Many have put forth plans
for post-capitalist societies.
W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell's Towards a New Socialism
is interesting in that they consider issues of computational complexity. I also once read some work of their colleagues
Greg Michaelson and
Ian Wright.
Apparently, a flurry of recent research investigates whether or not improvements in computing technology refute the Austrian argument
against central planning.
I have read hardly anything in the following list:
The first is a distateful counting of the victims of capitalism in the twentieth century.
The second concludes that no-longer-actually-existing socialism was about as efficient
as western countries. The last argues that general prosperity first declined with
the introduction of capitalism.
Reactionaries often bring up the Economic Calculation Problem (ECP) as a fatal objection
to socialism, considered as entailing central planning. Ludwig Von Mises put this forth in 1920 as an argument in principle
that central planning is guaranteed to be highly inefficient. He postulates that the planning authority knows
the prices of consumer goods and all technical possibilities, including the endowments of originary factors of production.
But without prices of intermediate goods, the planning authority cannot make rational decisions about how to produce
commodities. Like Enrico Barone,
Von Mises insists the planning authority must re-introduce prices for intermediate goods and a market for 'capital'.
Friedrich Hayek changed the question. He argued that efficient central planning was impractical, not impossible in principle.
For Hayek, prices bring about a coordination among entrepreneurs of their plans and expectations. Hayek raised the question
on how the planning authority could gather the data they need for their equations. He emphasized dispersed tacit knowledge
of time and space.
I emphasize that what the ECP is is disputable.
Also, it is inapplicable to the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism, council communists, and so on. Anyways, this post
poses some
problems with using the ECP as an objection to socialist central planning.
Magnitude of costs of failures of coordination. Neither Von Mises nor Hayek attempt to estimate the costs
of a failure of coordination. Since they say a capitalist economy will always be in a disequilibrium state,
capitalism will also suffer costs of discoordination at any point of time. How much more are the costs in a
centrally planned society, as opposed to a capitalist society? What is the empirical evidence that the ECP
was a major problem for the U.S.S.R?
Externalities. For economists of the Austrian school, the extent of the coordination of plans and expectations
of diverse agents is a criterion for welfare economics. This approach
contrasts
with the maintream marginalist criteria of Pareto and Hicks-Kaldor efficiency. The approach of the
Austrian school does not seem to me to adequately account for externalities, such as global warming.
To Von Mises' credit, he does bring up the destruction of the unpriced natural beauty of a waterfall in discussing
its use for power generation.
How do prices bring about coordination? To me, when Hayek describes economic coordination,
he is describing something like Hicks' model of temporary equibrium, as in Value and Capital,
or the Arrow-Debreu model of intertemporal equilibria, as in Debreu's Theory of Value.
Much research suggests such a coordinated state cannt be expected to be brought about by disequilibrium market processes.
(Issues exist in how my favorite model can describetrends in capitalist economies, particularly in accounting for
if joint production.)
Mises is mathematically mistaken. Suppose prices of commodities provided as components of final
demand, technical possibilies, and endowments of originary factors of production are given to the Ministry of Planning.
The level at which to operate each production process is found as the result of the solution to
an optimization problem.
One does not need prices of factors of production to solve the primal problem. Such prices emerge as the solution of
the dual problem. Von Mises' mistakes and dogmatism may have been useful in that they encouraged others to explore
one approach to price theory.
Mises and Hayek misunderstand capitalism. Anyways, most prices in a capitalist economy do not
communicate knowledge like Hayek describes. They do not continuously fluctuate under the influence of supply
and demand. Rather, prices of manufactured commodities are usually
full cost prices or
administrated prices,
set by firms. Variations in the level of output, inventories, and queues of orders are of some importance.
Socialist and coomunist parties have formed various internationals over the course of centuries.
I consider a
declaration of the Socialist International, adopted at its First Congress held in Frankfort-on-Main on 30 June-3 July 1951
an authoritative statement of "The Aims and Tasks of Democratic Socialism".
This declaration was re-affirmed in 1962.
The declaration starts as follows:
1. From the nineteenth century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces. It has done
so at the cost of excluding the great majority of citizens from influence over production. It put the rights
of ownership before the rights of man. It created a new class of wage-earners without property or social rights. It sharpened the struggle between the classes.
Although the world contains resources which could be made to provide a decent life for everyone, capitalism has been
incapable of satisfying the elementary needs of the world’s population. It proved unable to function without devastating
crises and mass unemployment. It produced social insecurity and glaring contrasts between rich and poor. It resorted to
imperialist expansion and colonial exploitation, thus making conflicts between nations and races more bitter. In some
countries powerful capitalist groups helped the barbarism of the past to raise its head again in the form of Fascism and Nazism.
2. Socialism was born in Europe as a movement of protest against the diseases inherent in capitalist society. Because the
wage-earners suffered most from capitalism, Socialism first developed as a movement of the wage-earners. Since
then more and more citizens — professional and clerical workers, farmers and fishermen, craftsmen and retailers,
artists and scientists — are coming to understand that Socialism appeals to all men who believe that the exploitation of man by man must be abolished.
3. Socialism aims to liberate the peoples from dependence on a minority which owns or controls the means of production.
It aims to put economic power in the hands of the people as a whole, and to create a community in which free men work together as equals.
4. Socialism has become a major force in world affairs. It has passed from propaganda into practice. In some countries the
foundations of a Socialist society have already been laid. Here the evils of capitalism are disappearing and the community
has developed new vigour. The principles of Socialism are proving their worth in action.
5. In many countries uncontrolled capitalism is giving place to an economy in which state intervention and
collective ownership limit the scope of private capitalists. More people are coming to recognise the need for
planning. Social security, free trade unionism and industrial democracy are winning ground. This development is largely a
result of long years of struggle by Socialists and trade unionists. Wherever Socialism is strong, important steps have been
taken towards the creation of a new social order.
6. In recent years the peoples in the underdeveloped areas of the world have been finding Socialism a valuable
aid in the struggle for national freedom and higher standards of life. Here different forms of democratic Socialism
are evolving under the pressure of different circumstances. The main enemies of Socialism in these areas are parasitical
exploitation by indigenous financial oligarchies and colonial exploitation by foreign capitalists. The Socialists fight for
political and economic democracy, they seek to raise the standard of living for the masses through land reform and industrialisation,
the extension of public ownership and the development of producers' and consumers' cooperatives.
7. Meanwhile, as Socialism advances throughout the world, new forces have arisen to threaten the movement towards
freedom and social justice. Since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Communism has split the International Labour
Movement and has set back the realisation of Socialism in many countries for decades.
8. Communism falsely claims a share in the Socialist tradition. In fact it has distorted that tradition beyond
recognition. It has built up a rigid theology which is incompatible with the critical spirit of Marxism.
9. Where Socialists aim to achieve freedom and justice by removing the exploitation which divides men under capitalism,
Communists seek to sharpen those class divisions only in order to establish the dictatorship of a single party.
10. International Communism is the instrument of a new imperialism. Wherever it has achieved power it has destroyed
freedom or the chance of gaining freedom. It is based on a militarist bureaucracy and a terrorist police. By producing
glaring contrasts of wealth and privilege it has created a new class society. Forced labour plays an important part in its economic organisation.
11. Socialism is an international movement which does not demand a rigid uniformity of approach. Whether Socialists
build their faith on Marxist or other methods of analysing society, whether they are inspired by religious or humanitarian principles, they all
strive for the same goal — a system of social justice, better living, freedom and world peace.
12. The progress of science and technical skill has given man increased power either to improve his lot or to destroy himself. For
this reason production cannot be left to the play of economic liberalism but must be planned systematically for human needs. Such
planning must respect the rights of the individual personality. Socialism stands for freedom and planning in both national and international affairs.
13. The achievement of Socialism is not inevitable. It demands a personal contribution from all its followers. Unlike the
totalitarian way it does not impose on the people a passive role. On the contrary, it cannot succeed without thorough-going and active
participation by the people. It is democracy in its highest form.
Further sections of the declaration discuss the goals of political democracy, economic democracy, social democracy and cultural progress,
and international democracy. I find non-dogmatic the section on economic democracy:
1. Socialism seeks to replace capitalism by a system in which the public interest takes precedence over the interest of private profit.
The immediate economic aims of Socialist policy are full employment, higher production, a rising standard of life, social security and a
fair distribution of incomes and property.
2. In order to achieve these ends production must be planned in the interest of the people as a whole.
Such planning is incompatible with the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few. It requires effective democratic control of the economy.
Democratic Socialism therefore stands in sharp contradiction both to capitalist planning and to every form of totalitarian planning;
these exclude public control of production and a fair distribution of its results.
3. Socialist planning can be achieved by various means. The structure of the country concerned must decide the extent of public
ownership and the forms of planning to apply.
4. Public ownership can take the form of the nationalisation of existing private concerns, municipal or regional enterprise, consumers' or producers' cooperatives.
These various forms of public ownership should be regarded not as ends in themselves but as means of controlling basic industrie
and services on which the economic life and welfare of the community depend, of rationalising inefficient industries or of
preventing private monopolies and cartels from exploiting the public.
5. Socialist planning does not presuppose public ownership of all the means of production. It is compatible with the existence
of private ownership in important fields, for instance in agriculture, handicraft, retail trade and small and middle-sized industries.
The state must prevent private owners from abusing their powers. It can and should assist them to contribute towards increased
production and well-being within the framework of a planned economy.
6. Trade unions and organisations of producers and consumers are necessary elements in a democratic society; they
should never be allowed to degenerate into the tools of a central bureaucracy or into a rigid corporative system. Such
economic organisations should participate in shaping general economic policy without usurping the constitutional prerogatives of parliament.
7. Socialist planning does not mean that all economic decisions are placed in the hands of the Government or central authorities.
Economic power should be decentralised wherever this is compatible with the aims of planning.
8. All citizens should prevent the development of bureaucracy in public and private industry by taking part in the process of
production through their organisations or by individual initiative. The workers must be associated democratically with the direction of their industry.
9. Democratic Socialism aims at extending individual freedom on the basis of economic and social security and an increasing prosperity.
A lot of work is still required to fulfill these aims. I do not know how compatible detailed proposals
some have put forth are with these aims.
'Keynesian Spaceman', in comments, informs me I was once brought up in a dispute on a discord server associated with some Austrian economists.
Some arguments about the CCC have emerged on subreddits over the years.
Shattering 'Market Theory', an old post on Daily Kos, reporting a discussion on a private email list of one of my numeric examples. (I have mentioned this before.)
The Start Of This Video Is An Anecdote About George Dantzig
1.0 Introduction
Ludwig Von Mises popularized the Socialist Calculation Problem
and brought it to wider attention.
(This problem is also known as the Economic Calculation Problem.)
In Von Mises' 1920 paper, he argues rational economic planning is impossible without market prices for capital goods and unproduced resources.
Thus, anybody advocating socialism is advocating a system that cannot obtain a high material standard of living.
In this post, I want to offer a simple solution to Von Mises' statement of the problem.
2.0 Informal Statement of the Problem
Von Mises thinks that socialism must imply central planning. He assumes that markets for consumer goods exist.
Households are given tokens with which they can use to purchase consumer goods, including from one another. He describes
a process that will eventually result in equilibrium on markets for consumer goods. The planning authority
can use these prices in their planning.
But markets do not exist for capital goods, for goods of higher order in the jargon of the Austrian school.
Von Mises asserts that without prices on such markets, the planning authority cannot engage in rational economic accounting.
It is an impossibility argument based on economic theory.
Many have provided models of socialism, including with full awareness of the SCP.
Oskar Lange had the most well-known answer. Both Von Mises and Lange based themselves on marginalist equilibrium theory.
Price ... may have the generalized meaning of 'terms on which alternatives are offered.' ...It is only prices in the
generalized sense which are indispensable to solving the problem of allocation of resources. The economic problem
is a problem of choice among alternatives. To solve the problem three data are needed: (1) a preference scale
which guides the act of choice; (2) knowledge of the 'terms on which alternatives are offered'; and (3) knowledge of the
amount of resources available. These three data being given, the problem of choice is soluble.
Now it is obvious that a socialist economy may regard the data under 1 and 3 as given, in at least as great a degree as they
are given in a capitalist economy. The data under 1 may be given by the demand schedules of the individuals or be judged
by the authorities administering the economic system. The question remains whether the data under 2 are accessible to
the administrators of a socialist economy. Professor Mises denies this. However, a careful study of price theory and of
the theory of production convinces us that, the data under 1 and 3 being given, the 'terms on which alternatives
are offered' are determined ultimately by the technical possibilities of transformation of one commodity into another, i.e.,
by the production functions. The administrators of a socialist economy will have exactly the same knowledge, or lack
of knowledge, of the production functions as the capitalist entrepreneurs have. -- Oskar Lange
In this post, I, too, base myself on marginalist theory, but on a Linear Programming formulation. In demonstrating
Von Mises mistaken, I put aside that he, like marginalists everywhere, does not have a price theory that applies to
actually-existing capitalist economies.
Table 1: Parameters and Variables
Symbol
Variable or Parameter
Definition
k
Parameter
The number of consumer goods, also known as the number of goods for final demand.
m
Parameter
The number of activities or processes.
n
Parameter
The number of resources.
p
Parameter
A k-element row vector of prices of consumer goods.
x
Parameter
A n-element column vector of the available quantities of resources.
A
Parameter
n x m matrix. A column of A represents the resources used up by an activity, that is, a production process.
B
Parameter
A k x m matrix. A column of B represents the final goods produced by that activity.
q
Variable
A m-element column vector of levels of operations of the processes.
w
Variable
A n-element column vector of resource prices.
3.0 A Linear Programming Solution
I now turn to a formal statement and solution of the problem. I assume that the central planner knows the parameters listed in Table 1.
The planner's task is to set the values of the elements of the vector q. It is not required to operate all processes. Some elements of q
can be set to zero. Likewise, not all resources must be fully used. Some resources may be left in excess supply. But the planner cannot use
more of a resource than exists.
An important requirement of the
problem is that the planner does not know w. Resources that are inputs to production do not have prices.
So the planner must choose q to maximize:
pBq
such that:
Aq ≤ x
x ≥ 0
The above is a Linear Program. It has a dual program. This is where shadow prices come in.
The dual problem is to
choose w to minimize:
xTw
such that:
ATw ≥ BTpT
w ≥ 0
The value of the objective functions are equal for solutions of the primal and dual problems. Thus the solution of the
primal, which does not require knowledge of resource prices, assigns prices to those resources. Von Mises did not understand duality theory.
Some theorems draw more connections between the solutions to the primal and dual problems.
Suppose that a constraint in the primal problem is met with an inequality in the solution. Some resource is not fully used. Then its
price in the solution to the dual is zero. And, contrawise, suppose a constraint in the dual is met with an inequality in its solution.
The cost of running a process with the chosen prices exceeds the value of the goods produced by that process.
Then that process will not be operated in the solution to the primal.
How is this marginalism? This is certainly an example of the choice of the allocation of scarce resources among alternatives.
Consider the impact on the solution of an incremental increase in the quantity of a specified resource. This increase introduces
slack in the corresponding constraint in the primal. The value of the objective function is increased.
The shadow price of that resource, if I recall correctly, is the value of the marginal product of the resource.
This math relates to an intervention in economics by Von Neumann and to Leontief's input-output analysis. The simplex algorithm is widely
used to solve the above problems. Koopmans and Kantorovich shared the economics pseudo Nobel prize for Linear Programming.
Leontief received a stand-alone pseudo Nobel.
4.0 Caveats
The above answers the problem, as stated by Von Mises (1920). Von Mises did not understand duality theory.
I can think of some difficulties to the above formulation of the problem. How would one accomodate
economic growth? Can final demand include commodities not destined for consumption, and, if so,
where would their prices come from? I suppose the planner could include such commodities, based
on last mix of inputs last year in the industries that one wants to increase the output of. And their prices
could then be last year's shadow prices. This approach leans toward input-output analysis, a better
approach than the marginalist approach of Von Mises.
Another question is where do the consumers get their money-like tokens with which they purchase
consumer goods? Are these labor vouchers? Some sort of income paid out of the total surplus
regardless of contributions? Von Mises allows for a range of institutions for compensating
various types of labor. Total equality need not be enforced.
Oskar Lange felt he had to go further than state the equations that must be solved.
He had the planning authority simulating a tatonnement process, a trial and error solution.
The managers of factories are instructed to treat the 'prices' issued by the central planner
as given parameters. Lange, like others of his time, did not understand the difficulties
in modeling capitalist markets by a static general equilibrium model.
Lange proposed a trial and error solution partly because he was responding to Robbins:
"On paper we can conceive the problem to be solved by a series of mathematical calculations...
But in practice this solution is quite unworkable. It would necessitate the drawing up of millions
of equations on the basis of millions of statistical data based on many more of millions of
individual computations. By the time the equations were solved, the information on which they were
based would have become obsolete and they would need to be calculated anew. The suggestion that a
practical solution of the problem on planning is possible on the basis of the Paretian equations
simply indicates that those who put it forward have not grasped what those equations mean." -- Lionel Robbins, as quoted by Lange (1938)
The analysis of the SCP nowdays should draw on the theory of computational complexity. One
can count the computations that must be done to solve the problem. Presumably the matrices
in the formulation of the problem are sparse. Cottrell and Cockshott are the authors I
look to for these questions. I see the 2008 Gödel prize was
awarded for work on
the simplex method beyond me.
Von Mises does not consider the time or computational complexity for solving the equations. He says no
calculations are possible. Likewise, Von Mises' objections are not about the difficulties of the central planner acquiring the data on prices
for consumer goods, technological possibilities in physical units (in natura), or the difficulties in articulating dispersed tacit knowledge.
These difficulties are later stated by Hayek when he and others changed the objection to an argument about the practicality, not possibility, of
rational economic accounting under socialism. Along with this change in the statement of the problem, the Austrian school began to differentiate themselves
from other marginalists. Von Mises attempted to pose the problem on a common ground shared by all marginalist economists.
References
Allin Cottrell and W. Paul Cockshott. 1993. Calculation, Complexity and Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Once Again. Review of Political Economy 5: 73-112.
Allin Cottrell and W. Paul Cockshott. 2007. Against Hayek. MPRA Working Paper No. 6062.
Karras J. Lambert and Tate Fegley. 2023. Economic calculation in light of advances in big data and artificial intelligeence. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 206: 243-250.
Tiago Camarinha Lopes. 2021. Technical or political? The socialist economic calculation debate. Cambridge Journal of Economics 45(4): 787-810.
Ludwig Von Mises. 1920. Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth. (Trans. and reprinted in Collectivist Economic Planning (ed. by F. A. Hayek). Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1935).
Luigi L. Pasinetti. 1977. Lectures on the Theory of Production. Columbia University Press.
On Another Topic, with an Appearance by Rutger Bregman.
This post does not answer the question, but merely provides a bibliography. I have not read everything below.
I suppose this is something of a hodge podge. I include a book from Peter Kropotkin, even though it is much
older than the remaining non-fiction works, since I am currently one third, maybe, through it.
Novels (Ken Macleod, in The Cassini Division has a more complete list as chapter titles.)
Edward Bellamy. 1888. Looking Backward.
Ursula K. Leguin. 1974 The Dispossessed.
William Morris. 1890. News from Nowhere.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 1915. Herland. Apparently this is one of a genre of feminist utopias.
Francis Spufford. 2010. Red Plenty.
Analyses and detailed proposals.
Michael Albert. 2003. Parecon: Life After Capitalism.
Rutger Bregman. 2017. Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income.
Gerald Cohen. 2009. Why Not Socialism?
Theodore Burczak. 2006. Socialism after Hayek.
Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell. 1993. Towards a New Socialism.
David Ellerman. 2021. Neo-Abolitionism: Abolishing Human Rentals in Favor of Workplace Democracy.
Geoffrey Hodgson. 2019. Is Socialism Feasible? Torwards an Alternative Future.
Bruno Jossa. 2020. Managing the Cooperative Enterprise: The Rise of Worker-Controlled Firms.
Janos Kornai. 1992. The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism.
Peter Kropotkin. 1892. The Conquest of Bread.
Guinevere Liberty Nell. 2010. Rediscovering Fire: Basic Economic Lessons from the Soviet Experiment to Eliminate the Market.
Alex Nove. 1983. The Economics of Feasible Socialism.
David Schweickart. 2002. After Capitalism.
Joseph Stiglitz. 1996. Whither Socialism.
Philippe Van Parijs. 2019. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy.
There is no scarcity of informed ideas on how a better society might function.
The strongest argument against socialism, understood as entailing central planning, comes
from Enrico Barone.
Von Mises popularized this argument. Maybe he was subjectively original. I think von Mises did not have
a good understanding of duality theory and shadow prices. Anyways, his argument is supposed to be
an argument in principle, an impossibility argument. Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, and Fred Taylor, for example,
provided answers. Hayek proposed a revision emphasizing practicality and distributed tacit knowledge.
The argument still needs to be remade, since marginalist price theory has been shown half a century ago to be, at best, wrong.
But socialists need to have no opinion on the possibility of central economic planning in a democracy. One can advocate
a plethora of policies and institutions in the here and now which give the vast majority of the population more
control over their lives, more participation in their society, and more opportunities to develop their potentials. Achieving these goals requires a much less extreme inequality in the
distribution of income and wealth.
Some examples of policies and institutions are:
Co-determination. Corporate charters are a creature of the state, often Delaware in the United States. Laws can mandate workers have representatives on the board of directors and other goverance practices be put in place.
Government ownership, at various levels, of utilities, railrods, port facilities, telecommunications infrastructure and so, keeping in mind the principle of subsidiarity.
Extensive re-creation of infrastructure and industry to diminish the threat of global warming.
The support for loans or subsidies for the formation of co-operatives.
Simplifing the organization of labor unions. Card check is a current possibility in the United States. (Is Labor Notes a worthwhile site?)
Legalizing union contracts in which a contract clause mandates that all workers at certain tiers in an unionized firm pay union dues. (The prohibition of such contracts is dishonestly called 'the right to work'.)
More generous funding on education, basic research, and so.
A generous social safety net
Universal health care, disconnected from employment.
Higher taxes on the wealthy, especially on property income.
I have banged onlikethisbefore. I think for all of the above to be possible in the United States
necessitates a much different political climate than currently prevailing. When such a country is achieved
is time enough to argue about (other) varieties of socialism.
This post draws attention to the existence of a vast web of existing organizations that, perhaps, operate partly outside and partly inside a capitalist logic.
These standards organizations define technologies vital to keeping our society running. I think I would find it interesting
for some scholar interested in council communism or syndicalism to look into these. The examples I list are perhaps
idiosyncratic, out-of-date, and reflect my personal history with computing.
Here is a list of some of the organizations I have in mind:
American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
International Standards Organization (ISO)
International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)
The IEEE is a professional organization that provides an umbrella for a wide range of specialized societies. They publish academic journals, organize conferences, define certain certification programs, and have a professional code of ethics. IEEE-STD-754 is an example of a standard I am often conscious of. It defines how floating point numbers are stored in your computer, where floating point numbers are a finitary representation, in some sense, of real numbers.
This standard was developed and is maintained by a committee of academics, representatives of companies, etc. under the auspices of the IEEE. The original standard and each update is circulated for comment and for voting by the wider membership.
Sometime a standard is developed and maintained by such a committee under the auspices of a government agency. For example, consider the Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION), a delay-tolerant network (DTN), implementing an interplanetary internet. As I understand it, ION was developed by the Interplanetary Networking Special Interest Group, a committee set up by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and chaired by Vincent Cerf.
Sometimes a standard is replaced by another one. The Perry memo, issued under Bill Clinton, directed the Department of Defense to prefer commercial standards to their own military standards, where feasible. For example, MIL-STD-2167A was replaced by ISO/IEC 12207 Information Technology – Software life cycle processes. This standard describes documentation to be produced during software development lifecycles, such as design documentation, user manuals, and test plans.
Sometimes a single corporation develops a standard. For example, Java was developed by Sun, now by Oracle. As those who develop enterprise systems know, a vast set of tools are available for Java, including integrated development environments (IDEs), application servers, deployment tools such as Ant and Gradle, and even other languages that compile to execute on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Corporations have an interest in having their internal developments recognized by a standards body. I am not sure that this is a good example, but C was developed by Bell Labs before becoming ANSI C.
Sometimes, a standard is developed as a contest. (Dean Baker might find this of interest.) The Ada programming language (ANSI/MIL-STD-1815A) had four qualifiers for the first round: CII Honeywell Bull (green), Intermetrics (red), Softech (blue), and SRI International (yellow). Eventually, the U.S. Department of Defense decided "green is Ada". More recently, NIST developed the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with a contest.
The technical feasibility of a standard is sometimes in question, and a reference implementation is often developed alongside the standard. For some reason, I associate the term "reference model" with the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layered model for the Internet. A standards body might impose some control on who can claim to have implemented the standard. Ada was accompanied with, for example, test suites for verifying implementations.
Even in a society of hierarchical organizations, a need exists for people to cooperate across such organizations.
This is about Shove's review of The Socialist Tradition. Apparently Gray does
not take those important in the development of economic thought seriously.
Since Piero Sraffa is neither the recipient nor the sender, and the topic is not his work, maybe the editors of
his collected works should not include this.
8, Abbotsford Park,
Edinburgh. 10.
3rd November, 1946
Dear Shove,
(If the fact that we occupied adjacent seats on the occasion of one of my rare visits to the Annual Meeting of the Economic Society
justifies this assumption of familiarity) - I should like, if I may, to exchange friendly greetings on the excuse of your
review of my Socialist Tradition.
First of all I should like to say as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so in general a reviewee ought to open not his mouth.
Nevertheless, I would like to thank you for your kindness: I gather the perusal of my interminable book was not an unusually
burdensome task, and I am grateful to you for passing on to others an implied hint that they might do worse than read it, -- if they have time!
This should perhaps be the end of the letter; but even if the sheep should be dumb, perhaps I may classify myself as a
tender lamb, and in this capacity be allowed a few bleats by way of comment on your comments.
First of all, as to your main criticism, I agree and plead guilty. I am aware that my various chapters are too independent of each other: in
fact when I said something in the Preface to the effect that the chapters were reasonably self-contained, I said this
partly in self-criticism. For in a book like this, the chapters should not be too much independent of each other. I
can only plead that this springs partly from the way the book arose; and partly from my make-up and (may I say it?) modesty! It
does not require much insight to see that the book represents more or less lectures which I given to certain students
in alternate years for the last quarter of a century more or less, the dose of course varying somewhat each time. And
in these circumstances one tends to skip lightly from one mountain summit to the next. Also perhaps I am more interested
in people than in movements; and distrust my power to write that complete history in which all my characters would be
integrated with the history of their times. I am glad that you also have a regard for Paguet. I attended his lectures in 1904; and
I have always looked upon him as the supreme lecturer and expositor. But, looking back, I think that perhaps he also may
have been subject to the criticism you have passed on me. Also perhaps I may say, in the light of your observations, that
the title of the book is by no means what I wished to call it. Down to the Galley proof stage, I called
it Towards a History of Socialism, meaning thereby that is was a mere contribution to be supplemented
later by a better writer, or supplemented now by reference to other books dealing with other aspects and phases.
But the Publishers -- and who can resist the publishers -- told me that the title would just not do at all.
So I fished round for the second best: but I have always known it was only a second best.
So far we are in agreement! But there are two points on which I should like to utter a minor bleat -- not of protest,
God forbid, -- but of comparative innocence: or at least a mild suggestion that I am not as guilty of certain shortcomings
as you suggest. Even with the limitation imposed by my 'selective' method of treatment, it was obviously my duty to link up,
and consider the permanent legacy of my exhibits. I certainly intended doing so; and I thought I had! But obviously I
have not done it well enough. If I may illustrate what I mean: you mention Saint Simon. I certainly point out his
relation to Comte and to Carlyle; I point out his relation to all the big-business stuff and the idea of technocracy;
I underline his relation to what we still have, the desire to separate administration from politics; through the Saint-Simonians,
I indicate that he led by a short-cut to much of Marx. And I specifically refer to him as 'one of the great influences of the 19th century'.
Doubtless one could have said all these things at greater length in a book: but I am not sure that I could have done much more in a chapter of 30 pages.
Again at the top of p. 444, you say that I hardly bring out the extent to which Marx draws together the threads running
through the writings of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors. I use a different metaphor; but if you look at
p. 299, you will see that I am quite alive to the point. I say that he collected his bricks from many masons' yards, but used
them to construct a building to his own design; and thereafter, doubtless inadequately, I indicate in the next page and a half
a number of the sources from which he drew these bricks. And while on Marx, and the suggestion that my treatment of the M.C.H.
is an example of failure to ask whether there may not be a 'substratum of significant truth', I would in the mildest tone point
out that in summing up on Marx, I say that the most significant and enduring portion of Marx is contained in the Materialist Conception of History.
The other minor bleat I should like to utter is against myself and not you. I should be sorry if you
got the impression that I was not taking my subject seriously, -- indeed almost to the point of regarding the
whole socialist and anarchist tradition as a joke. God forgive me: apart from government activities which come and go,
this is the only thing I have taken seriously in the last 25 years! Nor would I poke fun at any of my sitters:
with very few exceptions, I love them too much. I would suggest, for instance, that I am just about the first person (in English at least) who
has given Proudhon a fair run for his money (I think Brogran is rather disappointing on Proudhon). In my youth he was
looked on as a dreadful person who said that God was evil; and he also said that if any one deserves to be in Hell, it is God.
I have almost made it possible for a Scots Elder to shake hands with him. Nor would I admit that my book is a Fool's Gallery: in
the earlier stages, a Gallery of Eccentrics, if you like: and therein lies their fascination. I may have failed ignominiously
at what I tried to do; but I had hoped that I was giving every one a fair run. Though I do not say so, my Preface is chiefly directed
towards Hearnshaw, for whom, if a man is called a Socialist, it is already sufficient proof that he is also a twirp and a twister and also a consummate fool. I certainly had no intention of compiling a record of folly. You will observe that in the Preface I say
that the Socialists are interesting, because, among other things, they are prophets. In the concluding Chapter (p. 506) I say
that 'much of what the socialists contended for forty years ago has passed into a fairly general acceptance in the minds of the population at large'. With this as my beginning and end, I do not think that I can quite fairly be regarded as in search of folly undiluted with wisdom.
You ask two specific questions.
(i) I have no doubt you are right about the date of the conversion of the Marx household. I shall look it up.
I see that I speak of a 'recent conversion' which is reprehensively vague. If I am not exactly trembling on the brink of a
Second Impression; I am at least on the brink of that point in the stage of exhaustion of the First Impression
when the Publisher asks for a complete list of all misprints etc with a view to a second impression (And there are a
Hell of a lot of French accents that have gone astray!) And if I can get it done I shall put this right.
(ii) On the St. Luke and St. Matthew point, I rely on the authentic text alone. It is obvious that Luke gives
an abridged version of what is in Matthew. The fuller text is, I should think, the more correct: and the abridgement,
whether intentionally or not does not greatly matter, has been made in such a way as to convert the spiritual
hunger into a physical hunger etc. I do not know what the theologians would say to it. Needless to say, in
this age, when we all get our ideas from others, I got this idea also from elsewhere. It was put into my head by Adler, Geschichte des Sozialismus.
I hope that you do not regard this as a querulous letter: it is not so intended. Meanwhile as a token
of appeasement and an emblem of good will, I enclose a copy of a book which I see I published 14 years ago.
You may understand the lengthy Introduction, if you do not understand the body of the Book. I send it
to you chiefly that you may see what I look like when I am in fact not taking my subject seriously.
Yours sincerely,
Alexander Gray
I do not know who Paquet
or [F. J. C.?] Hearnshaw are.
Anyways, The Socialist Tradition did undergo a second impression in 1947. Gray
does not like Marx and writes in a straightforward, non-Hegelian style. Topics covered
include Plato, the Old Testament, the New Testament, church fathers such as Thomas Aquinas,
and Thomas More and a couple other utopians. Gray writes about Rousseau some others who I
do not recognize. William Godwin, Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, Louis Blanc,
and Proudhon each get a separate chapter. (I finally have Iain McKay's collection of
Proudhon's writing on order.) English Ricardian socialists have most of a chapter. Marx and
Engels are grouped with Lassale and Rodbertus in a chapter on "scientific socialism".
Gray writes about some anarchists. Fabians and Eduard Bernstein are in a chapter on "evolutionary socialism".
Syndicalism, guild socialism, and Lenin are the three final substantial chapters
before a Postface. One could certainly argue about some of these selections and groupings,
but the book seems quite comprehensive. With the index, it is 523 pages.
References
Alexander Gray. 1937. The Development of Economic Doctrine: An Introductory Survey.
Alexander Gray. 1946. The Socialist Tradition: From Moses to Lenin.
Engels had a lot to do with formulating orthodox interpretations of Marx in the period after
Marx's death. So it is interesting to see what he says. I have transcribed
another letter
before, about the law of value. The following is about historical materialism
and the relation of the superstructure to the economic base:
According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining
element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this
neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the
economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless,
abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various
elements of the superstructure - political forms of the class struggle and its results,
to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc.,
juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the
participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their
further development into systems of dogmas - also exercise their influence upon the course
of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is
an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that
is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that
we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally asserts
itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history
would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree.
We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions.
Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed
even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one.
The Prussian state also arose and developed from historical, ultimately economic, causes.
But it could scarcely be maintained without pedantry that among the many small states of
North Germany, Brandenburg was specifically determined by economic necessity to become the
great power embodying the economic, linguistic and, after the Reformation, also the
religious difference between North and South, and not by other elements as well
(above all by its entanglement with Poland, owing to the possession of Prussia,
and hence with international political relations - which were indeed also decisive in the
formation of the Austrian dynastic power). Without making oneself ridiculous it would
be a difficult thing to explain in terms of economics the existence of every small state
in Germany, past and present, or the origin of the High German consonant permutations,
which widened the geographic partition wall formed by the mountains from the Sudetic
range to the Taunus to form a regular fissure across all Germany.
In the second place, however, history is made in such a way that the final result always arises
from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each in turn has been made what it
is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an
infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant - the historical event.
This may again itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole unconsciously
and without volition. For what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what
emerges is something that no one willed. Thus history has proceeded hitherto in the manner of
a natural process and is essentially subject to the same laws of motion. But from the fact
that the wills of individuals - each of whom desires what he is impelled to by his physical
constitution and external, in the last resort economic, circumstances (either his own personal
circumstances or those of society in general) - do not attain what they want, but are merged
into an aggregate mean, a common resultant, it must not be concluded that they are equal to zero.
On the contrary, each contributes to the resultant and is to this extent included in it.
I would furthermore ask you to study this theory from its original sources and not at second-hand;
it is really much easier. Marx hardly wrote anything in which it did not play a part.
But especially The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is a most excellent example of
its application. There are also many allusions to it in Capital. Then may I also
direct you to my writings: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science and
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,
in which I have given
the most detailed account of historical materialism which, as far as I know, exists.
Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes
lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasise the main
principle vis-a-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time,
the place or the opportunity to give their due to the other elements involved in the
interaction. But when it came to presenting a section of history, that is, to
making a practical application, it was a different matter and there no error was permissible.
Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood
a new theory and can apply it without more ado from the moment they have assimilated its
main principles, and even those not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the
more recent "Marxists" from this reproach, for the most amazing rubbish has been produced in this quarter, too....
-- Engels to J. Bloch, 21 September 1890
I expected to see the phrase, "In the last instance" here. I guess that is how Lenin phrased the idea
that the material base ultimately explains or determines the course of history. If you
read Lenin as not so determinist, is Engels' letter consistent
with Gramsci's ideas?
One can see that Engels is almost quoting the second paragraph of
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice.
He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce...
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it
under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and
transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare
on the brains of the living..."
As I understand it, Engels'
Anti-Dhüring
was easier to obtain than even most of Marx's published
writings
during the period of the Second International and the founding of German social democracy.
Engels has something to say about the application of dialectics to natural sciences
in this book, an idea I find questionable. He does say that he needs to address a broad
range of topics because "Herr Dhüring ... dealt with all things under the sun
and then a few more." What should one make of Engels'
mechanical analogy about about a parallelogram of forces?
I like the idea that the result is not something anybody is necessary conscious of willing.
I also like the first three chapters of the last part of Anti-Dhüring,
in which Engels (I gather with Marx's help) writes about the distinction between
utopian and scientific socialism. These chapters were published as a stand-alone
pamphlet.
My take is that the experience of the Soviet Union, of no-longer-actually existing
socialism, cannot discredit Marx's plans for a post-capitalist society, not because it
was not "true communism", but because he refused on principle to draw up such plans.
I suppose I ought to have a caveat about
The Civil War in France
and Critique of the Gotha Program.
You might think those who want to abolish or transcend capitalism should draw
up such plans, especially after these terrible experiences.
And Marx and Engels do have somewhere, I guess, some naive comments about all that
is needed for successful economic planning is widespread knowledge among the
workers of arithmetic and accounting, and these comments should be criticized.
I do not necessarily take issue with some criticisms. But, still, the position of Marx and Engels
was not to draw up such plans.
David Pakman on socialism, social democracy, and its difference with democratic socialism. I do not think I have been consistent onthedistinction. According to his Wikipedia entry, Pakman studied economics and communications as an undergrad at UMass Amherst.
Recenttalks by Steve Keen. Sometime in the 1980s, I too discovered if I wanted to learn about economic theory, I would be better off in a library than reading mainstream textbooks.
Elements of a post capitalist society are and have been
developing
in actually existing capitalism.
This post points out a couple of examples.
The Green Bay Packers is a community-owned (non-profit) football team in the National Football League (NFL).
One can find some arguing that they
aresocialist.
And some are concerned to
refute
this claim.
Decades ago, some universities in the United States set up research and development organizations that then became independent, not-for-profit companies.
For example, here is the
web site
for SRC, formerly Syracuse Research Corporation.
This means, apparently, that they re-invest what they make.
IRS Publication 557
explains how to apply for status as a 501(c) organization.
The cooperative movement is of interest in this context.
I gather the Mondragon Corporation,
in Spain,
is the most well-known example. But I
want to turn to producer cooperatives in dairy.
The Lowville Producers Dairy Cooperative
is one near me. Apparently,
the National Milk Producers Federation
is a federation of such cooperatives.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides
background.
I see that they confirm what I know anecdotally, that not all dairy farmers are members of a coop.
I guess some theory is needed to make sense of any claim that, say, producer coops are
an example of socialism or to obtain a general understanding of such organizations.
I have only read Hodgson (1998) and Jossa (2005) in the list of references below.
From Hodgson, as I recall, I learned that
an issue with cooperatives is start-up finance. It may be that
producer cooperatives are more efficient than capitalist firms
and still be smaller than one would hope. Jossa (2005) argues that
cooperatives are consistent with Marx's vision.
He draws on Vanek's distinction between worker-managed firms (WMFs)
and labor-managed firms (LMFs). In WMFs, workers provide the finance, while
in a LMF, the firm borrows. Anyways, here is some literature
to explore.
References
Geoffrey M. Hodgson (1998). Economics and Utopia: Why the Learning Economy is not the End of History. Routledge.
Here is a post from a blog
devoted to cybercommunism. The blogger is glowing about Paul Cockshoot's work on refuting Hayek's supposed refutation of the possibility
of a post-capitalist society.
William Milberg
writes about how it is becoming more
common to use the word "capitalism", a word mainstream economists had mostly stopped using.
Herbert Giants and Rakesh Khurana write
about the corrupting effects of neoclassical economics on what is taught in business school and then practiced by corporate elites.
Osita Nwanevu writes,
in The New Republic, about the enthusiasts that showed up at last weekend's Third MMT Conference.
Lisa Schweitzer studies urban environments. In a blog post, she expresses irritation at Paul Romer's arrogance, admittedly filtered through a glowing New York Times article.
A long time ago, Connie Bruck profiled
George Soros in the New Yorker. Soros consciously thinks of himself as building on Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies.
Mark Buchanan
recommends
that more
attention
be paid to the work of Ole Peters and others at the London Mathematical Laboratory. They have developed
something called ergodicity economics, as a replacement for expected utility theory.
Katherine Tait, My Father Bertrand Russell (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975).
Chris Mooney, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality (John Wiley & Sons, 2012)
Tait describes how Russell's vision of how children should be raised erected barriers between her father, herself, and other family members. (Tait and her older brother John were by Russell's second wife, Dora Winifred Black.) If only men and women were raised rationally and to live by reason, life would be much improved. But this belief did not work out all that well for her in many ways.
And that humans do not follow reason is a theme of Mooney's. The science of motivated reasoning, behavioral economics, etc., shows that humans cannot be made to follow reasoning. I've previously noted some of the studies on which Mooney draws.
So these two books share a common anti-utopian theme.
I think many people, without too much thought, naturally intuit:
The system under which they live works fairly well.
Somehow, they are being exploited.
The first idea might come partly from modifying your ideas to fit your constraints. You aren't likely to drastically change the world, so you might as well accept it as it is. Another source of the first idea is the ruling ideas of society, which as the man said, are the ideas of the ruling class. Maybe the second idea comes partly from how your success isn't as much as that of others around you.
I suggest a third element, other than the above two contradictory ideas, contributes to the formation of monetary cranks. That is a surprising revelation about some details about how some institution that you interact with every day actually works. What do you mean that banks don't have money for my deposit immediately on hand? Doesn't this paper, accepted as money, represent a quantity of gold that the government is obligated to pay out? People naturally look for a concrete foundation for their practices and are left in the air when it isn't to be found.
I suggest some combine some such mishmash of ideas to conclude that the system can be set right if one particular thing is changed. And something about money is often taken to be the thing to be changed. Others might look at rent on land. I find it suggestive that Henry George's popularity is almost contemporary with closing of the American frontier.
For purposes of this discussion, I deliberately do not identify which ideas are crankish, whether it be advocacy for stamped money, social credit, or a belief that interest rates reflect the interaction of supply and demand for loanable funds. Nor, of course, does labeling an idea with an insult show why it is wrong, if it is.
Arjo Klamer has a blog, mainly in dutch. In one post in English, he argues that the award of the Nobel to Sargent and Sims symbolizes the failure of economics.
The U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (SEN) looks like an interesting site to explore. They attempt "to connect a diverse array of individuals, organizations, businesses and projects in the shared work of building and strengthening regional, national and international movements for a solidarity economy."
A group anti-Mankiw blog has been created to respond to the bushwa Mankiw posts on his blog. (Hat tip to Daniel MacDonald, who has quite a bit to say about walking out on Mankiw's class and the incoherence of his textbook.)
Corey Robin has a blog. His book, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, argues that what unites conservatives is reacting against attempts of oppressed groups (slaves vs. masters, workers vs. capitalists, women vs. men) to assert agency. The reaction is important - conservatives are often modernizers and derisive of the abilities of the ruling classes that they are attempting to defend. His book is analytical, not mocking, and not arguing for what is to be done.
1.0 Turgenev's Novel
I recently stumbled across an English-language copy of the Turgenev novel where the title was translated as in this blog post. This reminds me that I once listed the following pairs of economists:
John Bates Clark, John Maurice Clark
Milton Friedman, David Friedman
John Kenneth Galbraith, James Galbraith
John Neville Keynes, John Maynard Keynes
James Mill, John Stuart Mill
Auguste Walras, Marie Esprit Leon Walras
Sidney Weintraub, Eliot Roy Weintraub
I now find I can add another pair of names, Edward J. Nell and GuinevereLibertyNell.
One way of reading the series of models in Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is as an historical series. Later models in the series apply to an institutional setup that followed earlier models. Some, including maybe Engels, have read Marx in this way. The labor theory of value is alleged to apply to a pre-capitalist, late medieval artisan economy. The transformation of values into prices of production is then a historical process occurring with the emergence of capitalism. Be that as it may, Edward Nell's work on the theory of Transformational Growth, fits well with this literature.
2.0 Rediscovering Fire
Guinever Liberty Nell has written a book, Rediscovering Fire: Basic Economic Lessons From the Soviet Experiment (Algora Publishing, 2010), in some ways in a very different tradition. She also considers institutions in different historical settings. But consider that Peter Boettke and Peter Leeson, in the George Mason tradition, appear in the acknowledgments. I gather she currently works for the Center for Data Analysis of the Heritage Foundation. She notes her differences with her family:
"I also thank my brother Jacob for introducing me to Alec Nove's work, which was the inspiration for writing this book. I must also thank Thomas W. Moore IV for endless intellectual battles that helped me challenge the beliefs I was raised with, and my sister Miranda for then debating with me endlessly from the other side."
Her book is dedicated as so:
"To my mother for raising me in confidence in my own creativity and ability, and my father for infusing me with the economics 'bug'."
The book is organized in somewhat repetitive themes. Aside from the introduction and conclusions, chapters treat competition, (un)employment, profit (impact on the firm), profit (impact on the economy), middlemen and trade, prices, money, regulation, democracy, corporations. Each of these substantive chapters consists of an introduction, a summary of the socialist argument, a description of the soviet experience, lessons to be drawn, and a conclusion. I'm not finished; I'm in the chapter on prices.
In many cases, I disagree with her account of the socialist argument. For example, she writes:
"Under socialism, workers were to be paid according to work, while under communism they would be paid according to need. According to theory, workers were to receive the full value of their product." -- Guinevere Libery Nell, Rediscovering Fire, p. 61.
As far as I am concerned, this claim is explicitly contradicted in Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program. Lenin knew this work quite well, he writes about it in State and Revolution. As another example, Nell writes:
"Marx did not believe in gains from trade... However, there are several reasons why both parties can gain from an exchange. One is that division of labor enables one person to make a product at lower cost than another person can make it." -- Guinevere Libery Nell, Rediscovering Fire, p. 92.
But Marx, in Capital explicity states that such gains from trade exist. On the other hand, she extensively references Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky's The ABCs of Communism, which I have often seen referenced as a primer to Bolshevikism. I think Nell would agree with me that the book concentrates more on economic history than the history of economic thought.
I'm no expert on Soviet history (I'm best on the 1920s, I think). Nevertheless, I'll record my impression that I find the thematic organization confusing. In some chapters, she writes about either war communism, the New Economic Program, the collectivization of agriculture, or the 1965 reform, for example. But these analyzes are not arranged chronologically. If she ever produces a new edition (paperback?), perhaps she can include a short chronology or timeline.
I'm willing to accept, say, war communism as an attempt to construct a close to pure socialist economy. But I found Nell's attempts to apply lessons directly to current institutions in the United States economy unconvincing. Maybe pure planning of an entire economy cannot be done. I don't see why a large amount of planning and regulation is therefore inappropriate for specific sectors (for example, utilities or health) in certain settings. On the other hand, she is often careful to be tentative in her suggestions. Maybe Obama "may" want to consider some unintended consequence in restructuring health insurance. A somewhat facile objection to her lessons can easily be constructed. Of course, the Soviet experience with planning did not work very well. They did not have powerful networked computers.Maybe this objection would be less likely to arise if she had taken more of a historical and less of a thematic approach.
3.0 An Open Request
But that's not what I want to talk about. I wonder whether Nell would be willing to share any anecdotes about growing up. Is she able to discuss political disagreements with family members without rancor? I guess of more interest to me would be whether she has formed personal impressions of Joan Robinson, Pierangelo Garegnani, or Anwar Shaikh. On the other hand, if her stories would be like those in Jan Myrdal's memoir Childhood, who seems not to have got on with much of his family, I don't know that I want to hear about it.
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