has anybody a recommendation for a modern discussion of the socialist calculation debate?
@fruchtblase Hmm? What is this? :0
@Angle oh I forgot to mention what the socialist calculation debate was actually about.
Basically the question is: Can you predict/calculate future demand or is it impossible?
@fruchtblase Ah, yeah. Personally I'd like to have a properly distributed social economy. I'm picturing something like multiple planning organizations, which make deals with different resource organizations - mines, factories, farms, etc. There would need to be a very good set of rules and the associated infrastructure to enforce it to keep everything honest, of course. I had a larger, more thorough write-up for this that I put up on the Internet a while ago, lemme go dig it up. :/
@fruchtblase Hmm. Well, here's the basic version. Tis is like 3 or 4 years old and I haven't put much though into it lately, so don;t take it too seriously. Hopefully you'll find it interesting, though?
Basically, a system of small enterprises, operating without money. Instead, they "Subscribe" to a Logistics Enterprise, that takes care of distributing goods between them. If you don't like the Logistics enterprise you've been working with, switch to a different one. The logistics can even trade amongst themselves, or an enterprise could subscribe to two different ones. In essence, a number of parallel, competing and cooperating planned economies.
@fruchtblase This system would need very thorough transparency, so that everyone involved can be sure no one else is cheating. And there would be additional challenges, particularly when it comes to paying your workers- perhaps a limited form of currency would be useful there. I'm thinking something that would be created on the spot by the people paying, and then consumed completely when a worker spends it. There would probably need to be regulations to how much a company can pay their workers, to encourage efficiency.
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@fruchtblase There would be a system of enterprises dedicated to watching other enterprises for corruption, and blowing the whistle if they see any. This includes each other, of course. Regulation is enforced by general agreement - If people are convinced someone is being corrupt, they refuse to deal with them. This does require people to put a constant effort into keeping their society working, but all societies require that, and this one should make it easier than others.
@fruchtblase Of course, looking back at this now, I can see a whole load of flaws. Still, the idea was interesting, and it might have merit, once it's been thoroughly debugged. :/
@Angle one of the fundamental problems of socialist central planning of the economy is the difficulty of anticipating the demand for every commodity.
in the soviet union there used to be the joke "if its in the stores it is out of fashion" because the state failed to provide the things people wanted/needed because they were unable to predict the demand.
with widely available smart phones you could (maybe) decentralize central planning to avoid this problem.