I’m Weijun Tan, graduated from Economics, and living Pudong now. I’m also a member of the Communist Party of China but detest and NEVER approved of both Central Planned Economy with bureaucrat monopoly and Free Market Economy. Please feel free to ask me if you have any question about China.
These are my three proposals:
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I think it’s possible and easier to hold a social experiment in a popular multiplayer game if we want to attract more volunteers (players) in the name of video games. Minecraft is a game I recommend to experiment (play) with for 3 reasons:
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1st, easy for statistics and linear programming:
The production in minecraft strictly follows so-called Leontief technology. For example, players can only craft a cake with 3 slices of wheat, 3 cups of milk, 2 portions of sugar and one egg. But there are also probabilistic cases such as Bone Meal only ripens wheat 75% chance. -
2nd, easy to program:
Minecraft: Java Edition is based on Java Virtual Machine platform and therefore we can easily program mods in various programming language such as Java, Kotlin even including Python, etc. There are also some unified APIs for mod programming such as Fabric, (Neo)Forge to make mod programming more easier. -
Last, but the most important, easy to summon players around the world:
Minecraft is a suitable multiplayer game to attract a large number of players around the world. There is a social experiment involving 1,000 players to simulate the civilization evolution. As of 2024, Minecraft has over 166 million monthly active users and over 25 million peak daily active players. Minecraft: China Edition also has over 700 million registered players in 2023.
We also have a minecraft server to simulate the economic planning but there is a huge shortage of volunteers and technical personnel.
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My interest in economic theory includes Radical Political Economy (Marxian and Sraffian Economics) and Input-Output Analysis (IOA). Here I would like to recommend some contributions of Chinese scholars about IOA for the economic planning.
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1st, the Input-Occupancy-Output Analysis:
The traditional IOA, especially in Leontief technology could not process stock data such as fixed assets, inventories, land, labor powers, ect. But the IOOA, proposed by Chen (1990), can processing both flow and stock so that it can easier to analyse the role of natural resource, fixed assets and other stock data on the economy. It also means that the analysis of the economic impact to natural environment becomes easier. -
2nd, the Positive Eigenvector Method:
The PEM was proposed by mathematician Loo-Keng Hua (1984). The usefulness of PEM is that we can forecast the instability of the balance growth path so that we can dynamically adjust investment decisions. I am not sure that the corresponding model exists in IOA, perhaps the DOSSO’s Turnpike Theorem.
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The good news is that there are online volunteers to be introducing excerpts from the book Democratic Economic Planning for the Chinese readers now. There is also a vlogger make video about the introduction of Parecon on Bilibili.
Meanwhile, I suggest contacting other post-capitalism alternative economy websites such as Paul Cockshott’s Blog or OGAS 2.0 demo (OGAS 2.0 demo also has a forum).
References
- Hua, Loo Keng (1984e),“On the Mathematical Theory of Globally Optimal Planned Economic System”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 81(20):6549-53. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.81.20.6549
- Xikang, C. (1990). Input-Occupancy-Output Analysis and its Application in China. In: Chatterji, M., Kuenne, R.E. (eds) Dynamics and Conflict in Regional Structural Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10636-3_16