[lbo-talk] Hayek, was Re: Stalinism (was Eric Hobsbawm)

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Fri Oct 12 06:36:43 PDT 2012


Andie: " nothing in Hayek's argument requires the entrepreneurs be individual private owners rather than employees of a cooperative, regardless of where title lies."

[WS:] So why does being employees of a planning agency disqualifies them? If it is not the title but rather entrepreneurship, why cannot entrepreneurs be employed by a planning agency?


>From what I read I see that what you seem to be arguing is the merits
of wiki vs. centralized management e.g. Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica. As I see it, both have merits, but the former has lower costs due to the use of volunteers (the other one uses paid staff.) I also understand that most so called entrepreneurs work long hours as volunteers hoping that they will eventually succeed, whereas employees of a planning agency have paid 9-5 jobs.


>From that pov, the entrepreneur system is more efficient than the
planning system, but it is so largely due to hyper-exploitation (unpaid work) - hardly the basis for any claim to any superiority.

If, otoh, you are arguing that perfect planning is not possible because there will be always unforeseen consequences, and that a decentralized entrepreneur system is better equipped in dealing with these contingencies than centralized planning because it can "localize" or contain the unforeseen costs instead of spreading them through the system - you got one sympathetic ear.

-- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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