Re: Participatory Planning

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 4 Mar 1994, Jim Devine wrote:

> Specific to Allin's comments: Karl Marx  had  a  strong critique of
> the idea of "labor tokens" (as proposed by Proudhon, I believe).
> For Marx, the value created  by labor could not be determined
> ex ante, since it depends on such things as the demand for the
> product of labor.  I won't extend my summary.  I'm simply asking:
> have  you taken Marx's critique  into account?

The short answer is yes, we have taken Marx's critique into account.
A discussion of Marx's critique of Proudhon (as well as Engels's
closely related critique of Rodbertus) is to be found in
"Calculation, complexity and planning" by Paul Cockshott and myself,
which is available from my sub-directory at Colorado (as soccalc.ps).
We attempt to distinguish what Marx and Engels were criticizing in
P. and R. respectively, from Marx's advocacy of a labor-token system
in the Critique of the Gotha Programme.

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