On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:13:24 -0800 (PST) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> What Hillel didn't seem to realize, and I argued this
> point with him fruitlessly for years, is that his
> point is _exactly_ same point made by Mises and Hayek,
> that roughly attempts at centralized planning of the
> whole economy will fail because of massive information
> distortion and dysfunctionmal motivational incentives.
> M&H conclude that central planning wasn't possible at
> a high level of economic development. Hillel concluded
> that we need some better special kind of real
> democratic planning that would (Hillel never said how)
> overcome the epistemological and motivational problems
> that crippled Soviet planning past the "intensive"
> stage where focus on simply measured quantative plan
> targets (more tons of steel or hectares of wheat) is
> adequate.
BTW since you have alluded to the "socialist calculation" debate, what is your opinion of writers like Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell who argue that a viable form of planned economy is possible? For some examples of their writing see:
Allin F. Cottrell and W. Paul Cockshott, "Information and Economics: A Critique of Hayek." http://www.reality.gn.apc.org/econ/hayek.htm _________, "Calculation, Complexity and Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Once Again." http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/calculation_debat... f ____________, "Socialist planning after the collapse of the Soviet Union" http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/soviet_planning.pdf _____________, "Information and Economics: A Critique of Hayek," Research in Political Economy, 1997. http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/hayek_critique.pdf ____________, Towards A New Socialism. http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/
>
> --- Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/653/ticktin.htm
> > No more historical abortions
> > Hillel Ticktin highlights the bogus nature of
> > planning in the Soviet
> > Union and locates the central importance of Europe
> > for the transition
> > to socialism
> >
> >
> > It is clear that we are living through a world
> > transitional period,
> > where socialism is wanted. However, just as in the
> > transition from
> > feudalism to capitalism a number of formations came
> > into existence
> > that were neither feudal nor capitalist, so in the
> > current period
> > there have been formations that are neither
> > capitalist nor socialist.
> >
> > Such forms cannot lead anywhere. The Stalinist
> > countries were, in that
> > sense, a historical abortion that had to end, but it
> > is perfectly
> > reasonable to assume that we will see further
> > examples of such
> > distorted forms - although the world is in
> > transition to socialism,
> > socialism is not actually happening yet. There is,
> > nevertheless, a
> > demand from below for change.
> >
> > What began in 1917 as the natural progress of
> > society ended up as an
> > abomination. Trotsky talked about the conflict
> > between the law of
> > value and the law of planning under the new economic
> > policy. But this
> > was brought to an end, in a particular fashion, by
> > Stalin. His
> > concessions to the peasantry meant the destruction
> > of the rouble,
> > after which money no longer existed in the Marxist
> > sense of the word.
> > Goods could no longer be bought without standing in
> > a long queue - the
> > rouble simply was not the universal equivalent. It
> > was impossible to
> > buy the means of production. However, the elite of
> > Soviet society
> > would receive goods either for free or for very few
> > roubles.
> >
> > Enterprises were officially based on profit, but the
> > banks would
> > always supply them with what roubles they needed and
> > in reality profit
> > was not a factor. I make this point because still
> > today there are many
> > who believe that the USSR was in some way
> > capitalist, but this is
> > clearly not the case.
> >
> > A certain social group, however we characterise it,
> > took power
> > secretly against the majority of the population. The
> > only way it could
> > maintain power was through force, through the
> > atomisation and
> > pulverisation of the population. This was done
> > through a particular
> > form of political economy which was neither
> > socialist nor capitalist -
> > there is a huge gap between nationalisation and
> > socialisation, as
> > could be seen in the Soviet Union.
> >
> > The power of the ruling elite was enormous. The
> > secret police in
> > Britain or even in South Africa would never be as
> > extensive and
> > powerful as the NKVD or KGB, precisely because of
> > the nationalisation
> > of the means of production in the USSR. When Marx
> > talked of "barracks
> > socialism" he had no idea of what this would mean in
> > practice, and
> > could never have conceived that nationalised means
> > of production could
> > give the secret police so much power. However many
> > laws Blair
> > continues to pass, giving more and more power to MI5
> > and the secret
> > state, they could not possibly have as much as that
> > enjoyed by the
> > secret police in the USSR. The reason for this is
> > the existence of
> > private property, which cannot be completely
> > overridden under
> > capitalism.
> >
> > That is why the NKVD had far more power than the
> > Gestapo. With total
> > economic power, it is possible to control every
> > aspect of an
> > individual's life. In the case of Nazi Germany
> > people were put into
> > camps, but the average person was not controlled in
> > the way that an
> > individual worker in the Soviet Union was. The Nazis
> > retained private
> > property, whereas this was not the case in the
> > Soviet Union.
> >
> > The individual's place of work, their study
> > programmes, their places
> > of residence, etc were all tightly controlled to a
> > degree that has
> > only existed in the USSR. The ruling group was very
> > weak, existing
> > without the consent of the vast majority of the
> > population and keeping
> > its privileges secret. The only way it could survive
> > was through
> > atomisation.
> >
> > This meant obviously that workers did not control
> > their product. On
> > the other hand, there was no way of directly
> > controlling people's
> > productive output either. In Germany the Nazis
> > actually did try to
> > control people at work at one point. The Gestapo
> > stood behind the
> > workers, jailing those who did not work quickly
> > enough or to a certain
> > standard. Yet this could not be maintained - it
> > meant an effective
> > doubling of the workforce. This absence of control -
> > either by the
> > workers, management or ultimately the bureaucracy -
> > was a feature of
> > all the Stalinist countries. That is what all these
> > states
> > fundamentally had in common. Preobrazhenksy made the
> > point very early
> > on that Soviet Russia lost the advantages of
> > capitalism, but did not
> > yet have the advantages of socialism, where the
> > majority of people
> > identify with the system itself. In reality the
> > majority were
> > alienated and exploited.
> >
> > Rather curiously, though, certain leftwing
> > commentators - Marcuse, for
> > example - have argued that, whilst there was a group
> > at the top, there
> > was extensive grassroots democracy, but such
> > argumentation is
> > completely flawed. If people have no individual
> > control over the
> > labour process whatsoever, then they are
> > economically atomised. Just
> > as work under capitalism is atomised, as workers
> > sell their individual
> > labour-power, so in the Soviet Union they were
> > atomised by the labour
> > process and would work individually. Without genuine
> > trade unions no
> > collective action was possible, apart from some rare
> > strikes and so on
> > in the 1930s.
> >
> > The result of this atomisation was that there was no
> > abstract labour.
> > Abstract Labour assumes a highly flexible labour
> > force, which is to
> > say the flexibility and exchangeability of the
> > labour force. That is
> > why, in principle, the capitalist class is opposed
> > to racism and
> > sexism - it might support it from time to time to
> > time for political
> > reasons, in order to maintain its own existence, but
> > when it does so
> > it is actually going against its own interests in an
> > economic sense
> > and has a considerable cost. That is, for example,
> > the reason why the
> > capitalist class never supported apartheid in South
> > Africa.
> > Soviet 'planning'
> >
> > In the absence of abstract labour and therefore
> > value, economic
> > calculations and planning were impossible. I take
> > the view that even
> > in a socialist society based on democratic planning
> > precise
> > calculation is impossible. It is possible to base
> > the
> === message truncated ===
>
>
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