Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
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Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
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Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#2Communism is flawed because not everyone is allowed to become a member of the Communist party to get perks and elite treatment. The government also controls prices and if they want the price of toilet paper to be low and the price of bread to be low, there will be a shortage of it because the organizations that make it won't earn much money and make it at a loss. Then there are lines for toilet paper and bread to wait for it to be made.
The military is always given priority in food, and the people get what is left over.
Some argue that the Communism that the USSR had was not the same as Marxism.
I had a Russian coworker once, he tried to quit smoking. He had smoked US cigarettes and he switched to Russian cigarettes because they tasted bad and he claimed having bad tasting cigarettes helped him quit. Something about Russian quality control not being as good as quality control in the USA.
But as AI, automation, and robots improve, they will do the jobs of human beings and put most of us out of work and then there will be a basic income to live on. Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#3Communism is flawed because not everyone is allowed to become a member of the Communist party to get perks and elite treatment. The government also controls prices and if they want the price of toilet paper to be low and the price of bread to be low, there will be a shortage of it because the organizations that make it won't earn much money and make it at a loss. Then there are lines for toilet paper and bread to wai…
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better.
No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem.
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market' is akin to predicting the weather in great detail 75 years from now. You might, might be able to say "it's likely to be a bit warmer on average", but you could certainly never say "it'll be raining at 11:00 that day". It's simply impossible.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#4Communism is flawed because not everyone is allowed to become a member of the Communist party to get perks and elite treatment. The government also controls prices and if they want the price of toilet paper to be low and the price of bread to be low, there will be a shortage of it because the organizations that make it won't earn much money and make it at a loss. Then there are lines for toilet paper and bread to wai…
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better. No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem. https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market…
I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism.
If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better. No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem. https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market…
I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism. If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).
I think Communism broke itself. There is the myth that Reagan created the SDI program that didn't really exist to make the USSR spend more on research for space based defense to catch up, but I think that is a red herring.
Communism would pay janitors more money than it paid scientists and engineers, simply because that janitor was a member of the Communist party. Many scientists and engineers defected from Russia to other countries to earn more money. Russia had some great products AK-47, Soyuz rocket and capsule, and sold the MIG to many nations as well.
Look at Greece right now, they had major socialist programs and they got into deep debt. The USSR got into deep debt as well with their socialist programs, and their military was expensive to maintain. Nations that owed them money like Afghanistan they invaded and the USA countered by training Osama bin Laden and the Taliban to fight then guerrilla style, on 9/11/2001 we wish we hadn't trained them.
The USA didn't outspend the USSR it out innovated it with science and technology. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Sun, etc all developed better hardware and software and the PC Industry with MS-DOS had programs that automated tasks and saved money. It wasn't Reaganomics that boosted the economy it was the tech industry that did so. US companies sold the technology to other nations and money started to flow into the US economy. This was back when technology was made in the USA, now it is made in China mostly.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better. No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem. https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market…
I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism. If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).
I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism.
No, the problem was that without a market to provide prices, it was impossible to sensibly allocate resources (capital, labour).
It was possibly exacerbated by military competition with the USA, but it was inevitable for sound economic reasons.
Communism is a bad idea in theory as well as in practise.
If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).
Leaving aside the aforementioned calculation problem, no, you still have to take from people. Watson, electric vehicles, etc. don't (yet!) build and run themselves autonomously.
It'd be nice to think that you'd have to take less, as time goes on. But that's not proved true either; expenditure on socialist programs has increased over time, even as technology works to decrease the actual cost of providing goods and services.
Again, that's to be expected. If you give people the ability to vote themselves other peoples money, by and large, they'll do it.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#7Communism is flawed because not everyone is allowed to become a member of the Communist party to get perks and elite treatment. The government also controls prices and if they want the price of toilet paper to be low and the price of bread to be low, there will be a shortage of it because the organizations that make it won't earn much money and make it at a loss. Then there are lines for toilet paper and bread to wai…
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better. No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem. https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market…
It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives.
Assuming unemployment will increase as production becomes more efficient across a wide variety of industries, I would not be surprised to see expanded forms of segregated economic systems implemented, similar to electronic food stamp type systems, maybe for basic income. Credit card data along with other sources of resource consumption records would easily make forms of central planning easier. To some extent, think tanks and hedge funds likely are already attempting to predict resource allocation but unfortunately it seems someone has come to the conclusion that frozen yogurt facilities should be in high demand rather than education or housing.
I imagine China is making somewhat of an attempt at centrally planned economic calculation.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps that is when Communism works when the technology does the work for us and doesn't need any motivation to work better. No, because you still have the fundamental problem that broke Communism (and which was identified by von Mises and others in the early 20th Century): the calculation problem. https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem This is not a solvable problem. Creating an 'artificial market…
It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives. Assuming unemployment will increase as production becomes more efficient across a wide variety of industries, I would not be surprised to see expanded forms of segregated economic systems implemented, similar t…
America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives.
Yes, sadly.
It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc.
No, it's not.
Claiming that you can solve the calculation problem by ignoring economic ideology is like claiming you can solve the travelling salesman problem in O(N) time, if only you'd remove the ideology of P/NP :)
This is a problem of mathematics, not of ideology.
I imagine China is making somewhat of an attempt at centrally planned economic calculation.
I hear that's working out really well for them lately.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the USA outspending the USSR, forcing resource exhaustion is what broke communism. If you have unlimited renewable energy, self-driving electric vehicles, IBM's watson providing clinical expertise instead of doctors, etc, you could provide socialism without taking from people (because labor no longer has value compared to software and automation).
I think Communism broke itself. There is the myth that Reagan created the SDI program that didn't really exist to make the USSR spend more on research for space based defense to catch up, but I think that is a red herring. Communism would pay janitors more money than it paid scientists and engineers, simply because that janitor was a member of the Communist party. Many scientists and engineers defected from Russia to…
Attributing bad economic decisions as inherently a fault of social service programs in the case of Greece or the USSR is a red herring.
Canada, Switzerland, Neatherlands, Norway seem to be successfully managed countries with large social service programs.
Re: Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives. Assuming unemployment will increase as production becomes more efficient across a wide variety of industries, I would not be surprised to see expanded forms of segregated economic systems implemented, similar t…
America certainly is not a pure capital system, it's a mix of regulations and financial forces and incentives. Yes, sadly. It's solvable if you remove ideology from loaded terms like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. No, it's not. Claiming that you can solve the calculation problem by ignoring economic ideology is like claiming you can solve the travelling salesman problem in O(N) time, if only you'd remove the…
>[ https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem ] is a problem of mathematics, not of ideology.
Well yes it involves math, but ultimately it involves decisions by people on what to do with natural resources and consumption.
We're starting to see countries with %20+ unemployment and simply describing that as an issue of mathematics would seem inadequate.