There are millions of products in this world and thousands of product categories, so I hardly see that each type and category of a product could be presented in an Anual Plan. If the Annual Plan is rather for broad categories, how can we negotiate a price for more detailed products like tea, sugar, cake, or even types of tea sugar and cakes?
Thanks!
I think this is a fair question. I try to answer this in detail in my book Anarchist Accounting (Routledge 2020). In short, I suggest a way to derive prices for more detailed categories from the prices for the coarse categories that are priced in the annual planning. This method rests on the assumption that producers, as they in most cases do already today, allocate their production costs to the detailed products that they plan to produce.
Hi Andreas!
I am using a UNâs âClassification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP) 2018â
Below are their categories only for the Food division of individual consumption. At what level do you suggest setting prices for the coarse categories that are priced in the annual planning? I think that everything that is deeper than just âFoodâ is very hard to plan for individual consumers. But even if they will do it, letâs take â01.1.8 Sugar, confectionery and desserts (ND)â category. The sugar, the confectionery, and the desserts may be very different in prices and types. How do you combine a single price for that?
Thank you very much!
01 Food and non-alcoholic beverages
01.1 Food
01.1.1 Cereals and cereal products (ND)
01.1.1.1 Cereals (ND)
01.1.1.2 Flour of cereals (ND)
01.1.1.3 Bread and bakery products (ND)
01.1.1.4 Breakfast cereals (ND)
01.1.1.5 Macaroni, noodles, couscous and similar pasta products (ND)
01.1.1.9 Other cereal and grain mill products (ND)
01.1.2 Live animals, meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals (ND)
01.1.2.1 Live land animals (ND)
01.1.2.2 Meat, fresh, chilled or frozen (ND)
01.1.2.3 Meat, dried, salted, in brine or smoked (ND)
01.1.2.4 Offal, blood and other parts of slaughtered animals, fresh, chilled or
frozen, dried, salted, in brine or smoked (ND)
01.1.2.5 Meat, offal, blood and other parts of slaughtered animalsâ preparations (ND)
01.1.3 Fish and other seafood (ND)
01.1.3.1 Fish, live, fresh, chilled or frozen (ND)
01.1.3.2 Fish, dried, salted, in brine or smoked (ND)
01.1.3.3 Fish preparations (ND)
01.1.3.4 Other seafood, live, fresh, chilled or frozen (ND)
01.1.3.5 Other seafood, dried, salted, in brine or smoked (ND)
01.1.3.6 Other seafood preparations (ND)
01.1.3.7 Livers, roes and offal of fish and of other seafood in all forms (ND)
01.1.4 Milk, other dairy products and eggs (ND)
01.1.4.1 Raw and whole milk (ND)
01.1.4.2 Skimmed milk (ND)
01.1.4.3 Other milk and cream (ND)
01.1.4.4 Non-animal milk (ND)
01.1.4.5 Cheese (ND)
01.1.4.6 Yoghurt and similar products (ND)
01.1.4.7 Milk-based dessert and beverages (ND)
01.1.4.8 Eggs (ND)
01.1.4.9 Other dairy products (ND)
01.1.5 Oils and fats (ND)
01.1.5.1 Vegetable oils (ND)
01.1.5.2 Butter and other fats and oils derived from milk (ND)
01.1.5.3 Margarine and similar preparations (ND)
01.1.5.9 Other animal oils and fats (ND)
01.1.6 Fruits and nuts (ND)
01.1.6.1 Dates, figs and tropical fruits, fresh (ND)
01.1.6.2 Citrus fruits, fresh (ND)
01.1.6.3 Stone fruits and pome fruits, fresh (ND)
01.1.6.4 Berries, fresh (ND)
01.1.6.5 Other fruits, fresh (ND)
01.1.6.6 Frozen fruit (ND)
01.1.6.7 Fruit, dried and dehydrated (ND)
01.1.6.8 Nuts, in shell or shelled (ND)
01.1.6.9 Fruit and nuts ground and other preparations (ND)
01.1.7 Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses (ND)
01.1.7.1 Leafy or stem vegetables, fresh or chilled (ND)
01.1.7.2 Fruit-bearing vegetables, fresh or chilled (ND)
01.1.7.3 Green leguminous vegetables, fresh or chilled (ND)
01.1.7.4 Other vegetables, fresh or chilled (ND)
01.1.7.5 Tubers, plantains and cooking bananas (ND)
01.1.7.6 Pulses (ND)
01.1.7.7 Other vegetables, tubers, plantains and cooking bananas, dried and
dehydrated (ND)
01.1.7.8 Vegetables, tubers, plantains and cooking bananas, frozen (ND)
01.1.7.9 Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses ground and
other preparations (ND)
01.1.8 Sugar, confectionery and desserts (ND)
01.1.8.1 Cane and beet sugar (ND)
01.1.8.2 Other sugar and sugar substitutes (ND)
01.1.8.3 Jams, fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit purée and pastes, honey (ND)
01.1.8.4 Nut purée, nut butter and nut pastes (ND)
01.1.8.5 Chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa-based food products (ND)
01.1.8.6 Ice, ice cream and sorbet (ND)
01.1.8.9 Other sugar confectionery and desserts n.e.c. (ND)
01.1.9 Ready-made food and other food products n.e.c. (ND)
01.1.9.1 Ready-made food (ND)
01.1.9.2 Baby food (ND)
01.1.9.3 Salt, condiments and sauces (ND)
01.1.9.4 Spices, culinary herbs and seeds (ND)
01.1.9.9 Other food products n.e.c. (ND)
01.2 Non-alcoholic beverages
01.3 Services for processing primary goods for food and non-alcoholic beverages
02 Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics
02.1 Alcoholic beverages
02.2 Alcohol production services
02.3 Tobacco
02.4 Narcotics
03 Clothing and footwear
03.1 Clothing
03.2 Footwear
04 Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
04.1 Actual rentals for housing
04.2 Imputed rentals for housing
04.3 Maintenance, repair and security of the dwelling
04.4 Water supply and miscellaneous services relating to the dwelling
04.5 Electricity, gas and other fuels
05 Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance
05.1 Furniture, furnishings, and loose carpets
05.2 Household textiles
05.3 Household appliances
05.4 Glassware, tableware and household utensils
05.5 Tools and equipment for house and garden
05.6 Goods and services for routine household maintenance
06 Health
06.1 Medicines and health products
06.2 Outpatient care services
06.3 Inpatient care services
06.4 Other health services
07 Transport
07.1 Purchase of vehicles
07.2 Operation of personal transport equipment
07.3 Passenger transport services
07.4 Transport services of goods
08 Information and communication
08.1 Information and communication equipment
08.2 Software excluding games
08.3 Information and communication services
09 Recreation, sport and culture
09.1 Recreational durables
09.2 Other recreational goods
09.3 Garden products and pets
09.4 Recreational services
09.5 Cultural goods
09.6 Cultural services
09.7 Newspapers, books and stationery
09.8 Package holidays
10 Education services
10.1 Early childhood and primary education
10.2 Secondary education
10.3 Post-secondary non-tertiary education
10.4 Tertiary education
10.5 Education not defined by level
11 Restaurants and accommodation services
11.1 Food and beverage serving services
11.2 Accommodation services
12 Insurance and financial services
12.1 Insurance
12.2 Financial services
13 Personal care, social protection and miscellaneous goods and services
13.1 Personal care
13.2 Other personal effects
13.3 Social protection
13.9 Other services
14 Individual consumption expenditure of non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHS)
14.1 Housing
14.2 Health
14.3 Recreation and culture
14.4 Education
14.5 Social protection
14.6 Other services
15 Individual consumption expenditure of general government
15.1 Housing
15.2 Health
15.3 Recreation and culture
15.4 Education
15.5 Social protection
Hi Yuriy,
I donât think there is a definite answer to how coarse the categories in the planning should be and I donât think the coarse categories are the problem. Theoretically, they could be very coarse and the number of subcategories could be very large without there being a problem. The issue is, I think, to define the subcategories in a logical way. I think the answer lies in how producers already today categorise their products when they do cost allocations etc. for pricing and inventory valuations. That should be the basis and starting point. Possibly, then there need to be some coordination within industries w.r.t. the range of products that are offered.
Anders, I was thinking exactly the opposite. That categories and subcategories for Consumer Councils should look like consumption purposes from consumer perspectives, not producersâ perspective. For instance, the most coarse categories for consumer councils could look like this example:
Then, letâs take a Lesure category - it may include a Gym subcategory. The gym subcategory may have three levels of consumption which consumers must choose from a basic level, middle level, and premium level. Each one has its price, amount of services available, and available days of the weak. Basically, subcategories will be also rather coarse than as detailed as grams of sugars in the tea otherwise it too hard system for consumers. That is why most categories will have consumption levels (living standard) with prices instead of entering the amount of products purchased on a very detailed level. Then, workers councils will break subcategories into detailed products, amounts, and prices. Otherwise, it will be thousands of products that consumers will need to predict or plan demand for, making the procedure dysfunctional. The consumer can predict its living standard and its cost for each subcategory, but how can he know better than the producer what amount of gas and electricity his house will consume in advance for the next year? It hardly possible to plan on this level and this kind of planning signals may mean nothing for the supply chain and be too complex and large for consumers. Creating the right goods classificator makes a critical part of the accounting system, I think.
Hi Yuriy, I put forward my thoughts on the classification of goods in my book. There, I try to address concerns like the ones you have. I agree that this is an important issue. And it is an issue that is difficult to discuss in an accessible way in brief.
Thank you too, Anders!
This is a great contribution Yuriy to the thinking of how would we categorize goods and services so that they are easy to maneuver by consumers. Anders addresses this in his book by suggesting baskets of goods could be created, such as food items for a vegetarian, which then tells producers they need to grow lots of fruits, vegetables, eggs and dairy products. In this example, it would fall under the main category of Food that you proposed, and baskets of goods such as one for Vegetarians, Vegans, Keto diet, meat eaters, etc. could be created as sub-categories along with descriptions of what each contains. Much thought would be needed in the design of this system so that it is flexible enough to accommodate subtleties. for example, in our household we eat mainly fruits, vegetables, grains and chicken. However the system is designed, it would need to be flexible enough for me to indicate say under the sub-category fruits, to select those that I typically eat, and so on for meat, fish, dairy, vegetables, etc.
I can probably estimate quantities to a certain extent by looking at my prior years consumption of these goods. That would be possible because of the technology we have access to. In fact, this could serve as the basis of filling in the blanks of what I want to consume and the approximate quantities that I think I will need. That would solve the issue you raise about estimating what you think you will consume in an upcoming year be it food, electricity or gas for heating. I could see a software program with pre-populated fields that consumers would just need to revise should their lifestyle have changed, such as fewer people living in a household from one year to the next.
Our spending patterns donât change much from year to another. We generally eat the same amount and types of food year over year, we pay municipal taxes to pay for water and sewer services, snow removal, etc. Our utilities consumption is fairly constant and is mainly influenced by weather. We may have extraordinary needs when we plan a vacation or we need to replace a vehicle. Otherwise, I would not see the whole process as being very onerous so long as there is a suitable software program in place for consumers to express their needs and that worker councils produce marginally more than what was demanded so that if there are subtle changes in consumption patterns in a given year, there will be some extra supply to accommodate them which is simply keeping an inventory of items in a warehouse.
As for the pricing component, the prior yearsâ spending on the food category could be provided as a global figure instead of choosing the exact quantities of everything you plan to eat. Prior spending habits on the amount spent on meats can also serve as estimates for specific categories. Alternatively, a basket of goods could have a price tag and as you point out in your example, it could be reflected as a basic, middle or premium level pricing. This may be area where work needs to be done by people designing the system because we have incomes and we need to estimate the cost of food for a year, so that we know how much is left for other expenses. This part could be tricky and would require more thinking as to how to resolve it.
Cheers
C
Dear all, thank you for the interesting discussion!
I feel we have already extracted a number of related questions and would like to adress them separately. I think we have touched on the following issues:
- How many detailed product categories will there be in a free economy?
I think this a very good question, that is also hard to answer in detail. However, i think we should at least try to estimate the involved scales. I can only give you a starting point by giving lower bounds.
Following, Yuriyâs approach id like to start with the UN standard. UN has established the Harmonized System Classification (HS), that is the standard in classifying trade streams and also used by tariff agencies. An HS code is a 6-digit code that classifies a I believe that Yuriys example is quoting from the HS and it gives a good impression of the systems level of detail. The HS contains roughly 5300 categories, but this is certainly a gross underestimation of the necessary categories.
(see https://unstats.un.org/unsd/tradekb/Knowledgebase/50018/Harmonized-Commodity-Description-and-Coding-Systems-HS)
Another interesting lower bound is provided by historical example. Cottrell and Cockshott 1993 provide an estimation of the number of product categories in the Soviet Union. In https://www.jstor.org/stable/40370022?seq=1, they state:
â.This general point is confirmed by Yun (1988: 55), who states that as of the mid-1980s Gosplan was able to draw up material balances for only 2,000 goods in its annual plans. When the calculations of Gossnab and the industrial ministries are included, the number of products tracked rises to around 200,000, still far short of the 24 million items produced in the Soviet economy at the time.â.â
We know reports from the soviet union, that describe complaints about a lack of product differentiation. In addition, the planning system has likely suffered from too abstracted planning, hence we certainly want to be more detailed than the Soviet Union, but how much more detailed do we need to be?
Here im happy on any ideas of how to calculate this, but my gut feeling is that a product differentiation of 10-100 times more diversity as the soviet union should allow a decent standard of living. What do you think of this estimate?
This estimate would lead us to roughly 100 * 20 * 10^6 = 2 * 10^ 9 products.
- How hard is it to plan prices for such a number of detailed product categories?
I can not comment in detail on the planning procedure, but although computations of 10^9 equations are certainly not little, from an algorithmic perspective it seems to be workable. Especially, if we are considering annual planning, which has to be only run yearly. For a modern super computer, a year runtime is a tremendously long time and solving a system of 10^9 equations seems not as daunting as it sounds initially.
However, it is very likely that the problem is not as hard as the worst-case of solving 10^9 equations could be. Planning problems are certainly examples of so-called sparse matrices (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_matrix) and most likely also exhibit block-structure (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_matrix#Block_diagonal_matrices). These allow to be solved with reduced effort by sparse solvers and divide-and-conquer algorithms. In fact, its pretty save to be said that problems of this scale need to be well-parallizable to be solved, but if they are i think youll have a good shot at handling the computational effort.
CCC
I think that the whole product categorization in terms of consumption estimation and production planning will be a challenge for a couple of reasons.
One is the sheer number of potential products that you point out, which I believe is quite high and realistic given what is available to purchase just in a. grocery store alone. But for planning purposes, the challenge is how granular do we need to be? for example, if there are too many products to choose from, then how can we expect consumers to identify each one that they expect to purchase in a given year. It could be a daunting task. But I see it as necessary to have these categories. One way around it might be that if consumers use some sort of electronic card for payment that records all of the products purchased at a given time during the year and saves these onto a database that consumers can access anytime. So when the consumption planning rolls around, consumers can produce a consumption plan based on their purchases in the prior year. Consumers should readily see how many bottles of ketchup or heads cabbage they purchased. Using this as a baseline they can use this information as a means of estimating their purchases in the upcoming year. We usually consume the same items in the same quantities year over year, so it should be a relatively easy task to accomplish.
The discreet categories are also need from the production side of things. Worker Councils need to know how much ketchup or cabbages were in demand in the upcoming year so that they can meet demand and also produce a per unit indicative price for each item.
During consumption planning, there should be a column that shows the item purchased in the year prior, the quantities purchased and at which price. Then there should be another column(s) that indicate the desired quantities for the upcoming year and the indicative price, which may be different from the year prior.
With 10^9 product categories, this is certainly a lot, but probably needed, especially if you take into account the variants i.e. regular ketchup, chilli ketchup, etc. But consumers would likely not purchase 10^9 products in a given year but a select number from that list. We have the computing capacity in this day and age to handle such large numbers of products and users who would access such a database, which would include consumers and worker councils.
I think this would be workable.
Cheers
C
I think it is important to point out that from an âaccounting perspectiveâ the main point of working with subcategories of goods and services is to distinguish between differences in resource consumption in the production. If there is no difference in resource consumption in the production there is no need for a separate subcategory, even though there of course might still be differences in sizes, colours etc. The coarse categories that are used in the planning procedure can be very coarse, while the the subcategories that producers use for their planning can be numerous, and basically be identical to todays ranges of products. As long as the every subcategory is tied to a coarse category and producers identify their production cost for each subcategory, as most producers already do today, the price for every subcategory can be derived from the price of the coares category, which is set in the planning procedure. My point is that this isnât extreamly different from what is done today, especially with regard to the producers.
If the whole system will really mostly on the recorded history of the payment transaction from the prior year for every consumer, and the consumer will be required to make only a minor correction, then it will be like a usual market economy which is based on consumption forecast rather then consumption planning. Producers already making their business plans based on marketing forecasts that aggregate this kind of data, all we are adding to the system is non-aggregated individual consumer statistics, which is not very much valuable for mass producers. So, then how can we move from consumption forecasting to true consumption planning?
I believe that reviewing a large number of products or subcategories is pointless, as it will be not much more accurate than current consumer forecasting. And because consumption planning is a good thing for collective consumption it will be better for neighbors to pay collectively for supplying post-scarcity goods like drinks, a cup of coffee or bottle of water, or even local farm vegetables, so then neighbors can take a drink out without any money at all. There will be a lot of post-scarcity goods like that, so much of consumption history will not be recorded on the electronic cards. And it is a good thing, as a desirable economic system donât need cashboxes to trade lemonade drinks on the street, and money shouldnât be required everywhere it is not that serious in reality as we used to it in current money-driven life. Also, it is impossible to plan the amount of products on a subcategory level, letâs take a âfurniture subcategoryâ, what number of furniture will you buy next year? It is impossible to set the amount and the price without further details on concrete types of furniture.
To approach these problems, I suggest:
All of this makes me think that realistic consumption planning will be much more difficult than just relying fully on household-level of decision-making and will be more heavily based on co-planning together with consumer councils, city federation, and prices facilitation group.
I asked Paul Cockshott this very question (how many different goods/services) in an interview I did with him recently:
7 â This is about the number of commodities in an economy. In your presentations you often use the figure of 10 million commodities in a complex advanced country. However, does this accurately represent the number of commodities in an advanced country today? Does such data exist? If it were 10 billion rather than 10 million would that make much of a difference?
PC: There is data. You can, for example, find out how many distinct product lines Amazon or Alibaba have, and it is above 10 million. The 10 million figure is a figure for the Soviet economy in the 1970s. So itâs a big country, but China is bigger. So Alibaba sell a fair bit more than that.
The figure is bounded, though, by the number of people in the economy. Generally, any product requires the collaboration of several people so that the number of products is not going to grow above the number of people. So, yes it can be big but itâs going to be of the same order of magnitude as the population probably a bit below an order of magnitude of the population.
AO: If I were to summarize, youâre saying if you have a country with a billion people which is an advanced economy, then the number of different commodities within that country would be approximately on the order of one billion?
PC: I would say probably of the order of a hundred million rather than a billion. Iâm saying roughly an order of magnitude less because of the fact that every industrial product actually requires collaborative labour of several people to produce it.
I think what Claude says above is important and helpful:
Quoting Claude: âOne way around it might be that if consumers use some sort of electronic card for payment that records all of the products purchased at a given time during the year and saves these onto a database that consumers can access anytime. So when the consumption planning rolls around, consumers can produce a consumption plan based on their purchases in the prior year. Consumers should readily see how many bottles of ketchup or heads cabbage they purchased. Using this as a baseline they can use this information as a means of estimating their purchases in the upcoming year. We usually consume the same items in the same quantities year over year, so it should be a relatively easy task to accomplish.â
And one other thing I would add is this:
Cockshott and Cottrell do need to talk about computer capacity as it relates to the number of goods we are developing a comprehensive plan for. But that is because they have a central planning agency calculating the comprehensive plan. We donât have any such agency. And there is nobody in a participatory economy who has to perform such a calculation, or invert such a matrix. So the size of present computer capacities is irrelevant in a participatory economy to the question of âhow detailed are the categories of goodsâ⊠and therefore how many different goods are we including in our planning efforts. For a participatory economy the issue of âhow detailed/how manyâ is relevant NOT w.r.t. computer calculating capacity, but only w.r.t. (1) How long is the âlistâ we are asking consumers⊠actually consumer councils⊠to submit for their proposals, and how long is the âlistâ we are asking worker councils to submit for their input requests and offers to produce and supply outputs? And, (2) How do we arrive at average indicative prices for each category, since no matter how refined the categories, within each category there will still be at least small differences between one âcommodityâ and another? For example, do we need to generate an indicative price for the social cost of providing a generic pair of shoes? a generic pair of adult shoes? a generic pair of leather adult shoes? etc. That is the question we need to address, and it has nothing to do with computer capacities for annual participatory planning.
These are interesting discussions, no doubt necessary, but also difficult for the average non-economically minded and even one who has to work a little to figure out what w.r.t means!
These kinds of discussions do my head in. Make me wonder whether I have the capacity to confidently advocate for something like Parecon, when I canât take on an economist critic of Parecon using their language and when say, Michael Albertâs even book length descriptions of Parecon, like No Bosses, are for me relatively easy to get, though with some work, are quite general and broad.
To a degree itâs a matter of trust for me. I kind of have to trust Robin, which I do, that participatory planning is possible without presenting consumers like myself with a daunting amount of work. And I have to trust those like Anders as well, otherwise Iâm left kinda shrugging my shoulders with regard to these mattersâŠwhoops, w.r.tâŠ.
I like to start (not that I havenât already) with the point made by Claude, and seconded by Robin, re last years consumption card thingy. From which one can then make course judgements regarding any kind of changes for the upcoming year. Obvious things like holiday, new car or 17 new but slightly different semi-electric/acoustic arch-top guitars etcâŠ
And as far as what Anders said regarding production costs, Iâm not sure if I totally get it, but something in me kind of feels that if pricing from that end works, gets it rightish, re qualitative stuff (feeling like an idiot here) then I kind of reckon over time pricing will head in the right direction anyway as consumers become used to the system and information dispersal over the year becomes like just second nature stuff. As long as the course categories pricing is reasonable, particularly early days, and the list for consumers which the course category provides for us dummies, isnât too long.
Otherwise Iâm just consuming what I did last year, and will change whatever is needed if some of that is now deemed unsound and no longer within my, and everyone elseâs, average budget, wage, or whatever you want to call it.
I know nothing about algorithms, computers, computer power or symbols like 10^9 (10 to the power of 9?)âŠas Anders knows directly, even pricing does my head in.
Yep, thatâs what I thought, feel like an idiot.
(Much easier relaxing into David Graeberâs and David Wengrowâs The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity)
@IDigressIndeed If you donât understand something, ask. There is no shame in asking questions, itâs the only way to learn. And itâs often by asking seemingly âstupidâ questions that knowledge is created.
Everyone has something to contribute. Each person has some kind of response or insight to offer which someone else wouldnât think of. If youâre banging your head against the wall of a particular topic and youâre just not getting it, there are other areas/things you can focus on. The main thing is that when we are taken as a collective (advocates of Parecon, or advocates of socialism, or w/e) the individuals complement each other.
No doubt and thanks.
Itâs true I donât understand a lot of stuff in the world and even get confused by the economic technicalities of Parecon. I tend to avoid those aspects. Like I skip most of those bits in Robinâs new book. However, I think his debate with the late Erik Olin Wright, that came out in book form, is a little beauty that often gets neglected.
I think Iâm getting at something else really.
This is a good thread. Important. But I was thinking after I read it that, well, itâs probably true that most people arenât into economics at all, in fact find the topic quite tedious. Theyâd prefer to only understand economics ever, to the extent it affects them in the sense of how the actual present day economy effects their life now. Plus, to most itâs bloody boring. Not like say provocatively promoting a discussion with others about whether Dylan truly is as good as some say, or as Chomsky once called Lacan, a charlatan, or as I like to see him, a crafty folk singing allusive trickster who wrote some good songs, while the bulk are carefully constructed meaningless waffle that just seem like they arenât. (See, I digress Indeed! For fun really)
Is Participatory planning feasible? How does is accomodate or price accurately, all products? The purple pointy whatever colour and shape shoe problem that Robin, and I think Michael called it. The same kind of problem Barbara Ehrenreich brought up with Michael. I tend toward the Albert answer, that detail of product in everyday consumption plans is not so important, as do Robin and Anders believe. That industry will take care of it. In fact much the same way shit happens now. Most of us have no clue what people are designing at the specific levelâŠsome new revolutionary fork or eating implementâŠthey just appear in the general store that sells them. Most of the pricing is probably from the production side (see, even thatâs verging on the technical). Basically itâs, âhey Barb, thereâs really no need to choose your plan at that level of detail. A course category of clothing, encompassing just about everything, will probably suffice. I know, in the above thread, others were trying to get a clearer picture of the issue at a level of detailâŠand I enjoyed reading through it (enjoyed?), perhaps more interested than enjoyedâŠand itâs great (great?) to read this stuff. Educative.
But I also started thinking about those not so interested in such, well, economic minutiae, and yet still, they need to have the confidence that advocating for a participatory planned system, probably the most major part of Parecon, is not a fools errand. Thatâs no easy task. Particularly if there are economists out there that will no doubt baffle them with techno-economic speak designed to bamboozle them and cause them to lose confidence in their belief in Parecon.
I know anyone can ask questions and stupid ones, Iâm an expert at that, but the truth is sometimes people donât want to know, canât be bothered, just arenât interested in understanding economics, and particularly a new type of vision or allocation system (even the phrase âallocation systemâ can and will elicit a quizzical look), beyond the most basic of descriptions. That is why there is and has to be, a degree of trust, basic trust, in the expert/s that is needed. Much like trusting the bulk of climate scientists that their modelling is correct even though trying to understanding it for most on a technical level would be like going back to schoolâŠno thanks. Or trusting Robert Pollin that his (probably not just his) basic outline of a Global Green New Deal, in one of this decades MOST EVER IMPORTANTEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN BY ANYONE EVER (thatâs me channelling Paul Street but using betterest English) Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal, co-authored with Noam Chomsky, is feasible and would get the job done mitigating, to the best of our abilities, global warming catastrophe. (Sorry, getting carried away with a far more pressing need than getting people to get behind Parecon, at the moment)
I only wrote my comment because thatâs what went through mind when I read this thread. Why I mentioned pricing. Pricing is kind of easy to understand for me at a basic kind level, supply/demand in the planning, kinda, but then kind of can do my head in at times when I think too hard about itâŠbecomes a kind of chicken and egg problem. There was another person who seemed to have a similar issue about it doing Michaelâs course on Parecon at SSCC. Iâve read through Andersâ book (ALSO A MOST IMPORTANT BOOK THAT PAUL STREET SHOULD READ), and will read it again, but have also gone directly to Anders for help when needed. Particularly recently. But in a sense I really have to trust Anders. And Robin. And Michael. But I can also see how some, if not maybe most people, or even a majority one day not far off, if they are ever to advocate for a Parecon, will probably do so on a far simpler more general kind of knowledge of the economy, an overview so to speak, based on the trust of experts and others that the planning is feasible and can get pricing right or close enough. I think this is only natural.
Thatâs not to say the above thread is not helpful. I think it is, very.
But having said all the above, it crosses my mind, right now, making me feel a little stupid, that Iâm presenting a kind of water is wet point.
Like derrrr.
Ps: Digression Extreme: indulgent but fun. (Just ignore if you like)
Iâll leave you with thisâŠhaving listened to a heap of Dylan over the years. Played his music. Taught it. Sung and sing it. Dig itâŠI still regard him with suspicion. Particularly after his most recent release of Murder Most Foul, a eulogy of sorts for the American King of Kings JFK. I would have thought the title would be more apt to describe what occurred to many innocent South Vietnamese under his watch and orders early on in the war. But no, Dylan takes me down a path that I donât want to go. I cannot get even half way through this piece of soppy manipulative crap.
There are many many writers that square (as good as if not better) with The Trickster Charlatan, many. Not the least a present day Australia singer song writer by the name of Gareth Liddiard. Of which Iâll leave you with two examples.
Shark Fin Blues (about depression and mourning, though I did not get that at all when I first discovered this songâŠthe writing is however amazing)
And Oh My (my claimed anthem pertaining to global warming catastropheâŠthe last verse (theyâre all good) below is a cracker.
People are a waste of food
Donât bother learning Chinese
Thou shalt find oneself perturbed
By less verbose calamities
Just get some Heinz baked beans,
A 12 gauge, bandolier and tinned dog food
Weâll eat your dog, bury our dead
Or eat them instead
Thatâs entirely up to you
And oh my,
I hear the sound of unshod hooves come the middle of the night
And oh why
Well, from now on 'til your grandkids finally get what you deserve
Iâm going to be stuck here with you wookies
Eating fortune cookies
Until my guts churn
I sympathize with âIDigressIndeed.â And I endorse how he or she is handling a dilemma we all run into.
We all have different areas of expertise, and that means that sometimes we have to decide who else we can trust.
For example, I donât know BEANS about computer programming. So I must⊠and do!.. trust Mitchell S. who is a professional computer programmer about the software and programming for our simulations of participatory annual planning. Mitchell, on the other hand, doesnât know BEANS about what one must assume about consumer preferences and producers technologies in order to PROVE (as a mathematical theorem) that a particular procedure will necessarily converge to a feasible plan, AND whether that feasible plan would be a Pareto Optimum, i.e. efficient. So Mitchell has to trust me about that.
The issue in this thread has to do with a âpracticalâ subject regarding comprehensive economic planning. Namely, how refined or coarse our categorization of goods is (a) when we generate an annual plan, and (b) when that annual plan is put into action during the year. What those of us who believe that comprehensive planning IS a practical possibility believe is that we can use coarse categories, i.e. work with a shorter list of âgoods,â when creating an annual plan for the economy; and then, during the year, that coarser, i.e. shorter list of goods can be fleshed out into a more refined, i.e. longer list of goods as the plan is being implemented. We also believe that recent advances in information technology and âjust on timeâ inventory management have made it easier to translate coarse categories into more detailed categories AND make adjustments during the year when unforeseen circumstances arise.
This has been the subject of great debate over the years by people who are considered to have relevant âprofessionalâ knowledge about such matters. But unfortunately, these âprofessionalsâ have come to very different conclusions. Enrico Barone, for example, said the whole project of drawing up a comprehensive plan was CLEARLY a practical impossibility back in 1908. In 1935 Frederick Hayek argued that it was impossible to do in even a remotely efficient way. And more recently the editors at The Jacobin⊠about whose economic credentials I know nothing⊠summarily dismissed any kind of comprehensive economic planning as a practical impossibility as well. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and other centrally planned economies did comprehensive economic planning for many decades. Although, whether or not they handled how to turn coarse categories into refined categories well, much less enfranchised consumers rather than disenfranchising them is a different matter! And, there are a number of socialist economists today who continue to recommend some version of comprehensive planning. Cockshott & Cottrell, Devine & Adaman, Laibman, and Saros all propose versions of socialism in which there is a comprehensive plan created, which must then be fleshed out and adjusted when it is implemented. In other words, those of us who advocate for the âmodelâ of a participatory economy are not alone in this regard.
But when experts disagree, those who are not experts have no choice but to listen to the arguments on both sides and try to decide which of the so-called âexpertsâ make a better case for their conclusion, i.e. who to trust. Is any kind of comprehensive economic planning ânonsense on stiltsâ as the Philosophy Professor David Schweickart claimed? Or is comprehensive planning clearly a âpractical possibilityâ as the Economics Professor Robin Hahnel claims? How is that for pulling rank?!
I like that you pull rank. I know my post was not kind of on topic and a little left but it was not meant in a sinister way and itâs a genuine concern, if thatâs the right word. The planning aspect being I think the most mind bending part of PareconâŠâwhat, everything a year in advance?â
And when it comes down to a tussle between Dave or RobinâŠwell, suffice it is to know that Parecon is a true original imagining, clear and coherent non-market decentralised planned economic system that deals with problems few others if any have really dealt with. Itâs import up there with the old bearded guy, who hated Mickey B, who many seem not want to let rest, and his major work. While Dave couldnât even come up with his own little disparaging and scurrilous three word jibe but had to STEAL it from Jeremy Bentham. And if he STOLE it from Lenin, as Michael Albert seems to think, then itâs even less than unimaginative, being third hand!
Itâs obvious who Iâm gonna trust.
Life is often too boring, and these days also too depressing, NOT to entertain oneself sometimes with a little hyperbole. It was in the spirit of gest that I âpulled professional rankâ on Schweickart regarding the practical feasibility of comprehensive economic planning. I do not defend my behavior.