> Production with division of labor can be either planned or unplanned.
> Those are the only two options. If it's unplanned it's a market. If all
> production is planned, it's central planning - no matter how
> decentralized, democratic or participatory the decision-making process
> is. Even Michael Albert's Parecon is central planning - there's a
> single, central plan.
>
> SA
================
The DoL is a staggeringly complex spectrum of co-ordinated actions and unintended consequences; if one places planned and unplanned at the opposite ends of the spectrum of co-ordinated action, the historical evidence indicates that lots of markets are planned and exhibit lots of co-ordination. Even financial markets. On the latter, see Mackenzie's "An Engine, Not a Camera"
Fuzzify the plan-market binary. Urban planners do it all the time. Yes the results are rather ugly more often than not in most countries that practice such activity, but that's human life right now.
It is the fantasy of overcoming the all the adverse unintended consequences created by market systems via central planning that needs to be overcome. It is the fantasy of total control and perfect foresight. It is also resolutely anti-pluralist. That we cannot achieve the fantasy is not a recipe for passive cynicism....Indeed the fantasy is a nightmare. Does anyone think the control freaks we run into living with capitalism will be benign under socialism? Cue to Carrol to point out that because people will be different under socialism we can't say there will be control freaks. To that I'd respond societies are no more likely to be rid of control freaks than they are to be rid of language. The paradoxes of control hurt the brain.
If only the dinosaurs had a better plan! If only the Borg had better fashion sense!
Ian