While I have often disagreed sharply with Angela's positions (such as her individualist and moralistic approach to the Yugoslav War), I have never before known her to be utterly irrational, such as appears to be the case in this debate. Certainly to reject the use of (more or less endless) qualifiers in discussing a purely contingent question is irrational. And the question is always contingent. Not is planning possible or impossible, desirable or undesirable, but is *this* plan in reference to *this* purpose under *these* conditions desirable, possible, or necessary. And of course it is easy enough in the abstract to provide a long list of hypothetical conditions and an equally long list of possible and impossible, desirable and undesirable, necessary and unnecessary plans under each set of hypothesized conditions. That would seem truly to be a *merely* academic exercise however.
The phrase "natural needs" does indeed seem sort of pointless. Most of us need water rather frequently, but I don't see what is added to "need for water" by calling it a natural need. In any case the form even so-called "natural needs" take is usually historically and socially determined through various forms of struggle.
I believe it would be impossible to plan in some platonic sense the quantity and variety of foodstuffs moved into New York or Chicago each day. Obviously, however, it is possible to abstract from past/current experience a fairly accurate idea of the number of unloading docks needed for that daily delivery. Waste and shortages would occur under a general plan for food shipments as they occur under present partially planned conditions. How this would affect planning would have to be worked out in a given context -- partly no doubt through political struggle, partly through technical debate and study within a bureaucracy.
Incidentally. With of course endless goofups and errors, war production planning worked pretty well in the U.S. during WW 2. Even rationing worked surprisingly well. And considering the inefficiency of the military mind, the U.S. still arranged for a more or less successful allocation of military units among the various fronts.
Carrol
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Angela:
> >>There is no reason why a reasonably (i.e. humanly) effective planning
> >depends upon "complete knowledge," unless one thinks that the only
> >planning worth doing is an infallible (i.e. impossible) planning. Do
> >you disagree with this? If so, please explain why you think without
> >what you call "complete knowledge," a reasonably (i.e. humanly)
> >effective planning (for the regular satisfaction of most human wants) is
> >impossible.<
> >
> >the problem yoshie is that you fudge where it suits you and see only
> >those bits of your sentence that suit you as well -- ie., endless
> >qualifiers, eg: "reasonably"; "humanly"; "regular"; and, "most".
>
> For the problem is that you think it takes "_complete_ knowledge" for
> planning to be effective, while I don't think it does. "Complete" is an
> important adjective, which you can't defend, hence your non-answer.
>
> >this is why, in each case, you place the qualifications
> >on the side of _planning_, _not_ knowledge.
>
> I take it self-evident that at any given time human knowledge is not
> "complete" in the sense you speak of, whether we are planning or not
> planning
>
> >never once said planning could only be done with complete knowledge. you
> >are too enamoured of the performance of a disagreement. i said a number
> >of times that planning _presumes_ complete knowledge.
>
> I don't think that planning presumes "complete knowledge," nor do many
> other people, for that matter. It is you who thinks planning presumes
> "complete knowledge."
>
> >That is, not shitting, but wiping your bum with toilet paper, and toilet
> >paper is definitely not a natural need
>
> I'm glad to hear you can comfortably dispense with toilet paper and food.
> I suppose you prefer sounding ridiculous than rethinking the nature of
> need, knowledge, and planning. One has no need to use the word "natural"
> to describe the needs that socialism should satisfy.
>
> Yoshie