Re: Rosser, computers and socialism

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 19 Jan 1996 ROSSERJB@xxxxxxx wrote:

>      I already noted that computers can be and are used
> for supplying input to investment decisions.  But nobody
> is going to let a computer make the final decision on a
> capital investment decision.  This is what is the goal
> of the Cockshott-Cottrill automated planning system.  The
> computer should be able to do the whole thing, once properly
> set up and hooked into the right data input systems.

Louis: Cockshott and Cottrill have their own ideas worked out on a number
of issues. I am not a professional economist and I don't intend to try to
come up with a comprehensive model as they do. Frankly, the level of
detail contained in the discussion around these sorts of questions are
the business of a forum like PEN-L and that is why I am not there any longer.

I have no intention of trying to write the sort of book that they did. My
interest is not so much in recommending a model for a future socialism,
although, as far as models go, I think their's is infinitely more
sensible than the sort of thing being promoted by Schweickart, Roemer et al.

What I am interested in is looking at the history of IBM, Microsoft, and the
Internet and what this tells us about the capitalist state, innovation
and the possibilities for socialism. (I see Microsoft as a capitalist
paradigm and the Internet as its opposite.)

I am also interested in looking at how Allende's Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua
have used computing in their socialist experiments.

Finally, I want to explore the green/red dialectic and show how high
technology, including computers and networks, can begin to solve the
environmental crisis.

This is the sort of thing I am qualified to write about, not how
capital investment decisions are made, etc.


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