[p2p-research] Project Cybersyn

[Kevin Carson]

On 12/8/09, J. Andrew Rogers <reality.miner at gmail.com> wrote:

 I think one of the biggest failures of
>  classical economics, regardless of flavor, is that it has no concept
>  of this kind of continuum, assuming that it must be one or the other
>  in all cases.

Both the neoclassicals and Austrians treat the firm as a black box or
a unitary market actor, and don't even deal with transaction costs
within the firm.  But in fact power relations within a hierarchy lead
to exactly the same kinds of irrationality and conflict of interest,
the same agency and information problems, that result form the
exercise of power in the outside market.

Cooperative specialization will out-perform
>  anarcho-capitalism with relatively small numbers of agents but
>  degrades rapidly and becomes extremely wasteful as scales increase. An
>  optimal system -- assuming parity of intelligence -- requires both if
>  pathologies are to be avoided.

The most important thing IMO is that markets for raw materials and
primary goods exist on some scale, as an ultimate reference point (no
matter how indirect) for valuing inputs and enabling assessments of
comparative efficiency to be made even in the non-monetized peer
economy.

>  Of course, this assumption does not hold if there are gross
>  asymmetries of intelligence, but that produces a result that is
>  different from either extreme if we assume that all agents have rough
>  parity of intelligence. Super-intelligence produces a system where the
>  equilibrium is essentially totalitarian, but the lesser intelligences
>  are incapable of even  discerning that fact if well-executed. Even if
>  we assume modest differentials in intelligence, such as you might find
>  in a human society, the theoretical consequences tend to be a little
>  more totalitarian -- and invisibly so -- than most people would likely
>  prefer. This is where the argument ultimately ends up: if you are
>  manipulated beyond your ability to discern such that you have no
>  concept of that manipulation, what does that mean as a practical
>  matter?
>
>
>
>  --
>  J. Andrew Rogers
>  realityminer.blogspot.com
>
>
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-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html