From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 23:25:29 MDT
Alex Future Bokov wrote:
> Overall, I believe markets *are* better than centralized planning. I
> doubt that at our current level of technological and economic
> development we're going to come up with something that's better accross
> the board. However, I think everything can be debugged, and that's what
> I'm trying to do with the concept of free markets. I'm not good at
> noticing bugs in this case, because I'm so immersed in free market
> think. I'm hoping to get some input from others on...
>
> a) Flaws in how other market systems were implemented.
I have heard it said that Soviet style central planning probably could have
worked if they only had a few good supercomputers and a nationwide network to
manage everything. Don't know bout that, because as far as I see it, the primary
problem with such system is that the threat of force causes underlings to lie
when feeding information up the line, and the pressure of propaganda needs
mandate that the leadership lie about both the acheivements of the last five
years, and the goals of the next five years...
No business plan survives contact with the market. Think about it. As one writer
in, I think, either Worth Magazine, or in Business 2.0, said recently, every
successful internet company is now in the fifth year of every five year plan
written in 1995. How many of those do you think are obsolete? How many were
obsolete within two years?
There is also the problem of perceptions of value. The market works because it
allows parties to negotiate a common sense of value. Any system that allows
parties to freely negotiate common perceptions of value is, by definition, a
free market system.
Is this in fact the optimum system? As far as the individuals are concerned,
based on their self interest, yes (except for those individuals who think that
negotiation = getting screwed). As far as the long term best interest of those
individuals, this is debatable. Is the fact that people waste billions of
dollars on beanie babies a good thing or not? Some think that the consumer
economy wastes large amounts of capital, work, and resources that could be
'better used' on development of infrastructure, technological advancement,
etc... these people also seem to be believers in the myth of absolute limits on
resources.
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