>I see Hayek and Mises as saying that markets provide information to agents
>and that to whatever degree the current economic system is efficient in its
>distribution of resources, it is because of the efficacity of the price
>system as an informational system.
Yes, but they don't use "efficient" in the neoclassical sense. Thet jsut mean nonwasteful.
Saying that there is no other _possible_
>system that can provide such information and provide adequate incentives
>to
>produce efficiency at least equal to that under currently existing
>capitalism is a much taller order, and I don't see that they've
>accomplished
>it.
They don't argue that. They argue against one alternative, central planning, and contend that its instritutional structure fails to give people theincentives do to gather and compute accurate, honest, necessary information about needs, resources, and alterantives.
To make that argument is far more difficult. It is, in effect, trying
>to prove a negative.
>
>I can well imagine Hayek (were he not so dead and were he somewhat less
>dogmatic in his anti-socialism) arguing that C&C's model is a market model,
>since prices are not fixed and consumers must choose how to dispose of
>limited spending power. I doubt he'd much like Parecon at all.
No, it's the perfect example of his target; from his pov, there is no real
difference between it and central planning. Actually, from his pov it is
probably worse, since it floods the system with information and generates
vast transactions cost. Having planners simply pick targets and adjust is
probably more efficient (in the nontechical sense they mean).
>
>_You_ don't seem to think that the existing institutional framework, with
>currently existing distribution of ownership and decision making powers is
>the most efficient one possible (or am I misreading you?)
I certainly do not. See my recent post to Charles on market socialism.
Is it such a leap
>to conceive of an alternative system which equals the incentive and
>informational properties of a market?
Apparentlt. No one has done it.
That seems to be the major thrust of
>C&C and Parecon. Or, is a market defined as _any_ institutional mechanism
>in which information is limited and distributed and incentives provided in
>such a way that adequate economic efficiency follows?
No.
In that case,
>non-market socialism is impossible by definition.
>
> >
. The functions markets fill can
>not simply be ignored. I was under the impression that virtually everyone
>thought so.
Maybe, but hard line planners, and I count A&H in this lot, think you can do it without markets--prices, profits, bankruptcy. I don't.
>
> >
>I am not defending Soviet
>planning, no matter how non-central it was. I just don't see that it was
>the strawman Hayek and Mises attacked.
Theyw ere economists. They used idealizations. In the real world, every actual planned economy has suffered from excatly the problems that H&M located, generally so badly that they had to make vast concessions to markets. This suggests that H&M were not attacking a strawman, but had identified important real dynamics in the system.
>
> >
>I have not read Albert and Hahnel as closely as Cockshott and Cottrell.
>(Frankly, I find C&C much more interesting. Albert and Hahnel's version of
>paradise reminds me too much my parents' church. At least with C&C I can
>always blow my wad on gambling and hookers if I want to.)
I made that objection to them.
However, I do
>recall Albert and Hahnel's specific denial their plan involves the kind of
>hopeless information gathering task that Hayek decried.
So they _say_. As for C&C, I haven't read _them_ that closely, after I ascertained from their book that they thought the problem Hayek and Mises had identified was just a lack of computing capacity. That TOTALLY misses the point.
>
If someone tells me that markets
>insure that no one need ever plan future production and that if you leave
>things alone they just work out fine, I'll assume they're registered
>Republicans.
But IO don't say any such thing.
>
>But in between, there is a large area where it is possible to admit that
>markets serve a necessary function, but where it is also possible to think
>some other institution might serve this function as well or better.
OK, but the imstitution has to be described in credible detail, so that it can be shwon towork at least ina model. This has not been done.
That is
>an issue that only time can resolve
Well, yes, but time needs our help.We have to do thea nalyses, put forward alternatives.
jks
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