Re: Computers and socialism

[dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx (Doug Henwood)]

At 8:23 PM 1/18/96, Paul Cockshott wrote [responding to me on prices as
signals]:

>It remains to be shown that price changes are necessary for this.
>An alternative would be for all goods to be distributed in exchange
>for labour tokens as per Marx, and then use variations in stock
>levels to as input data to the planning system.
>
>Attempts that I have made to construct micro-realist models of the
>operations of wholesale markets indicated to me that the models
>were highly unstable if they adjusted by means of prices rather
>than rate of change of stocks. It is thus an open question as
>to how important price changes actually are in this sort of
>adjustment.
>
>But, even if we allow for the sake of charity to the neo-classicals
>that price changes are needed, the same informational function
>can be served by premiums and discounts on a marked labour value.
>Money and prices are not needed.

I certainly have no problem with this; the point I was trying to make is
that a socialist economy would need some way of making things known to the
planners. Every time I hear about the valuable signalling mechanisms of
price I think of the course of oil prices over the last 20 years - what
economic purpose has been served by those wild gyrations? The boom of the
late 70s led to all kinds of speculative developments that led to the bust
of the mid-1980s. A rational society would, of course, be planning for a
post-oil future, not merely because supplies are finite (though we've got
at least 50 years of the stuff left), but because if we burn it all we will
kill ourselves.

Doug

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