[lbo-talk] IT innovation and "the Markets"

[Miles Jackson]

SA wrote:
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> You're setting up a straw man: no society has "planned a whole economy".
>
> Yes they have! Or at least they kept trying. It was called "central 
> planning."
>
> In integrally-planned economies like the USSR and East Germany, the 
> only unplanned sectors were those that sprang up and were tolerated or 
> officially ignored because they were useful safety valves to 
> compensate for the failures of the *plans*.
Okay, we're using different definitions of the "whole economy".  I'm 
talking about the production, distribution, and consumption of all goods 
and services in a given society.  Even in a capitalist society like the 
U. S., the "shadow" economy of household labor, charity work, church 
activities, etc. is about equal in economic value to the formal GDP.  
Thus if all of the economic activity currently conducted by private 
businesses were nationalized, about half of the economy (broadly 
defined) would be included in the central planning.

I stress this point for two reasons.  First, a tremendous amount of the 
important economic activity in our society is not market based.  Not 
coincidentally, women do much of this invisible economic work (child 
care, cooking, laundry, elder care, etc.).  Pretending that this work is 
not part of our economy reinforces sexism ("she doesn't have a real job, 
she's just a housewife").   Second, the fact that all this nonmarket 
economic activity hums along in a purportedly capitalist society shows 
us that people can effectively organize economic activity without "price 
signals".  All we need is people enculturated into a specific social 
system in which certain types of mutual aid are expected and socially 
sanctioned.  Call me a dreamer, but if we can effectively produce about 
50% of the total U. S. economy without price signals, why can't we 
produce 100% that way?

Miles