What if a socialist government just controls the most basic parts of the economy like agriculture, mining, fishing, textiles, and construction. All the manpower and attention would be focused on just these industries and all other capital goods in other industires created by the previous capitalist economy will be liquidated and turned to foreign exchange. Let's say this socialist country is initially so productive in agriculture that the surrounding capitalist countries that have little land left for agriculture so they keep importing food from the socialist country. I would guess that socialism would work in this case in the sense that everybody would be able to eat and wear clothes and have houses to live in. And future investments would just come from accumulated foreign exchange. I mean sure people will still be impoverished in the sense that they have no liberties but because the state focuses in few industries, the state has enough information to plan the economy.
This is also analogous to an island wherein one person owns the island and the rest of the people living on the island. Let's say 99 people are owned as slaves. The slavemaster could keep the 99 people alive and contented through central planning.
So I'm thinking that socialism can possibly 'work' in satisfying people's basic needs. I'm asking about this because socialists accuse the free market of not providing people's basic needs while producing luxury goods for others. Could socialism possibly work in the sense of satisfying livestock as in the scenario above?
I'm sorry if this seems like an ignorant question. I haven't read Socialism by Ludwig von Mises.
Dunbar's number of 150 may be an upper bound, but to make the case that "socialism can work for a population of <150" would require that there are no other upper bounds (i.e., ones lower than 150). If there is, say, another upper bound set at 10 for a different reason, then Dunbar's number would become irrelevant (assuming it is actually valid in the first place).
So at best it is an upper bound. There is no particular reason to expect it is an optimal number for a socialist enclave (assuming there is an optimal number >1).
Why anarchy fails
Laughing Man:You are actually echoing what many socialist theorist wish to impose upon the world. Owen with his utopian towns, Fourier with his phalanxes, Mably with his bunker residences. It is a premise that is both unpractical and implicitly immoral.
I’m certainly not advocating breaking up humans being into communities of 150 guys top. I’m only saying that where such communities are formed naturally, they can (not must) be organized along socialist lines. I do not plan to pay my kids to take out the trash any time soon. My family will be socialistic, period. The same for my firm (if I ever come to own one).
Merlin:I’m certainly not advocating breaking up humans being into communities of 150 guys top. I’m only saying that where such communities are formed naturally, they can (not must) be organized along socialist lines. I do not plan to pay my kids to take out the trash any time soon. My family will be socialistic, period. The same for my firm (if I ever come to own one).
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
nirgrahamUK:who owns the means of production in your family? does you family even have means of production or do you export labour services?
Within the family a multitude of utility-enhancing activates take place. Taking out the trash, cocking, cleaning, repairing stuff, increasing material possessions (buying things), etc. Now, it certainly is possible to put a price to such activities, and indeed some of them are regularly “outsourced” by not a few families. Thus, there is a market for these services, and they can command a (knowable) price. Why than, do most families expect members to perform them free of charge?
I know that the family could easily be seen as a totally voluntary agency (as it is), such as the state can never be. But the focal point of Mises’ argument against socialist calculation is that it sis impossible to rationally calculate a schedule of employment of the factors of production without market prices. And the Family daily proves that not to be the case: there are no prices within the family, and still all sorts of productive forces are daily arranged in such a way as to best fit the utility schedules of its members. But why stop at the family? So, there is a lower limit to the argument: Dumbar’s rule. The information conveyed by prices can be conveyed by human interaction when such interaction is possible, i.e. when the members are few enough. Of course, this doesn’t confer anyone the right to force people into 1”50 communes”. But if they want to join, than of course such an entity can be organized in a command-and-control fashion.
He's correct in that families are socialist in nature, though. So it does seem natural to ask what the limit is of that, and at what point does it become doomed to failure.
"He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." Edmund Burke
maxpot46:He's correct in that families are socialist in nature, though. So it does seem natural to ask what the limit is of that, and at what point does it become doomed to failure.
Well if your sole definition for explaining the whole corpus of socialism is based simply on the slogan of 'from each according to his/her ability, to each according to their need.' I think that is rather flimsy ground for establishing a whole system of political theory.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
families don't pretend to be economic systems conducting economic calculation. advocates of socialist economies do pretend to be advocating economic systems conducting economic calculation or featuring 'rational production'.
Merlin:And the Family daily proves that not to be the case: there are no prices within the family, and still all sorts of productive forces are daily arranged in such a way as to best fit the utility schedules of its members.
Please elaborate.
Socialism = abolition of private ownership of means of production. Multiple private owners competing over said goods is not socialism, however much you wish to believe it. The Misesian calculation argument is that absent private ownership over the means of production, prices cannot form to allow for economic calculation to take place, as any valuation of capital goods will be the arbitrary dictates of the central planner (be it commune or state or w/e.) The number is thus irrelevant to the Misesian calculation argument. Saying competing owners could calculate rationally is conceding the case. Altruism, incentives &c. are inconsequential for the Misesian/Hayekian arguments. We're talking about socialism as an overarching economic system. Small groups of people relying on massive external markets and then doling out the goods by whatever scheme they devise, egalitarian, meritocratic &c. is not what the socialist calculation argument is concerned with.
And the Family daily proves that not to be the case: there are no prices within the family, and still all sorts of productive forces are daily arranged in such a way as to best fit the utility schedules of its members.
Actually it proves nothing of the sort, because there is still competing sources of private ownership over capital goods...
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Merlin: Jon Irenicus:Only if you're not familiar with the argument would that be true. Please elaborate. As far as I know almost every family on earth works pretty fine as a socialist entity. The same goes for every firm on earth. And why not? As long as a single guy can manage, personally, a number of people, the basic information than the price system gives can be taken though direct intercourse. So, yeah, I believe as long as the community is under 150, it can be rationally organized socialistically.
Jon Irenicus:Only if you're not familiar with the argument would that be true.
As far as I know almost every family on earth works pretty fine as a socialist entity. The same goes for every firm on earth. And why not? As long as a single guy can manage, personally, a number of people, the basic information than the price system gives can be taken though direct intercourse. So, yeah, I believe as long as the community is under 150, it can be rationally organized socialistically.
And if there is respect for property and exchange, currency will eventually arise. And people will deal with other people in that manner. Eventually, we get a free market again. Respect for the rules of private property is what makes civilization possible. People can organize themselves in small groups, but because of such things like the division of labor they'll want to interact with other groups and trade for benefit. To deny private property and trade would be to limit freedoms and limit trade. If people are not free to exchange, we have less economic growth and discovery.
What is important about having money and exchange is that we can measure cost, efficiency, productivity, demand, and other things relevant to an economy. Without money, we can only guess as to what the cost is, what the efficiency is, what the productivity is and what the demand is. As the economy changes, entrepreneurs and capitalists readjust where they put their resources, such that it better fulfills the demand of the consumers. Often enough, only the companies that produce things efficiently are able to survive in these markets. This gets us better market efficiency and allows for better use of resources and a higher standard of living while also meeting the most urgent needs of the consumers.
Socialists can't calculate. Who is to decide who produces what and how much? How can you tell? Do we have property?
My friends, Mises’ argument find is best application in socialist economies, but is not confined to them. Every time we have no currency it applies. Every time we have no prices it applies. The whole idea is the existence (or not) of prices. If they are tampered with, than Mises’ argument creeps in. It truly is inconsequential whether prices are tampered with by total abolition (socialism), or merely regulated (credit expansion): as long as they are not genuine, a calculation problem arises.
But why should the argument apply only in cases where there’s no private property? Rothbard made a brilliant case about how this very problem applies to some very large corporation. Even if all property is privately owned (as in this case), our problem still arises. So, its not about property, but about prices.
The whole idea of prices is to convey information: how does X value good/service Y? Factoring in over millions of Xs and billions of Ys we can easily see how a price-less economy can’t work.
But if we have a few Xs and a few Ys, it becomes practical for a single human being to practically know, without prices, just by interaction, the preferences of said Xs over said Ys. This happens in the family: even if I don’t force my sister to pay for ever chess game we play, I can infer the place that a chess game has in her value scale by seeing what she’s wiling to give up to play (beg me long enough, forego a movie, etc.). So, as long as it is humanly possible to keep a rather strong and continuous personal intercourse with people, we need no prices to infer their preferences and hence, an “economy” can be organized.
And think about it: if Mises’ argument had no lower limit, than we’d never see “global products” in the marketplace. No one would sell a plane ticked that included the flight itself, refreshment, newspapers, etc. but we’d pay a separate price for each of these things. It is easy to see where reductio ad absurdum could take us in this case. Or than we’d never spit a bar bill among friends, but we’d always insist on everyone paying for exactly what he ordered. I don’t know you but I never go through that when 8 people ordered coffee. We could easily provide many more examples. Thus, there must be some lower limit. Statistics propose a number: 150 (from 100 to 230 with 95% confidence, to be more precise).
if people really believed that socialism would work, there would be nothing stopping them from forming their own communes under a libertarian/anarchist society. That's what draws me most into the ideology. People are free to express themselves in almost any way imaginable, as long as they don't infringe on anyone else's rights.
What you mention reminds me of what Rothbard said in New liberty about how Feudalism worked by keeping the people alive and take all surpluses for the king. The king provided protection. That system theoretically worked.
Merlin:This happens in the family: even if I don’t force my sister to pay for ever chess game we play, I can infer the place that a chess game has in her value scale by seeing what she’s wiling to give up to play (beg me long enough, forego a movie, etc.)
Wibee: if people really believed that socialism would work, there would be nothing stopping them from forming their own communes under a libertarian/anarchist society. That's what draws me most into the ideology. People are free to express themselves in almost any way imaginable, as long as they don't infringe on anyone else's rights. What you mention reminds me of what Rothbard said in New liberty about how Feudalism worked by keeping the people alive and take all surpluses for the king. The king provided protection. That system theoretically worked.
If they wish to be bored to death, they can go on. The communes will work economically; they’ll just be shitplaces to live in. Oh, sorry kibuzniks…
nirgrahamUK:no, you could never see her full value scale. at best you can see how she values any two things that you observe her demonstrating a preference between. and you have to wait till after she's done it, to see what she did. in other words, your knowledge of her value scales is extremely narrow and lagging in time.
True. That’s why it works only when a limited number of pole and tradable goods/services are involved. Family, firm, etc.
it 'works' in so far as people don't leave their families or die i suppose? is that your standard of 'works'?
firms can and do 'work' (turn profits) with numbers of staff way above dunbars number. so what does this say for your theory? the limit on firm size is that it can't come to encompass an entire market.... a definite, but i would say, quite large, theoretical limit.