[lbo-talk] Fitch and Brenner

Philip Pilkington pilkingtonphil at gmail.com
Tue Feb 24 19:28:12 PST 2009



> Hayek and Friedman were in many ways repulsive characters, but their
> critiques of socialism - like coordination and knowledge problems - aren't
> completely bonkers. You could - and I do - point to things like Wal-Mart's
> logistical innovations as suggesting a path for socialization of the
> economy, but if you think there aren't "hardwired" problems in socialism,
> you're just not taking your enemies seriously enough.
>
>

Although I think I'm risking a crisis of "over-posting" I want to put this forward...

Looking at building some sort of socialism, I absolutely agree. It seems that, no matter how I look at it, many of these constructions about free-market competition and equilibrium are completely cogent. The problem is what they're aimed at. Imagine if they were aimed at reducing working hours rather than wages, for example. Then surely the same maths/notions of efficiency could be applied to realising something very different.

There's an awful lot more ideological problems with socialist conceptions of economics at the moment than people would like to realise... Cut the ego; look at the aims!



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list