>Even assuming a "to each according to his needs"
>(insofar as the plan can provide that) form of
>remuneration, people will still, in their desire
>(wholly altruistic, we may assume) to reach the plan
>target, have an incentive to say they need more than
>they really do and that they can do less than they
>really can. That way they will be more likely to hit
>the target -- but the whole system will be full of
>misinformation.
The problems I'm particularly thinking about concerns the power relationships of those who would effectively control co-operative enterprises in this "market socialist" economy. OK, you've eliminated the profit motive, but there's still the issue of incentive to maintain power. Money and profit are only a means to an end anyhow, its always been about power and so long as you retain the link between one's work and one's individual economic security, the people who control the work will have substantial economic power at their disposal. They will have an incentive to maintain that power over others.
>
>Unlike the case with markets, which also generate
>misinformation, there is no self-corrective mechanism.
>If the market overvalues a stock or someone mistakenly
>infers from sales of Xs that demand for X-like things
>is hot, the market will sort things out in its usual
>brutal, cruel, heavy-handed manner.
Presuming the risk is effectively private and the benefits are too. In which case what is any different that at present? It doesn't seem to have many of the benefits of socialism to me.
> (Crash! Your stock
>went through the floor! You're bankrupt!) What
>happens, though, when the very system of target
>planning gives workers an incentive to lie? What makes
>them tell the truth or gives planners or the system as
>a whole the correct information? Especially if thery
>can't be fired, disciplined, pout out of business, or
>otherwise suffer the consequences for bad decisions
>and systematic misrepresentation.
Well I agree that people should be responsible for their decisions. If economic decisions are socialised, that is democratised, then so society as a whole should wear the consequences, good or bad. That should be enough incentive to make sensible decisions according to your logic and mine. Assuming no contra incentives come into play and that's what I'm advocating - that other personal incentives which might be contrary to the greater good are eliminated from the equation.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas