computers and socialism

[ROSSERJB@xxxxxxx]

     1)  Although computers can supply useful inputs
to capital investment decisions, crucial details,
where? how much? what technology? are likely to be made
by some human being or beings out of a set of alternatives.
That computers may reduce the levels of "middle management"
in any kind of economic system is quite likely and has
already happened in market capitalism.
     2)  It is not just the size of the matrix, but the
composition.  Their is a hierarchy of classification of
goods with in market economies markets operating at various
levels.  Thus there are markets for cars and for each of the
parts that make up cars.  Will the matrix track "cars" or
all the parts of cars?  This is a non-trivial issue.  Computerized
planning in the USSR got quite far, but it never achieved the
level of specificity or detail consistent with where actual
planning took place.  Given used parts markets, simply aggregating
from the parts to the whole won't suffice.
     3)  Related to the above but distinct, and mentioned by others,
what if some people don't go along?  They will develop black markets.
Labor chits will serve as money or there will be barter.  Will this
be outlawed?  (In the USSR they had the death penalty for "economic
crimes."  Is this reasonable?)  If it happens, as it surely will, will
the plan incorporate the signals coming from the black market in the
form of the deviation of black market prices from planned prices?
Barkley Rosser
Dept. of Economics
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807 USA


     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

     ------------------