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On being the right size (1928)

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Re: On being the right size (1928)

#121

Post by bjourne »

V-2 wrote: post #53
bjourne wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to retain the good qualities of capitalism which is self-optimization and market-based decision making. The bootmaker and the nailmakers would be autonomous agents making decisions in their best interests. The bootmakers can buy nails from whoever they want, but if the market then rejects their boots because of shoddy nails, they will have to adapt. Also worth pointing out that in a specialized economy, m…

"The bootmakers likely need nails specifically designed for their boots so buying generic ones from China isn't an option. Instead they need to source a local supplier and tell them how the nails for their boots models need to be made" That's beautifully conceived, but you conveniently ruled out an option that sly bootmakers could get their hands on a Chinese dictionary and instruct these cheap Chinese suppliers (rat…

Yes, sure. No one said that the nail makers would be guaranteed a market for their nails. However it might be better for the boot makers to renegotiate their contract? And what is the cost of screwing over your local supplier? Maybe local public services will prefer boots entirely made in $your-country? Economy is way more complicated than always chasing after the biggest short term profits.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#122

Post by gnarbarian »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #79
gnarbarian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think is more likely to be incompetent, the board of directors of McDonald's or 10 employees chosen at random throughout the entire organization?

/sarcasm/ Come on! All people are equal! /sarcasm/

I like you. You seem to get it. It's interesting how quickly people forget/ignore what life was like in Warsaw pact countries. Then when presented with one as an example they resort to "they practiced the wrong kind of Socialism" or "it failed because they did or didn't do X."

When I ask my friends who lived there during that period they unanimously proclaim how much better life is now and how the standard of living has dramatically improved. Many more people can afford cars and there is incentive to work hard.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#123

Post by gnarbarian »

rmk2 wrote: post #120
gnarbarian wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the google translation of that quote is pretty funny: "Democracy does not end for us to plant fences" I think it's important to consider the rights of the owner as well. If I am a captain on a fishing boat, and I built/paid for the boat, I can then hire fisherman to work on my boat. There are more fishermen than captains, if there is a disagreement between the fishermen and the captain regarding where they should be…

I beg your pardon? VW is trying to establish a workers' representation in their plant, with politicians actively working against it because they fear that this will, over time, drive up the general level of income, which, in turn, will lead to other car manufacturers moving to other states. This has little to do with workers taking over from the owner, and everything with wages kept artificially low in order to attra…

Ya that's messed up. An excellent example of unnecessary govt meddling.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#124

Post by breakyerself »

dantheman wrote: post #20
breakyerself wrote: post #13

This is really an argument against socialism as the communists tried to implement it. Where the state nationalizes every industry and all workers become employed by the state which plans everything centrally. Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationaliz…

Jobs would still move, it's just that an industry in another country owned by someone else would eventually take the business. That is unless the local industry was somehow able to ban foreign competition. The beauty of capitalism is that it roots out inefficiency. If you take a look at history, state controlled enterprises are the most polluting.

If all things are equal and the advantage of the foreign competitor is based entirely on cheaper labor and efficient production then fine. Let the market sort it out. There should however be protections against the outsourcing of pollution. You shouldn't be able to undercut local products by dumping your waste stream in a river. Which is often the case. There should also be some basic standards for the foreign workers who produced imported goods.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#125

Post by gnarbarian »

bjourne wrote: post #119
gnarbarian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think is more likely to be incompetent, the board of directors of McDonald's or 10 employees chosen at random throughout the entire organization?

I believe it would be a wash. Who do you think is more likely to be incompetent, all McDonald's 450k employees or 10 board of directors?

You must not know many typical mcdonalds employees. How many do you think are college educated (let alone educated in the right areas) or even possess a GED? Compared to http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/boa...

Sure education isn't everything. The average mcds employee is a good person trying to earn an honest living fit to have a beer with but probably not the best source of sound investment advice.

Put to a vote they would all vote to raise their wages to 15/hr and the vast majority would be unemployed in 6 months because I'd be able to get a better burger somewhere else for less money.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#126

Post by jswinghammer »

cynicalkane wrote: post #90
jswinghammer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hayek and Mises were in total alignment on this point: economic calculation under socialism is impossible. Without a working price system economic coordination is impossible to sustain. Those communist countries were not growing at all. If you look at actual output compared to capitalist nations at the same time there is no comparison. The case of East vs. West Germany is sufficient to demonstrate this case. In fact…

Hayek literally wrote the book on the "sentiment that I expressed", it's called The Road to Serfdom . Hayek's views on the "economic calculation problem" were more subtle than 'it doesn't work' and they needed to be because by the time he wrote the book, communism was a real economic power and it was getting more powerful. I'm not sure how you think Russia went from backwards feudalism to nuclear superpower by "not g…

Hayek is an interesting character because "The Road to Serfdom" is not really his finest or clearest viewpoint on markets at all. I saw a video interview with him (you can find it on youtube if you want) where he just restates what I did that the economic calculation problem renders socialism unable to coordinate production effectively.

Russia as compared to the United States is still a backward country. Their wealth is nowhere near the United States and certainly didn't gain any ground during the Cold War period. It doesn't take much, if any, "growth" to force a nation as large as Russia to build a large military-particularly when you don't actually need to figure out the logistics of that army fighting an actual war (since Russia could never have done such a thing against the United States). Add to that forced labor and the basic confiscation of whatever you need to accomplish your goals and it all is pretty straightforward.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#127

Post by yaddayadda »

vidarh wrote: post #88
gnarbarian wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the company can hire someone else.

That won't help the company if the law has been changed to set a 30 hour maximum, which is my point: Why are you generally not seeing electoral support for 30 hour maximum work weeks?

From my current boss, and sadly repeated by a significant number of coworkers, "Because our competition is working more than we are. If we don't work these crazy hours they win."

To add insult to injury, this particular employer is the least efficient place I've ever worked. I'd estimate the average employee works 70-80 hours a week, but 1/2 to 2/3 of that is simply working around poor management or fixing mistakes that could have been avoided.

So, when I seek to get my fellow employees to consider the possibility of working toward a 30 hour workweek, I get the "our competition" argument. When I try to introduce efficiencies, I get the "we don't have time to learn/employment/etc." arguments.

Sadly, because of the economy and commitments I have, I haven't been able to find another job that I think is enough of a good bet. As soon as I do, I'm outa here!

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#128

Post by dnautics »

vidarh wrote: post #81
dnautics wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationalized or socialized..." One of the earliest (and now largely forgotten) criticisms of Marx came from the American philosopher Benjamin Tucker, who facilely forsaw the rise of the communist implementations as an…

State socialism is arguably not Marxist, but Leninist. Many Marxist will also disagree with the term state socialism (many describe those regimes as state capitalist, on the basis that the organisation of capital remains as it does in market capitalist countries - de facto if not de jure concentrated on the hand of a small upper class that is exploiting the working class for profit). But the criticism above seems to…

keep in mind that Lenin was in his late teens when Tucker wrote this, so Leninism couldn't have existed as a commonly accepted political philosophy. For convenience, I've only taken the end of the Tuckerian analysis, so there are a few steps from Marxism to get to this point. This was a direct extrapolation and direct criticism of Marxism, and unless Tucker was a time traveller, it could not have been anything else (much less Stalinism).

It would be valid to invoke some sort of mechanism that prevents Marxism from getting to the point of state socialism where this quote takes off; but of course, empirically, Tucker's model seems to have been shown true in a few cases, so I would suggest there would need to be a heavier burden on describing exactly what needs to be different, and why.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#129

Post by dnautics »

jval wrote: post #71
dnautics wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationalized or socialized..." One of the earliest (and now largely forgotten) criticisms of Marx came from the American philosopher Benjamin Tucker, who facilely forsaw the rise of the communist implementations as an…

This is a superb comment. Thank you.

Tucker was way ahead of his time. He was (to what degree of animosity I don't know, but I imagine friendly rivalry) a competitor of the more well-known Lysander Spooner. I think they largely agreed on a lot of things, but there was a major wedge between them; Spooner was for a strong Intellectual Property regime, and Tucker rejected IP altogether. A lot of the open culture/proprietary culture arguments that we see now that have cropped up as extensions of the Open Source movement are basically rehashings of the Tucker-Spooner dialogs.

Plus ca change...

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#130

Post by V-2 »

bjourne wrote: post #121
V-2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The bootmakers likely need nails specifically designed for their boots so buying generic ones from China isn't an option. Instead they need to source a local supplier and tell them how the nails for their boots models need to be made" That's beautifully conceived, but you conveniently ruled out an option that sly bootmakers could get their hands on a Chinese dictionary and instruct these cheap Chinese suppliers (rat…

Yes, sure. No one said that the nail makers would be guaranteed a market for their nails. However it might be better for the boot makers to renegotiate their contract? And what is the cost of screwing over your local supplier? Maybe local public services will prefer boots entirely made in $your-country? Economy is way more complicated than always chasing after the biggest short term profits.

Of course - maybe they will :) and maybe they won't. Which is way less certain than saying "they [the shoemakers] NEED to source a local supplier", as you wrote.

The key thing here is that if I buy boots cheaper by 1/4 (thanks to partial outsourcing), I will spend the 1/4 I saved by going to a barber. Or a local restaurant. Or by buying doughnuts at a local bakery. So - speaking of economy to which there's more than meets the eye - these are local suppliers too, indirectly benefiting from the fact that local shoemaker imported nails.

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