Re: Re: Re: summary of calculationdebate

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bill Rosenberg wrote:

> Two things strike me: changes in the economy, and practicalities.
>
> Changes in the economy: how does a centrally planned system introduce/allow to
> be introduced innovative industries? Innovation tends to be high risk - can't be
> sure about inputs until some experience is accumulated; and can't be sure of
> people buying the product. It would seem likely that a planned economy would
> find it difficult to not only accomodate but encourage such behaviour.

Back around 1945 I came across a little anecdote in the Reader's Digest that has
stuck with me. The writer spoke of an uncle who, watching her prepare her cold
cereal to eat, told her she should put the sugar on first so the milk would rinse it
down through the cereal. So for several decades she religiously first sprinkled the
sugar and then poured the milk to rinse the sugar down through the cereal. Then one
morning it struck her: But I don't *want* to rinse the sugar down through the
cereal.

It is simply inconceivable that (given present world conditions -- or conditions
forseeable for the next century or so) -- a society in control of itself would do
anything other than deliberately not only slow down but actively forbid anything
like innovative industries. As much as I disagree with those who want to make
ecology the cutting edge of socialist agitation, it seems obvious to me that there
has been entirely too much innovation and the very survival of humanity depends on
stopping it. The serious struggle will consist in trying to eliminate many of the
innovations of the last century. For example, we will have to figure out some way to
eliminate the automobile *at once*, and without waiting for the creation of
alternative modes of transportation. It will take a generation or two to build such
new forms (or to expand old non-destructive forms) -- and we can't wait that long.
So social arrangements will have to substitute for technology during that period. A
market (that is, a market that met *any* of the criteria I have seen for a useful
market) would be a disaster in that struggle. Since, as everyone admits, we will
have markets of various kinds willy-nilly for quite a while after any socialist
transformation, the real problem will be how to frustrate those markets, how to make
them as inefficient as possible so they will not interfere with the tasks of human
survival.

Carrol