clearly took more than he needed.
ulrichPf,
Do not speak ill of Picard
I was not serious with that quote, off course. But it’s from an episode where they find a group of people from our time frozen in space, who then are shocked to see a society without money. One of them uses the officer’s channel of ship’s intercom, whereupon Picard scolds him, for it is for important messages only. The guy then asks Picard why the channel isn’t coded to prevent unauthorised access, whereupon Picard tells him “I believe we can all exercise some self-restraint.”
The point being (Roddenberry was a Marxist BTW) that you do not need punishment or coercion; people can just take personal responsibility.
Sorry Apfelstrudel, until humans evolve into different beings, the guy who has 15 cars will not be the one seen as weird, it will always be the guys that think that all humans will somehow not want these things that will always be seen as weird.
Please be gentler with those piercing repartes next time.
What about gravity? Or women with hairy legs? Would there be any of those?
There’s plenty of basis, believe me.
I agree that sheep do not need capitalism, money, or markets. Your whole premise does seem to be the one I suggested in my Two-step ECP debunk: Nirvana ensues when humanity is magically transformed into a predictable, malleable, and homogenous blob (or a herd of sheep). Ask sheep if they felt coerced or forced and let me know their answer. This is how you guarantee the non-existence of violence and coercion in your grotesque construct.
Robbo, mind your manners.
Rcder,
Yeah, different takes on a theory. Whoda thunk it? It’s almost like there’s several theories of capitalism, and several intepretations of those.
We’re also not discussing orthodox Marxism, but anarcho-communism, a different system. This has been pointed out.
“Are you going to stop me from doing so?”
No, just like no one stops you from going down to the beach and a ton of sand, or picking up a billion pinecones in the forrest. There’s just no real reason for you to do so, no incentive. This has also been explained; anarcho-communism is big on freedom. “Getting rid” of something for us means overcoming the need for it.
“Calculation applies in an anarchist society.”
Yes, but not the objection to central authority.
“it is impossible to gague scarcity and consumer demand without prices”
Scarcity can be gauged by measuring or estimating the avaliability of a resource. Same with demand; besides, consumers participate in decisions.
von Mises himself admitted this would be possible, and that socialist calculation for consumer goods was possible. His beef was with production.
“Capitalism produces the goods and services that are demanded by consumers.”
Exactly. Anarchism produces the goods and services that are demanded by the people. Not just those who have money. And every voice is equal; no one person gets a billion “votes” while billions have no say,
Whether this is “right” is opinion.
Yes, it is mainly an ethical concern. A person who is OK with exploitation would for instance have no trouble accepting the Labour Theory of Value and keep being a capitalist.
By community I mean any group of people collectivley affected by a decision.
Reduction ab absurdum, if I decide that I want toast for breakfast a communal vote will be necessary to decide if the lost resources of a slice of bread, butter, the dulling of my butter knife, etc, is too detrimental to the community as a whole.
This is nonsense and in no way, shape or form follows from what I wrote. I suggest reading up a bit on anarchist theory; I fear I can’t correct this statement in a paragraph or two.
…you seem to fail to understand where exactly profit comes from and what even determines prices to begin with.
I understand, it comes from anticipating (guessing) desires of consumers, and providing them with what they demand.
However, this means that investing resources in iPods when people are starving is perfectly rational, since the people who have money want iPods and those who starve do not.
If the goal is profit, you’ll wind up with profit. There’s no magical way by which a system based on self-interest and greed, with profit as the only goal, will still lead to prosperity for all.
The reason capitalism does not produce goods and services just for the elite is because there is a much wider profit margin if they target society as a whole.
You mean the portion of society that has purchasing power.
ulkrichPf
A thing regarding the two communists, they both argue that wanting bling and yachts is a childish thing and that in their society all these things must be shared like adults would, or would magically disappear as human nature has transformed itself into only being poetry readers.
A childish thing to think is: “not fair, why should they have it”, a mature mind will say: “well good for him”, they will probably want to turn this into a personal attack and therefore invalidate as worthy to their high brow thinking, but honestly, until the day they can accept and tolerate the fact that some dumb football star will be wealthier and have a better life than they will ever have, despite all their superior dialectice, they are nothing but immature little children.
Oh for heavens sake, come off your high horse. No body is saying wanting to sail around in yacht is a bad thing. I’m not particularly fussed myself but i dont decry against those who wish to engage in the hobby. The example of the yacht came up initially in the context of the discussion about the priorities of production in a communist society. Its not that a communist society wont produce yachts; the point is rather that the production of yachts will - quite rightly and sensibly - most likely take second place to higher priority end uses in the allocation of resources or, at any rate, may have to turn to technological substitution as an alternative. We have no way of knowing in advance whether this might mean more or less or the same number of yachts being produced as today but whatever the case yachts will probably as I say be quite low down on the list of priorities. Anyone who thinks a yacht is more important than ensuring adequate housing or medical cover or a decent diet is an insensitive buffoon.
The other point about yachts is that you dont have to own a yacht in order to use it. I think thats pretty self evident and uncontroversial. The idiotic argument you come up with - that its “childish” to say "not fair why should they have it “and mature to say “good for him” really amounts to saying in other words that its perfectly acceptable , for example, that well over a billion people languish in absolute material poverty while a handful of billionaires own a huge chunk of the worlds assets. At least have the intellectual honesty to admit this. To be quite blunt , arguing then that anyone who feels uncomfortable with this state of affairs is somehow being “childish” is nothing short of disgusting in my view. But at least we know which side of the class war you are on, matey. Presumably you will defend to the death the right of billionaires to their absolute privilege while caring not a toss that others die becuase they own nothing . To care is after all according to the logic of you argument to be” childish " and “immature”. Such is the gormless and deceitful logic by which a parasitic society seeks to justify its own naked class interests
I’m not making this into a discussion on the LTV, but if you truly believe that every rich person deserves their wealth you are living in a fantasy land. Hell yes most of it is ill-gotten gains. Who does the country (I assume you’re American) you live in actually belong to?
Never said anything about “winging” it, just acknowledging the limits of practical rationality.
The anarchist position of epistemology and rationality is actually similar to that of Hayek.
Too bad a lot of people have no money, and a few have lots. A system where a person has a billion votes, and billions have none, is not a democratic or just system. Above all, what is produced in a society with a system like that is not the wish of the “community”, but of those with the most money.
“If there is no profit to be made, it means people don’t want it.”
Or that they can’t afford it. You seem to take it as given that everyone has money. You do realise there’s a shitload of poor people in the world, right?
And this is not even getting into how the aggregated subjective individual wants of people will not bearing about the same result as a collective democratic decision.
“But they forget that he has only one way to feed his greed: by making other people happy”
Are you high? How much denial of reality are you capable of? Sure, making people happy is one way. Stealing from them is another. Or did Imperalism not happen? Or maybe it just doesn’t have far-reaching effects even today, that make it possible to exploit people in the third world, by for instance employing them in sweat-shops? Or is this not something that concerns you, because it is somehow wholly the governments fault, and in a free market system there would be no unequal power relations?
And some things can never be, because there is no profit in owning them.
Besides, the only incentive to protect something is still profit. If I make more money by dumping waste on a piece of my own property (or letting someone else do it for pay - consider how nuclear waste is sold to poor countries) I have no reason not to do it.
“What do you think of the book?”
He raised very important questions, his critique of the USSR is admirable, but he makes several baseless assumptions and fails to properly defend some positions (like the “it’s in the nature of things” statement).
What I said was that in our current system, investing resources in the construction of a Wii while human beings are dying, human beings that those resources could potentially save, is still a perfectly valid and rational decision. The price mechanism cannot take ethical questions into account, such information is not carried. All the entrepreneur sees is that there is a demand for Wiis, and responds.
Apfel,
So it has come down to, "Yes, capitalism provides the needs of those with purchasing power very effectively. And socialism, by trying to please everyone, can please no one but those who enjoy mass starvation and eternal poverty [=calculation problem]
“But what about those without purchasing power? Is it just or kind to ignore them as if they don’t exist? Come to think of it, is it just that some people have more purchasing power than others?”
Deep question, that deserves deep answers.
In theory and in practice, it has been shown [and admitted by Marx, says Robbo], that capitalism improves the lot of the rich and the poor. The poor more than the rich. Because when you increase productivity, you lower prices, by the law of supply and demand. Meaning you give everyone more purchasing power.
Where does purchasing power come from in the first place? By working. Yes, rich people have to work too, to increase their purchasing power. Nothing comes for free [absent govt meddling]. By work, I mean giving other people what they want. So the question arises, why do some people have more purchasing power than others? Because they have more talent and work harder. In other words, becuse they are better at giving people what they want.
Is it unfair that some people are better at giving people what they want than others? I don’t know. Send all complaints to the Good Lord, or to Nature, or to Blind Chance. But that’s the way it is.
Should we try to change the balance of things, giving equal purchasing power to all? This would mean having someone work and then taking away by force the fruits of his labor. It’s called slavery. Even Marx hated it. It seems to me that the ethical and moral justification for this scheme is not obvious in the least. In addition, it will reduce drastically incentives to work. it has been showm time and again that slave labor is never productive, and causes losses, not profits, for the slave owners.
Now Robbo’s scheme of all work being voluntary is cool, with a minor emendation. One would have the choice of working for oneself or working for others, or both. This has been the way of the world for a long time. It’s called charity. And I see no reason for Robbo to oppose it. If I can loll around all day and not work at all and Robbo thinks it’s fine, why should he object to using my time usefully and working for myself? Why is this such a great sin?
Roddenberry was a Marxist BTW
This is not true