I was thinking, given how technology has progresses since the soviet union, do you think a centrally planned economy has a chance of succeding and doing well? Given all the data that can be gathered on purchasing trends and things of that nature.
I am not saying it would compare to a truly free market system, or that it is moral. But with the right people at the helm, it seems to me that technolgy has progressed to the point where the planners could receive many more statistics at a faster time-frame.
Sure, maybe they'd be slightly better with the technology than without. But just because it's easier to hit a baseball with a skewer than with a toothpick doesn't mean it isn't difficult - or, indeed, nigh impossible - in absolute terms.
Not a chance. That's the pitfall that the mainstream fell into (and Lange)--believing that it was simply a matter of cutting that time differential in the transmission and processing of massive amounts of ever-available objective economic data for use by enlightened Politburo planners. But without private property in capital goods, the information required to engage in economic calculation (to calculate opportunity costs etc) can't even be generated, let alone fed into and processed by some Stalin 2.0 Supercomputer. Jesus Huerta de Soto wrote a great bit on this.
EDIT: So basically they'd have a faster GIGO system (Garbage-in, Garbage-out).
It cannot be done. Even if machines gave some central authority access to all the information regular people have in a decentralized economy, it could never replicate their individual incentives and tradeoff-decision crucial to an economy.
Suggest Knowlede and Decisions by Thomas Sowell for those looking for a book that once and for all destroys any notion of communism being viable.
I suggest you read up on Paul Cockshott's writings. IMHO, he lays out the best case for how (near) optimal central planning could be accomplished with today's technology. He misses a very important part, however. Achieving the goals of a central plan on an (near) optimal basis is one thing - but that says nothing about what the goals of the central plan are or should be. Thus he's attacked only one half of the socialist calculation problem.
In Towards a New Socialism, he and co-author Allin Cottrell propose that at least some aspects of the central plan (e.g. labor allocations for various "economic sectors") should be decided democratically. That begins to approach what would happen in the market every day. Consumers vote on how resources should be allocated by the actions they take. Instead of the "one man, one vote" approach of political democracy, however, the market assigns votes based on ability and willingness (i.e. economic demand). In the market, those who most urgently demand something are those who are able and willing to pay the most for it.
One could extend Cockshott and Cottrell's socialist voting scheme by allowing people to bid their votes up or down through some mechanism. That way, people can communicate how badly they want a certain allocation of labor. In so doing, of course, one gets much closer to simulating a market. Therein lies the irony, if you ask me.
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That's what always got me about market socialists; if you concede that you need price mechanisms to communicate economic information then why institute a shadow of said mechanisms instead of the price signals themselves?
I think their issue concerns the ability of people to pay for what they want. A person may be willing to pay a whole lot for something, but he may not be able to. They typically bring up situations in this context that arouse sympathy, such as a person who can't afford some kind of medical treatment but who'll die without it. Of course, innovations have arisen from the market to help with this, namely insurance and loans. On the other hand, I don't see how one person desiring something (however "badly") obligates anyone who has it to give it to him. As my dad used to say, life isn't fair.
Just saw an interesting argument of de Soto.
If the central planner has a computer, we can assume that the entrepeneurs [in a free market] will have one, too. Thus their options are so enlarged by the computer, that the central planner's comp [unless it's much more powerful than theirs] cannot absorb all those possibilities.
Page 69 of this work: http://www.jesushuertadesoto.com/books_english/socialism/socialism.pdf
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Have these supercomputers solved chess yet?
32 pieces, 64 places on the board, each piece confined to a limited amount of simple moves.
Should be child's play for them if they can work out a vastly more complicated economy.
Dave, don't you remember the (in)famous match between Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue?
In Towards a New Socialism, he and co-author Allin Cottrell pr
There is so much wrong with socialism, and even the stuff you are stating it's enough to make ones head spin and overwhlemed by what to say that's justwrongwith the info given.
But to keep this short and sweet,It's failed so many fucking times, and even admittedly so by their side - why the hell do they keep trying to come up with new versions?
Lo and behold socialism can be nothing more than some "Platonic thing" that we must strive for. It's built off of "criticisms" (i.e. empty psychologisms) of actual factul action and process, and posits a "great triangle in the sky" in the place of what is.
The Market process way of thinking can do no such thing - it can only analyze human action. It can't constuct a damn thing.
Socialism isn'ta science, a theory, or anything else of such a nature: it is merely a social signaling language forsubsidized intellectuals, and a carte blanche word for politicians to gain power within our rotten institutional set up without looking like rat bastards.
Seriously, what else is there new to say to refute radical leftists and socialists? All we can do is wait around for them to die out. Hopefully we won't be caught in their fashionable crossfires. This seems to have been the position of Menger and Bohm-Bawerk as well, I think they're right.
"Science progresses when the old professors die out" Joseph Schumpeter
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Smiling Dave: Have these supercomputers solved chess yet? 32 pieces, 64 places on the board, each piece confined to a limited amount of simple moves. Should be child's play for them if they can work out a vastly more complicated economy.
They have in fact solved chess, yes. The most advanced supercomputers can predict every possible move up to end-game and choose among its preferred response based on end-game paths.
What computers will never be able to solve is the game 'Go' which is a better analogy for an economy, despite still being millions of times less complex.
They have in fact solved chess, yes.
Link, please?
Wikipedia:
Solving chess means finding an optimal strategy for playing chess, i.e. one by which one of the players (White or Black) can always force a victory, or both can force a draw (see Solved game). According to Zermelo's theorem (game theory), a hypothetically determinable optimal strategy does exist for chess.
In a weaker sense, solving chess may refer to a proof which of the three possible outcomes (White wins; Black wins; draw) is the result of two perfect players, without necessarily revealing the optimal strategy itself (see indirect proof).[1]
No complete solution for chess in either of the two senses is known, nor is it expected that chess will be solved in the near future. There is disagreement on whether the current exponential growth of computing power will continue long enough to someday allow for solving it by "brute force", i.e. by checking all possibilities.
Not that this matters. It's like going to a casino and talking about "chance" and "probability". It's a closed system.
There is no "problem" to solve in the economy. Socialism is impossible, it's just a random retardation on the market process, it's a grammatical error.