Practical socialism: a thought experiment
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As part of the never ending quest to present a substantial framework of how socialism could be, to help rebut both those who say we have no plan, and also the economic calculation argument (ad nauseum).
Quote:The scene: your local supermarket, 10 years after the revolution. You push a trolley along the aisle. There are boxes of peppermint tea there. On the shelf is a label: it says peppermint tea is -K0.85. You might be one of the people who cares that -K is a power, and that represents 10^ -3 so that each box is really 0.000085% of the peppermint tea available total in the local distribution network (there is currently a debate going on whether there should be weightings applied for transportation cost, but that vote hasn't been had, yet). Camolile tea is rated -K1.1 (there's a little sticker next to it, saying it used to be 1.012, as of last week). Normally you'd prefer camomile, but if it's going up, that means stocks are running down, so maybe you'd best switch to peppermint. Normally you try and budget for -C1 (0.001%) a week for yourself. You take your trolley to the check out, and simply scan the items through a scanner (to keep the inventories up to date). Until last year, you'd had to scan a work voucher through, issued at your workplace, just to show that you were in work. But they've just voted to end that.Does that sound plausible? Would raw percentiles of stock be sufficient to help people allocate goods? if not, why?
The definitive work on this (algebra and all) has been done by Robin Cox. See here:http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm
Partly, I was trying to also look at the individual experience, as I don't think it would be a case of just taking what you want off the shelves (and many objectors certainly would stop listening if we say that), so having a money-behavioural replacement.While the law of the minimum does seem to offer some sensible measure, Cox seems to skate round the need to make production decisions. So, we can talk about inventories, and responding to changes, but when it comes to big projects and budgeting for them, it becomes a touch trickier.To take his example of X, and it's two inputs A & B, we can further assume that they have two inputs each C,D & E,F. Further, lets say they have two inputs each G-N. (That is A=C+D+G+H+I+J & B=E+F+K+L+M+N). Say we opt for the production method that spares A, as that is scarcer than B. But on examination of the supply chain, it turns out that N is much scarcer than J. If we want to be even more complex, we can ask what happens (as is not entirely unreasonable) if, say, J and H are the same thing (assuming C=G+H and D=I=J), thus choosing to spare B would mean we'd be committing ourselves to a big hit on H/J.The law of the minimum would indeed mean that at each stage we used the most available resource at each stage. We could apply the logic of flocking birds (each agent only responds to its neighbour, thus producing an overall efficient effect). Our argument then would be not the most efficient use of reousrces, but that at least there would be a workable.If, though, there were some way of communicating cumulative impact, then the problem would be resolved. It would look like oprice, excepting that no exchange of commodity or negotiation would be invovled.
So, would some sort of labour-time accounting be viable?Firstly, we'd need to be clear that we wouldn't be trying to use the "true value" of products, that only emerges from commoddities in exchange. We'd be measuring the concrete labour employed (so, that would mean, for one thing, we'd be measuring real labour actually used, rather than averagely necessary time — so far as we could accurately record that). Actually market prices work much better than any labour value scheme could (Kautsky's rather neat refutation).Once simple refutation of trying to use true value is Joan Robinson's in her essay on Marx, where she shows that because of relative rent, you can't use labour time as an exchange value (basically, one field might take ten hours to produce a tonne of wheat, whereas another would take twenty, the wheat would then sell at the value of the least productive field that can be brought into operation, under market conditions: subjective/marginal theories of value are similar to this, as they treat all goods, effectively, as a m,onopoly of themselves).If, however, we simply record the total time to collect the aggregate social stock of wheat, then this objection no longer matters. Wheat took a sum of the social effort (which can be expressed in person hours or as a percentage). We would simply record how much time was spent at each prodfuction unit (not the time per unit of oiutput). We needed be hyper accurate about that: if a unit is slated to have 100 hours worked, it doesn't signify much if one person takes an afternoon off, since rough inaccuracies of that sort would balance out.This is not a call for labour voucher exchange, although knowing what the per capita share of the output would be would help socialist citizens to "budget" their consumption. Vouchers are unnecessary, since if there is a roughly agreed working week, then most people will have the same number of vouchers anyway, it becomes an unnecessary burden to distribute them. Whereas the labour burden of time accounting would be relatively light, and could assist in the statistical clearing houses.If we find, in the early days of socialism, an incentive to work is needed, then a simple "I turned up to work this week" voucher system could be used (just as, in revolutionary Spain, for example, a union card was used for bus transport).With aggregate concrete labour time, we could plan at a world and scoiety level, and predict any changes required by any large scale infrastructural project, while regulated stock control would be the experience day to day.
The problem with labour-time accounting is that it is not possible to measure the intensity of work (labour) nor to calculate in advance what labour is "social necessary" (nor, I would add, to work out how much more "simple" labour skilled labour is "worth"). Marx pointed this out in his criticism of various schemes for "labour-money" that were put forward in his day. Unfortunately, he didn't apply this to the "labour-time voucher" scheme he gave a sort of blessing to in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. The only way something like this would work is, as you suggest, if you measure "labour" by time spent at work. In other words, actual labour or, actually, hours put in at work. I'm not sure that this would be a useful measure of much.Having said this, calculation in kind will involve taking into account "labour-power", as one of the things required for production to be measured in "kind", just like raw materials, energy, etc. But this wouldn't be a measurement of "labour" in general but of specific forms of skilled labour-power, eg in the case of building houses, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, roofers, surveyors, etc. (as in fact is done today).The Zeitgeist Movement has done a lot of work refuting the dreaded "economic calculation argument". They argue that once you know what resources are available and what you want a product to do and how many are needed, it is possible to calculate the "optimal" way to produce it from a technological point of view. This calculation is one for engineers not economists or accountants (who of course become redundant). It might be worth looking at their work in this field.
ALB wrote:The problem with labour-time accounting is that it is not possible to measure the intensity of work (labour) nor to calculate in advance what labour is "social necessary" (nor, I would add, to work out how much more "simple" labour skilled labour is "worth"). Marx pointed this out in his criticism of various schemes for "labour-money" that were put forward in his day. Unfortunately, he didn't apply this to the "labour-time voucher" scheme he gave a sort of blessing to in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. The only way something like this would work is, as you suggest, if you measure "labour" by time spent at work. In other words, actual labour or, actually, hours put in at work. I'm not sure that this would be a useful measure of much.It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable meaure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another. As with Robinson Crusoe, we know the numbers of humans available, and how much time they have to work, the intensity of that work is, at a certain point, irrelevent (that is a question for wage allocation, not productive co-ordination). As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.I agree that recording concrete labour types could be useful as well (but would require more effort, and relies on fixing some fairly blurry lines between types of labour).
Young Master Smeet wrote:It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable meaure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another.No doubt, but why single out labour-power as the special case? It's only one of many inputs and in principle no difference to the other inputs (materials, energy). I'm not suggesting this but I believe the Techocrats in the 1930s suggested that accounting be done in "energy units". What I'm suggesting is that calculation in kind doesn't require any general unit, not labour-time nor energy units. We calculate in amounts of all the different elements involved in production, just as now under capitalism, only in socialism it won't be duplicated by a calculation in money and won't need to be by any other general unit ("universal equivalent").
Young Master Smeet wrote:As with Robinson Crusoe, we know the numbers of humans available, and how much time they have to work, the intensity of that work is, at a certain point, irrelevent (that is a question for wage allocation, not productive co-ordination).Of course. We will need to know that along with the amount of materials and energy available. Why make a special case of labour-power (which is unlikely to be in short supply anyway)?
Young Master Smeet wrote:As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.
Young Master Smeet wrote:I agree that recording concrete labour types could be useful as well (but would require more effort, and relies on fixing some fairly blurry lines between types of labour).It has to be done today and seems to work. If a hundred persons are required to construct a building you cannot just take a hundred people at random and set them to work on the grounds that they are capable of contributing so much labour-time. You've got to take into account different qualities of labour-power (just as you have to of other productive inputs).
ALB wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable measure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another.No doubt, but why single out labour-power as the special case? It's only one of many inputs and in principle no difference to the other inputs (materials, energy). I'm not suggesting this but I believe the Technocrats in the 1930s suggested that accounting be done in "energy units". What I'm suggesting is that calculation in kind doesn't require any general unit, not labour-time nor energy units. We calculate in amounts of all the different elements involved in production, just as now under capitalism, only in socialism it won't be duplicated by a calculation in money and won't need to be by any other general unit ("universal equivalent").
Well, I'd suggest two good reasons.1) Only Labour occurs in every product (yes, all products contain energy, but calculating erg output of human labour would be quite a feat).2) Because what this is about isn't a general unit of equivilence, but a human centred approach to the social organisation of production, starting with the people around to do the work.
ALB wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.
As per the standard ECA, though, such calculations would involve massive computational difficulty (as well as following the suppy chain of thousands of inputs for the simplest product. Whilst the engineers might have the time to do that, a signal between products can save that considerable effort.
Young Master Smeet wrote:1) Only Labour occurs in every product (yes, all products contain energy, but calculating erg output of human labour would be quite a feat).2) Because what this is about isn't a general unit of equivilence, but a human centred approach to the social organisation of production, starting with the people around to do the work.But in counting the number of people available to work you are not talking about "Labour" which is an abstract concept that, as Marx pointed out, is difficult if not imposssible to measure except through the market. And, again as Marx pointed out, the contribution of living labour to products (as compared to past labour) has become less and less over time.You are talking about labour-power and, as I said, if you are doing this you need to take account of the particular skills of the people available for work. Counting this, and taking it into account in calculating what and how to produce, is part of calculation in kind in general. I'm not against counting labour-power, in kind, but don't see that it is different in principle from counting the other resources available for production.How would calculating the labour output of human labour power be any less easy than calculating the "erg output of human labour [power]"? "Labour output" cannot simply be counted by time. To calculate it you'd have to reduce all the different types of skilled labour to amounts of simple labour. I'd prefer to have a go at calculating erg output !
Young Master Smeet wrote:ALB wrote:If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.As per the standard ECA, though, such calculations would involve massive computational difficulty (as well as following the suppy chain of thousands of inputs for the simplest product. Whilst the engineers might have the time to do that, a signal between products can save that considerable effort.
You seem to be assuming that all inputs might be in short supply but surely the basis of the socialist case for non-monetary calculation is that they won't be. Some might. Then the engineers calculating the "optimal" way to produce something would have to take this into account. I can't see that this would involve a "massive computational difficulty". I thought that this is what Robin Cox's "law of the minimum" was all about.This said, I agree that the Zeitgeist people who have worked on this problem do seem to favour a centralised command approach to production and consumption (after all, they are descended from the Technocracy Movement of the 1930s) rather than the self-regulating system of stock control, etc started by what people decide to take freely from stores that we have come to see, in recent years, as a workable alternative.Incidentally, have the two people who have just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics anything to contribute here? I read that one of them has devised a scheme for matching those who need a kidney with those prepared to offer one. I assume money isn't involved but you can't be sure because this is an American scheme. But if it's not, maybe they deserve the prize for solving the question of Who Will Live on Richmond Hill in Socialism. Those who want to and need most to, rather than those who want to and can pay the most.
ALB wrote:How would calculating the labour output of human labour power be any less easy than calculating the "erg output of human labour [power]"? "Labour output" cannot simply be counted by time. To calculate it you'd have to reduce all the different types of skilled labour to amounts of simple labour. I'd prefer to have a go at calculating erg output !Well, each worker would put out different quantities of ergs (we could, perhaps, do rough approximations). Complex skills can be, systemwise, reduced to simple labour, since we'd count the training and labour power being put into training as well, which implicitly adds to the overall system cost. We wouldn't need to count the output of labour power, just its raw usae. It would be imprecise, but useful. I suppose an averaged out erg per human could do the same job, I'd have no problem with that.
ALB wrote:You seem to be assuming that all inputs might be in short supply but surely the basis of the socialist case for non-monetary calculation is that they won't be. Some might. Then the engineers calculating the "optimal" way to produce something would have to take this into account. I can't see that this would involve a "massive computational difficulty". I thought that this is what Robin Cox's "law of the minimum" was all about.The law of the minimum could help, but the difficulty is looking three or four products down the production process, unless the engineers explore every product back to the beginning of its supply chain, they might commit themselves to stressing a scarce resource indirectly.
ALB wrote:Incidentally, have the two people who have just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics anything to contribute here? I read that one of them has devised a scheme for matching those who need a kidney with those prepared to offer one. I assume money isn't involved but you can't be sure because this is an American scheme. But if it's not, maybe they deserve the prize for solving the question of Who Will Live on Richmond Hill in Socialism. Those who want to and need most to, rather than those who want to and can pay the most.Stephanie Flanders (who she?–Ed.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19954671
Quote:You don't need a Hale-Shipley algorithm to help you allocate different kinds of television sets to different households. Soviet planners had a crack at it, but we know that price signals in the market do it much better. We buy the television that best fits our needs, subject to our ability to pay.But doctors will be thinking about a lot of different factors in choosing a hospital – and vice versa. Money is only one consideration. And, though you can debate whether people should be able to buy or sell their kidneys, in most health systems around the world, the authorities will want the scarce number of kidneys to be allocated on medical grounds, not financial ones. That is where matching theory comes in: it can help fill the gap, and create a kind of market, where you might have thought none could exist.Mr Roth helped New York City redesign its system for allocating children to public school places. Using his algorithm led to a 90% fall in the number of students who ended up in schools that they had not even included among their five listed preferences. Now cities all over the US use some form of Mr Roth's algorithm for allocating students to schools.Just read more about the Nobel Prize winners and see that they were awarded it for studies "to improve efficiency in markets where price was not an issue", i.e. where there is no buying and selling — in plain English, where there is no market. In fact, one of the winners, Professor Shapley is reported as saying that he's not is an economist, but a mathematication: "I never, never in my life took a course in economics." So their work could be of interest to socialists.According today's Times:
Quote:Their studies helped to improve efficiency in markets where price was not an issue, matching doctors to hospitals, students to dorm rooms and organs to transplant patients (…) Such matching arrangements are essential in most Western countries where organ-selling is illegal, and the free market cannot do the normal work of resource allocation..and
Quote:Professor Shapley, who is 89, began the theoretical spade-work in the 1950s and 1960s, using game theory to analyse different matching methods. In the 1990s, Professor Roth, now 60, working independently, applied similar theories to more practical matters, helping to allocate student doctors to particular hospitals and later providing the theoretical underpinning to streamline organ donation. Professor Roth is regarded as an authority on a field known colloquially as "repugnance economics" — in essence, the study of transactions where the application of the price mechanism is regarded as morally repugnant, such as the sale of body parts, sperm and eggs, prostitution and even dwarf-throwing."Repugnance economics", is that our answer to the "Economic Calculation Argument" ?
ALB: "Repugnance economics", is that our answer to the "Economic Calculation Argument"?I hope not — neither by name nor definition:"Repugnance economics" — in essence, the study of transactions where the application of the price mechanism is regarded as morally repugnant, such as the sale of body parts, sperm and eggs, prostitution and even dwarf-throwing.While games-theory optimization tools may very well find their way into the toolkit for managing a future socialist society — as ALB suggests — all class-based economical theory is irredeemably "repugnant".The exponents of class-based economic theory (because of their perceived or adopted social position) of necessity practice the justificatory science of exploitation. They have assimilated the truly repugnant aspects of class exploitation with what appears on the surface to be blithe unconcern.Games-theory optimization strategies based on the ranking of human subjective evaluations — from Pareto to the post WWII mathematical crowd — are highly relevant to the world of capitalist economics, but only as theoretical baubles and justificatory diamonds. Capitalism's dynamic profit motivation inevitably succeeds in riding roughshod over any such strategy based on merely subjective human evaluation.Should we take these intriguing intellectual problems seriously in a practical sense? As ALB suggests, such optimization strategies have a hope of working — not under our present capitalism but — under the socialism we are all working for.The Achilles heal of stable ranking of human subjectivity is actually wobbly because of its over-riding dependence upon the supposed rock-solid lynch pin or pivot of mere illusory human subjectivity itself — that most fragile, variable and manipulable evanescence — and not the actually solid lynch pin or pivot of socially agreed-upon social necessity.This almost certainly renders these formal strategies with their stable solutions unsuitable in their present capitalist-posed and capitalist-assumed framework for any serious direct application to a future world of associated producers who own and control their means of production — and so think socially — and not to the present world of opposing (or disassociated) producers and private owners of the producers' means of production — where everyone "thinks" individually and so assumes non-deterministically (and this in a deterministic world) that he/she evaluates situations thoroughly individually.Capitalism's great justification is that it optimizes everything — above all human well being itself. Hence the attraction of optimization theory as a powerful justification tool.Social production, under any social system, will always depend to a lesser or greater extent on optimization strategies. But stable optimization of human valuation for the whole of us is an illusion. What happens to the stability when our perceptions/evaluations change? — the world of human evaluation just ain't stable or comprehendible, whereas the sought-for world of socially agreed upon need is at least acknowledged to be deterministic, and so actually understandable.Understandability is the last thing that capitalism desires — hence the power of these wondrous stable solutions governing human happiness to reconcile us to it!Other, less significant, thoughts come to mind…Moral repugnance is a social construct, which easily succumbs [= rationalized to complete satisfaction] when confronted by social necessity — discussed in Marx's 1844 notes,Did not the early Christian church fathers and the 19th century romantics set up in their dens an "alas poor Yorick" skull as macabre company? Cadaver repugnance has regularly become chic.Some of our greatest humans were "economically repugnant". Renaissance heroes (Leonardo, Michelangelo, …) let alone anatomical and medical pioneers chose eternal damnation over temporal repugnance when they studied cadavers clandestinely. Did the 18th century physician expect not to pay the gruesome grave robber?Finally, apart from dwarf throwing, all of the listed "repugnant" economies of the rather journalistically phrased definition have perfectly "respectable" economic existence — e.g., gene patenting, etc. In short, they are only "morally repugnant" in the limited sense of our modern professional ethics committees — in a sense securely untroubled by capitalist exploitation.But the over-riding point remains that human economic exploitation and its theoretical justifiers are the most adequate representations of "repugnant economics".
Yes I had though of making a play on words myself with "repugant" and "repugnance".Of course as far as we socialists are concerned all capitalist economic theory is "repugnant economics". "Repugnance economics" ought to mean something different, like what the paper said: "the study of transactions where the application of the price mechanism is regarded as morally repugnant". I could say that socialists regard putting a price on anything as "repugnant" so that we are interested in the study how transactions can take place without price and money, but that might open the question of whether socialism is a "moral" as well as a class or scientific issue. Fortunately, looking up the dictionary definition of "repugnant/repugnance" I see it can also mean something that is logically inconsistent. Which, under capitalism, not allowing body parts to be bought and sold is.In any event, personally I do regard the sale of body parts even within capitalism as (even morally) "repugnant".
ALB: Yes I had thought of making a play on words myself with "repugnant" and "repugnance"It was irresistible — the image of the Nobel Economics prize-giving clique rewarding work on "repugnance economics" was far too delicious to pass by unremarked. Apologies for sidetracking your more important point.
Just been reading an article about the "water footprint" of different countries, i.e the amount of water used in them to produce their national product. We've all heard of "carbon footprints", i.e. the amount of CO2 released in producing something. What this shows is that the Technocracy people are right in saying it would be possible to calculate the "energy footprint" of products too. Just checked and this is being done too. I'm not sure of the implications of all these calculations, except that they are calculations in kind, not money.What you would seem to be envisaging, Young Master, is calculating the "labour footprint" of products? A useful calculation no doubt but why should this particular calculation in kind be considered more important than the other ones?
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