[lbo-talk] You Can't Make Me Talk

[Miles Jackson]

Charles Brown wrote in response to the esteemed law prof:
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: Oh, in that case, go ahead and don't talk about it. Just seems that
> periodically, you start talking about it and then suddenly in the middle say
> you aren't going to talk about it, so I figure you might as well talk about
> it. I can't "make" you talk, but I don't have to. You talk anyway,
> voluntarily.
>
> To me the main issue is that it seems impossible to _prove_ that _in
> principle_ there can't be substantial planning of the economy. Every last
> thing may not be plannable, but it could be planned sufficiently to solve
> the problems that market "instability" cause. It can be planned to the
> extent that every last person's basic needs are substantially met ( Let
> James H. define basic needs). Lets put it this way. Seems impossible to
> prove that planning can't do it better than the market. 
>
>   
Yes.  Moreover, we have plenty of examples of people effectively 
allocating resources in various groups and organizations without market 
"signals": open source software, public libraries, credit unions, church 
activities, almost all family interactions (except for  family members 
buying cars/houses/stuff from one another, and that almost always ends 
badly).  Even in our "market" based society, many of the things that we 
create and use everyday are not market commodities, and we seem to get 
along just fine without market signals in these aspects of social life.  
The thing that bothers me about Hayek's argument is that it relies on an 
abstract notion--we need markets to effectively allocate resources--and 
conveniently ignores concrete examples of actual social interactions 
that clearly contradict the abstraction.  I know this is typical 
reasoning in the economics profession, but it still bugs me.

Miles