>far as I can see, Z is saying that Marx was wrong to think of
>communism as a society of abundance where scarcity is overcome (I
>agree); that it canot be transparent (I agree), and that we should
>give up the idea that communism can do better than capitalism in
>terms of material welfare.
I wonder if Zizek has read Hayek (he is an ex-Yugo "dissident" intellectual, so if he had, he might have a more interesting take than run-of-the-mill ex-"dissidents" in the rest of Eastern Europe). James Miller says that Foucault encouraged students to read Hayek in the course of lectures on liberty & "governmentality" (see _The Passion of Michel Foucault_). Other postmodern philosophers (to my knowledge) don't discuss the relation between their philosophical concerns about the "impossibility of transparency" & the "permanence of scarcity" and Hayek's work at all; psychoanalysts might read their silence as repression. For Hayek, reading market prices as signs is the best way to satisfy the "needs of which he does not know" under the conditions that allow for the exercise of individual freedoms:
***** The chief cause of the wealth-creating character of the game [that the market is for Hayek] is that the returns of the efforts of each player act as the signs which enable him to contribute to the satisfaction of needs of which he does not know, and to do so by taking advantage of conditions of which he also learns only indirectly through their being reflected in the prices of the factors of production which they use. It is thus a wealth-producing game because it supplies to each player information which enables him to provide for needs of which he has no direct knowledge and by the use of means of the existence of which without it he would have no cognizance, thus bringing about the satisfaction of a greater range of needs than would otherwise be possible...[For instance] a manufacturer will release resources for additional production by others by substituting, say, aluminium for magnesium in the production of his output, not because he knows of all the changes in demand and supply which on balance have made aluminium less scarce and magnesium more scarce, but because he learns the one simple fact that the price at which aluminium is offered to him has fallen relatively to the price of magnesium. Indeed, probably the most important instance of the price system bringing about the taking into account of conflicts of desires which otherwise would have been overlooked is the accounting of costs -- in the interest of the community at large the most important aspect, i.e. the one most likely to benefit many other persons, and the one at which private enterprise excels but government enterprise notoriously fails. (F.A. Hayek, _Law, Legislation and Liberty_, 1976) *****
In other words, for Hayek, relative prices, because of their differential characters, can take account of conflicts of desires which are eternal features of all ensembles of social relations in which each individual's needs & desires are opaque to himself and of course to others. The market = discourse of conflicts of desires, for Hayek. In Lacanian-Zizekian terms, one might say that relative prices are the Symbolic order (the order of language only through which we can effectively, though indirectly & imperfectly, relate to one another) and that individual needs & desires are the Real which we would always miss should we attempt to take cognizance of them directly through conscious & collective planning. From Hume to Hayek, the "impossiblity of transparency" has been a theme in critiques of communist planning & celebrations of the market.
>I am a boring, flatheaded type of person who finds this sort of chat
>irritating, not because it talks about "Marx's fundamental
>mistake"--he made lots of themm--but because it beats around the
>bush.
Well, Justin, why persist in your "old coot" performance? What if you become what you say you are one of these days! I agree with you, though, that Zizek shouldn't beat around the bush.
In another thread, you wrote:
>That is in part because each unit in the planning system has an incentive to
>lie, to say that it has less resources and capability than it does,a nd that
>it needs more resources and capability than it does. This is in part because
>the planning system rewards unbits for meeting targets, and the best way to
>make sure you meet your target is to say you need more than you in fact do to
>meet a target you say is lower than the one you can in fact meet. So the
>whole system encourges inaccurate information, promoting shortages and
>bottlenecks, which in turn amplies the effect just described. As the
>programmer's say, garbage in, garbage out.
>
>Hayek calls attention to incentives to gather accurate information. It is not
>raw compuing power that concerns hiim. It is incentives to get the costs
>right. Market systems create those incentives because individuals profit by
>accurate information about particular things. Planning systems do
>not--everyone is better off if the information is accurate, but since each
>individual bebefits if it si not, we have a classical n-pesron prisoner's
>dilemma or collective goods problem.
Problems for "Hayekian-socialists":
(1) Even within the market, there exist countless planning systems, micro-planning systems within each planning system, and ad infinitum. Firms are planning systems, and each department within a firm is also a micro-planning system. Further, each firm faces complex systems of taxations, regulations, etc. which are all planning systems. Therefore, on Hayekian terms, one might say that the market, by multiplying planning systems endlessly & anarchically, multiply occasions & incentives to lie and that especially within a mixed economy of the market & government planning (which characterizes modern capitalism) incentives to lie become so many that prices cease to function as signs which allow players to take account of conflicts of desires efficiently.
(2) In a class society, both the working class and the capitalist class have incentives to lie to each other, thus undermining efficiency. The same goes for a market socialism with classes of managers & workers. It is alienation & the lack of democracy, not planning per se, which create incentives to lie.
(3) Prices do not work as signs & incentives if the government does not allow the market to discipline inefficient firms by failures and bankruptcies. As Hayek notes, "The remunerations which the market determine...will produce a viable order only because they often disappoint the expectations they have caused when relevant circumstances have unexpectedly changed. It is one of the chief tasks of competition to show which plans are false" (_Law, Legislation and Liberty_). In other words, the market = discipline through failures & disappointments; no discipline, no "market efficiency."
Yoshie