Re: Participatory Planning

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To Barkley Rosser:

> 1)  What if (and I think this was the case in USSR) the overstating
> of input requirements becomes general across all sectors?  An
> individual sector so overstating won't show up on your calculus.

Yes, you're right.  It's an interesting question, though, what
exactly it means for the whole economy to overstate its input
requirements.  Relative to other economies, I suppose?  At one
level, one might say that the workers in this economy are simply
opting for an easy life, and what's wrong with that?  As a gross
generalization, I would hazard the observation that people in the
UK generally choose to work less hard than those in the USA (i.e.
"overstate their input requirements" relative to the latter).  As
a result the material standard of living is lower, but some would
say that's a reasonable trade-off.  On the other hand, if the
"laziness" is an effect of a deadening culture of mediocrity, a
feeling that it's not worth bothering because one won't see any
result from putting more into one's work, that's clearly a
problem.  What do you think?

> 2)  What about "public goods"?  Do you measure consumer demand
> differently?

Ensuring efficiency in the production of public goods is of
course a problem in any economy, though it's likely to be of
larger scope in a planned economy with greater non-marketed
public provision.  True, the indicator I mentioned in my last
posting is not available.  I think the main thing is perhaps
to avoid monopoly so far as possible (cf. the Soviet tendency
to build giant enterprises as monopoly suppliers of all sorts
of goods).  With multiple sources, it's going to be easier to
get a reading on where the PPF might be, to recognize best-
practice methods and encourage their generalization.

Here's one prospect that appeals to me.  We all know how
people like to mess about with computer lists, to offer
each other software tips and tricks and the like.  Now
what if commercial secrecy were abolished and
production managers, administrators et al. were to
get into this sort of thing too?  The market works to
some degree to enforce best practice (subject to many
qualifications), but often by driving the laggards out
of business.  Couldn't an "open" planning system produce
convergence on best practice via a more postive route?
"...we've just figured out a great new way of ensuring
spot weld quality.  You can ftp a copy of the source
code for our new robot driver and a postscript copy of
the manual from gm.production.com in /bus/welding..."

==========================
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University
cottrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(910) 759-5762
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