In my opinion, cyber-communism still has the same problems as Soviet planning, i.e. problems in relation to prices, due to the idea of currency based on time worked, or money given based on this, which reminds me a lot of the energy accounting of 20th century technocrats.
There would be two possible failures:
The first is that if the state sets prices for acquiring products based on supposedly objective costs, this can again cause prices not to adjust to scarcity, and added to the fact that wages are fixed to work, the fact that this is totally arbitrary based on time, can cause it not to reflect the exact quantity of what is produced. I know that linear programming and other mathematical methods can be used, however, we still do not guarantee the dilemma of scarcity, since prices are information mechanisms. This would only work in an economy that pays in kind.
Demand, although it would be democratically determined by the people, generating real demand data, there being again no dynamic price system, there could be shortages, because regardless of demand, the famous objective costs based on labor time, or objective costs of production, are not really based on the flexibility of market prices, and it is quite limiting. Who assures us that such a supposedly objective cost is not flawed or does not cover the complexity of a flexible system?
I am absolutely skeptical that a calculation based on objective costs that is derived from the currency of labor time can coordinate the dilemma of scarcity and determine prices reliably. All this would be nothing more than another elaborate way of setting prices, which would cause the problems I point out throughout the essay.
Example: If a critical resource like lithium for batteries becomes scarcer, the time-based target cost or supposed objective costs may fail to set the price, since it is likely that it will not adjust to the scarcity, unlike the supply and demand curve, where a good when its inputs increase in price occurs due to scarcity, and its price tends to offset the production costs of those same inputs, for example, labor, capital inputs, land, etc. That is to say that when a good or raw material becomes scarce for whatever reason, then producers raise prices, because they cannot sell the same quantity of goods at the previous price, since that would generate scarcity in the consumer, and there is nothing left but to raise prices to recover the investment, it is basic microeconomics.
It reminds me a lot of the time-work currency of the old Mutualists until Carson, who wanted to determine the cost as a limit on the price, and they distributed time-work vouchers. In the end, all of this is unnecessary, with free markets and the elimination of monopolies such as patents, with their due incentives for this, such as leaving the 1% of sales that do not belong to the creator, for the creator, so that prices can be substantially lowered close to cost, with the right incentives. It would have to be tested.
The second flaw is that it eliminates the incentives for innovation or creative destruction, since it does not allow investment or profit for workers or innovators, since everything is based on an arbitrary time-work, instead of participation in the market allowing everyone to earn income.
This is too cumbersome and dangerous, it can lead to the same economic problems that the countries of the socialist camp had.
A Cyber-Communism can only work when automation frees people from work and everything is done by machines, then it will be possible to pay on the basis of a universal income, and there will be no need to calculate time and work, while planning can be reduced to consumer cooperatives in communities, just as I plan in Mutualism, that communities can create Consumer Cooperatives to order production based on need, paying the respective money, thus saving resources. Imitating the democratic planning of Cyber-Communism. Another way is without money, with democratic planning in kind, but that is only possible again through automation.
How would you solve this problem? I am skeptical, but I am open to debate. The Cybcom model would be interesting for an experiment, but it seems too dangerous to apply in a country without everything going to hell
I lean towards markets, not because I like them, but because they are easy, so I prefer market socialism, then we can do, I don't know, cybcom economic planning zones and see what happens
>>2117453did you actually read book in OP? Cockshott says non renewable resources can be calculated using labor time necessary to find an alternative.
Besides its not like markets account for the long run scarcity of natural resources either, a huge criticism of markets is precisely that they don't conserve finite natural resources nor do they internalize the environmental externalities in their cost (pollution) without outside imposition from a government or regulator.
Yet, markets can still obviously arrive at prices and don't immediately collapse even in the absense of this.
so even if labor time systems were totally unable to account for natural resource scarcity (which they aren't as explained above) then it still wouldn't be some sort of death blow for labor time based socialism.
>I lean towards markets, not because I like them, but because they are easy, so I prefer market socialism, then we can do, I don't know, cybcom economic planning zones and see what happens
No, because you are a retard. Do you know what happens once resources actually become scarce? At minimum price control + rationing. There is a reason why essentially every country during WW2 did it. Not because they hated the "free market", oh no, but because, once resources grow scarce, its the only rational way to ensure everyone gets something and nobody gets left out. Again, kill yourself OP.
>>2117518But in a situation like this, other things are done. If you control prices to the lowest possible level so that more goods can be accessed, the only thing you will generate is more scarcity, and producers will not have enough profit to reinvest, so they will produce less and worse.
There are ways to lower prices without setting them artificially, such as injecting resources into companies.
>>2117526>and producers will not have enough profit to reinvestWe are not having production for profit buddy.
>this can again cause prices not to adjust to scarcityOk, you are just throwing things out there and seeing if they stick. Explain please how one would adjust for scarcity?
>>2117433>That is to say that when a good or raw material becomes scarce for whatever reason, then producers raise prices, because they cannot sell the same quantity of goods at the previous price, since that would generate scarcity in the consumer, and there is nothing left but to raise prices to recover the investment, it is basic microeconomics.>>2117526>producers will not have enough profit to reinvestYou are saying: If prices for input costs put no premium on scarcity, then producers will have to put a scarcity premium on top of their produced output in order to recover from the
non-existing input price increases, but since they are not allowed to do that, they will go bankrupt?
>>2117533This is what Vietnam does to lower rice prices, other economies do it too. Injecting resources to lower prices
Now what Belarus did did not work, you lie saying that inflation is at 0%, when in Belarus it is at 5%
On the other hand, this measure had adverse effects, producers did not get enough resources, which generated more scarcity, in Venezuela for example, these same policies caused scarcity and more inflation
https://www.focus-economics.com/es/countries/belarus/news/inflation/inflation-reaches-in-january-its-highest-level-since-march-2023/?utm_source=chatgpt.comDon't lie
The link is in Spanish because I am Latino
>>2117560>We are not having production for profit buddy.If there are no profits there is no reinvestment, no salaries, no surplus for more reinvestment, therefore your economy goes down and stagnates. The USSR had many problems with budget restrictions, because they did not invest in the most demanded or appropriate sectors and that is why the economy stagnated and the USSR fell.
>Ok, you are just throwing things out there and seeing if they stick. Explain please how one would adjust for scarcity?these are not random things, it is basic economics, look it up in some Gregory Mankiw manual. Most economists are from your damn gringo country and they don't understand the minimum.
>>2117725>Now what Belarus did did not work, you lie saying that inflation is at 0%, when in Belarus it is at 5%On the other hand, this measure had adverse effects, producers did not get enough resources, which generated more scarcity, in Venezuela for example, these same policies caused scarcity and more inflation
Where did it state something about 0% inflation? Are you retarded? And then you are just making stuff up now lel
>>2117791I misread, I confuse 6 with 0, anyway it creates scarcity, which proves my point, and you are not understanding, price controls do not work, check all the economics textbooks.
As I said, for example, to give an experience, in Venezuela it creates shortages, that is what you do not understand.
>>2117796You don't understand, there are economic measures to lower prices through certain subsidies, here in the country where I live fuel is subsidized so that the price does not rise excessively due to inflation
I imagine that for you all the economics textbooks that recommend this as an effective policy are idiotic… how far does your level of pseudoscience go?
>>2117453The labor time of raw materials includes that required to find and extract them.
Also what is the obsession with shortages? Capitalist markets cause shortages all the time. They don’t price scarce material at a level necessary to avoid shortages with even stable demand.
>>2117855>>2117862>>2117830>>2117810>>2117808>>2117799>>2117791>>2117762I don't know if you realize. But the fact that work is inserted in the cost of production in the capitalist system that allocates resources through the market, makes it totally unnecessary to set prices based on socially necessary work time, since doing so would only be a crude artificial imitation of the fact that this occurs in the market, in the market production costs are also subtracted from the cost of labor, so the socialist struggle is not about economic planning, but about the reappropriation of surplus value through workers' control, transforming all companies into cooperatives, there Marx's law of value will be applied directly, but the workers will recover the surplus value that the capitalist pockets under capitalism. What I want to get to is that socialist planning and setting prices based on Marx's law of value is unnecessary, because the market itself already sets the price based on Marx's law of value, because it is precisely that law that exists in market systems, but the problem is not whether prices should always be set at cost, but that the surplus, that is, the surplus value, must return to the direct producers, that is what socialism is about, not centralized planning, and that is why I am a Mutualist, because the statist Leninists try to force something that should not be forced, and they try to plan something that the state should not plan, but the workers themselves must decide what they are going to produce. If we get to Communism there will be no market because there will be no money, but we are far from that and it is necessary to develop the productive forces.
>>2117453cant that be addressed by planning? it doesn't really seem like an issue if you arent trying to do lean just in time manufacturing to increase profits. its also not important for things that arent critical like food and fuel. who cares if there is a shortage of funkos for a few weeks. just have subsidized state owned factories that produce 50-100% more than needed for critical goods unless perishable which you can have standby factories on call for. just run them at a loss to give you wiggle room and pay for the opportunity cost from non-essential sectors
>>2117476 i think this is a misunderstanding of the ecp. ecp says you cant find optimal prices for individual products, which are determined at the point of sale. but thats not the point of ltv, which is about aggregate price trends. its essentially like trying to debunk calculus because while it can determine the tangent line perfectly giving the area under the curve it cant determine the resulting +C without measuring in the real world. so it can give you a general formula that holds true in all cases, but the particular application requires real world inputs. like you can determine the general trajectory of an falling object, but to find the actual path you have to measure the starting height.
>>2117881>>2117849>>2117734>>2117738>>2117833You have so much reading to catch up on because you ignore that the means of production are socialized under communism so labor is the only exogenous variable that must be accounted for. Money is also not real. No amount of dollars will magically turn into cars, houses or food if no labor is performed. You also ignore the role of the state as the overlord of coercion to get things done. Communism is not some mythical happy commune of liberals. It is the concentration of power to realize our objectives (personal and public). If people had utmost discipline and care for others, the economy would look completely different, money would serve simply as a apportionment mechanism (if used at all).
You are correct that the market does SNLT calculations. But Communism goes beyond that since those market SNLT calculations are very localized while a state planning machine can figure out what is the best use of resources as it sees all resources and possibilities. You also don't understand how the soviet economy really functioned, and if you did you would say how they didn't have enough socialism (especially after liberman reforms).
>academics wannabes speculating about how communism is going to be managedA task that should be left to the association of producers when it happens and it's pointless at best if done before that.
>>2117937Economics students might be the dumbest demographic of people on earth. There's no other group of retards so incapable of supporting the most basic premises of their beliefs, even religious people can respond to their ideological ramblings being challenged more coherently. Economics has long ceased to be a science since the time of Ricardo.
Honestly OP, it is beyond incredibly how you claim problems to exist in a book you post the cover off when in fact the very things you list the book as saying are the exact opposite of what the book actually states. For example:
>The first is that if the state sets prices for acquiring products based on supposedly objective costs, this can again cause prices not to adjust to scarcity,
>Demand, although it would be democratically determined by the people, generating real demand data, there being again no dynamic price system,
The book you posted explicitly calls for a scarcity based, dynamic price system.
How about this op: go to your cleaning closet, and down the nearest bottle of bleach.
Alternatively, stop being the worst person on this website, READ THE SHIT YOU'RE CRITICISING BECAUSE THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE BOOK YOU TRY TO DUNK ON IS PRECISELY TO ADDRESS THE VERY ISSUES INHERENT TO EARLY SOVIET PLANNING YOU LISTED, then come back later and ask some actual good questions.
>>2117473Here is what I wrote several years ago, I can't believe that after 7 years of this book being promoted on this forum faggots like OP just continue to act like a twitch streamer and criticising a book without reading it. What you object to is explained in the book.
>But what if price (which the government sets) isn't the same as the labour (which the government calculates)Inane statement. Furthermore if you think your objection holds any water, you can prove your point by providing just a single example.
>>2118587Calculation complexity is literally the calculation problem as formulated by mises and hayek.
Maybe the communist movement wouldn't be down in the dirt if snot eating cunts like you and op actually read up on the opinions you hold and the opinions you criticise
>>2118588unclear to me how you raise prices in advance without first knowing what the demand will be
how do you know what the demand is before you sell a product, thus getting the information on how to price it?
>>2118595I recon trying to work a single day in retail would solve your complete alienation from reality:
>Have 100 liters ofnice cream to sell>Unusually hot day>Already be through 80 liters by lunch>Raise priceIt's not that hard. In the end the goal is simply to react if supplies run lower or higher than expected to prevent empty shelves or unsold produce. It doesn't need to be decided in advance. And markets aren't clairvoyant either, they also just respond passively or by the input of speculators who use their experience in the field to make a judgement call.
>>2118601but wait, in your example you already sold 80 units of ice cream for 5 labor vouchers each, so if you raise price to 8 at 80 sold, technically you raised prices from 5 vouchers to 5.6 vouchers
so do you use 5.6 as the effective price by which to adjust production, or do you retroactively apply the 8 as the signal
and what if you sell 80 units of ice cream, raise prices, and then nobody buys ice cream for the rest of the day? does that still count?
what if you raise prices, but there's exactly 20 people who wanted an ice cream each, but only had 5 vouchers, and now they can't afford the ice cream, and suffer a heat stroke?
and why is it desirable to discourage people from buying ice cream just because there's a shortage of it? isn't that one of the main criticism of markets: that they allocate resources towards those who least need them, simply because they can afford it?
"unfortunately you can't have ice cream if you only have 5 labor vouchers, even if you're having a heat stroke, because we need to use you as a data point to plan the economy 🤓"
how about you fuck off?
>And markets aren't clairvoyant eitherwell they also don't make any pretensions of being rationally planned either, so you can't fault them for something they aren't trying to do
>>2118621>so do you use 5.6 as the effective price by which to adjust production,Yes. Because logically if you switch prices half way and then manage not to run out or have left over, logically if the price had been 5.4 it would more or less give the same results. But this discrepancy is merely one simply signal to use in adjusting production, inelastic prices and elastic ones would respond differently but how elastic prices are is basically unknowanle, at most you can make a good guess. In the end the point is that you have a simple indicator about which product are short and which are too much, and the severity of that discrepancy, just like how profitability performs the same heuristic in a market.
>and why is it desirable to discourage people from buying ice cream just because there's a shortage of it? isn't that one of the main criticism of markets: that they allocate resources towards those who least need them, simply because they can afford it?Because the Soviet system had issues of under and over supply and no simple way to fix it. In the inverse example, you price things down because unsold food is wasted food. In the opposite, you price things up so that those who simply were first in line because of location or luck get products while those needing them more and being willing to pay more for it don't get it. This system in the book specifically, which op simply didn't read then then states that exact issue as if the book isn't about solving it specifically, addressed this issue. Leveling of real wages through the socialist economy in addition to welfare measures should ensure there is a much less problem if income based deprival of these non essential luxery goods. Because keep in mind, this is for the consumer market deemed not essential enough to be a priority to allocate for free like houses, food water or medical aid.
>well they also don't make any pretensions of being rationally planned either, so you can't fault them for something they aren't trying to doThey do. The whole defense of markets in opposition to a planned system is based on the claim that the market provides optimal outcomes for society and leads to a rational result.
If you deny that markets lead to any form of rational outcome, which would mean it just produces nonsense outcomes at random, then by definition any planned system is better than it. But markets do have a logic that lead to an equalibrium, denying this is in Marxist. And because the purpose of a system is that which it does, a market equalibriumn outcome is the rational result which you seek to realise by defending a market system.
>>2118631Not the point of op.
Questioning the validity of outcomes by enforcing the law of value as desirable is different from other retards in this thread who just claim systems they name are the exact opposite of what they actually are, or deny that their positions are just those of Hayek and mises
>>2118634Forgot to add:
Which i agree with you on. Blindly mimicking optimal market outcomes isn't founded on anything other than the following rational:
>The Soviet planning system did worse in the consumer market than a real market, almost everyone agrees, so it we just mimick market outcomes, at least it will be equal I'm performance to a market, and then when shit is running ok we can see if we want different outcomes and how to achieve them >>2118631>how am I owning the fruits of my labor in this arrangement?1. Direct control over the day to day operations of your workplace. Decisions and management carried out collectively.
2. The state is not dominated by interests which are directly hostile to your own, and which work constantly to squeeze as much surplus out of you as possible. Even the worst bureaucrat doesn't have a vested interest in making sure you're as poor as possible.
3. All basic needs guaranteed, total economic security and reliable access to employment, housing, healthcare, education, pensions, and vacation.
>>2118681And what is the guarantor of these priveleges?
A pinky promise?
>>2118601Exactly, something as simple as that is not wanted by the fans of planning rigidity. How the hell will the planners fix the prices of the whole economy just by estimating the time of work?!
>>2118621The problem is that you would not raise the "prices", the planners would, and when the information arrives it is too late and scarcity will have been generated
Nobody is saying that the markets are perfect, no, they are fucking imperfect, but they are more efficient, and the Chinese have known this for a long time, any possible planning has to be done with a market, and regulated, plus a self-managed socialism, you do not need to do something as cumbersome as the Cybcom, at least in this historical phase.
In macroeconomics planning is very useful, but in microeconomics it becomes complicated
>>2119699>>2119706>>2119718honestly anon you basically seem to be ignoring all good faith critiques here and just spamming the same shit over and over when multiple anons have corrected you.
Please actually read the book you posted before spamming your shit over and over that way we can have a productive conversation instead of you samefagging and bumping your own thread 999 times. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish here.
You keep saying that you are "skeptical" and that planning is "rigid" but you never really provide any specifics? What exactly is your understanding of how markets or capitalism work? is it just unknowable? How can you compare planning and markets unless you have a model of both? Otherwise you are just insisting that markets are like God, they work in mysterious ways.
>>2119718>Nobody is saying that the markets are perfect, no, they are fucking imperfect, but they are more efficient, and the Chinese have known this for a long time, any possible planning has to be done with a market, and regulated, plus a self-managed socialism, you do not need to do something as cumbersome as the Cybcom, at least in this historical phase.I love how you just make things up. There also was nothing inherently wrong with the way the Soviets planned their economy but problem was that they didn't capitalize on the things it's economy was good at like for example instead giving every citizens a car they should have focussed completely on public transport. To an extent they did, public transport was pretty good but still. Soviets had all the tools to rebuild society from the ground up new which also included social engineering and they didn't. Instead they simply wanted to increase commodity production following in the footsteps of mixed-market economies which in hindsight was completely retarded.
>>2119699>what I am saying is that setting prices based on the TLV can be inefficient,Nobody proposes doing this
>>2119706>The thing is, my dear red-headed fanatic, I am skeptical that this formula can effectively calculate scarcity, as it is too rigid compared to the market. It does exactly the same thing as the market. An interplay between buyers weighing options and sellers acting on scarcity.
>>2119718>Exactly, something as simple as that is not wanted by the fans of planning rigidity. How the hell will the planners fix the prices of the whole economy just by estimating the time of work?!This is literally the proposal from the book. I am describing a planned system as proposed by TANS
>>2119718>The problem is that you would not raise prices, the planners wouldNo, you absolute glue sniffing cunt. Go. Read. The. Fucking. Book. You. Pretend. To. Have. Read.
Or alternatively go do your chores because you are clearly 13.
>>2119699>inefficientin what sense? why is efficiency important?
>>2117433>problems as Soviet planningwhat problems? when specifically?
I dont think its a problem to have shortages if the democratic decision is to invest surplus in the increase of means of production elsewhere. The whole point is to achieve post scarcity, if you can get there faster by not making enough coca cola for everyone thats fine.
>the state sets pricesliterally no one suggests this. C&C propose that prices for final goods be set by shops, using labour values as a guide. there are many other ways
>this can again cause prices not to adjust to scarcitywhy should they?
>prices are information mechanismsthey're actually the opposite. prices destroy information
>there could be shortagesprices don't solve shortages. you can't eat money
>If a critical resource like lithium for batteries becomes scarcer, the time-based target cost or supposed objective costs may fail to set the priceyou seem to think prices have anything to do with the use of intermediate goods in planning. they don't. prices are only relevant for final goods, where we can use any number of techniques to regulate demand
>muh innovation>muh investment>muh AIthe funny thing about your entire post is that it attempts to make a cybernetic argument. but because you don't know wtf you're talking about, it's just bad. the fact that you mention democratic planning in kind, not realizing this is what /cybercom/ is all about, is even more revealing
>>2117473>You cannot base the entire price on labor, because it ignores the cost of inputswhat the fuck else cost is there but labour? raw materials have no intrinsic value. read Marx you absolute theorylet
>>2119718>How the hell will the planners fix the prices of the whole economy just by estimating the time of work?!The cybercoms operate in a probabilistic framework from what I gather which is a positive critique to Marx's economic doctrine. Instead of thinking that prices orbit values (expressed in socially necessary labor-time yadda yadda) and that they're somehow a function of value. probabilistic political economy treats prices as random variables and uses (relatively simple) stastical methods to obtain working models of capitalist economy
and whose theoretical models were proven correct by empirical observation. yakovenko's work is pretty accessible in this regard, if you want more classical scientific rigour.
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