Successful Communism

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What do you mean? I think it's kind of foolish to think that corporate planning is like communal planning. They're not one in the same. A corporation defines it's own needs, it's own goals, and it's own desires. It determines what products or services it will produce gauged on consumer demand or manufacturing consumer demand. Communal planning, at least on a national level, can't function like that. A corporation can say, "We're going to make this product and try to sell it." But a communist government will not. A corporation will try to fit into the needs and desires of the people. A communist government will not. Corporations function from the bottom up and exist to fit into niches that can accommodate everyone. Communism functions in an opposite fashion, by the top determining what the people will get.

You don't think corporations try to conform the public's views towards their own ends?

And just to be sure, a lot of economic planning in a corporation is just winging it and making as good of an assumption as you can about inflation, present worth, future sales, and future overhead, maintenance, and production costs. Crap like that.

Not as much as you seem to think.

Indeed, but they still receive far more input than they are capable of generating. Even the largest corporations in the world - Exxon, WalMart, etc - still depend enormously on information received from the outside to function.

I'm not clear on what "outside information" means here.

There is a price mechanism that will tell how much Exxon should refine or transport, and up to what point it is profitable to do so. A corporation working in a command economy would not have this sort of luxury.

Only if price controls were dictated by the government, separate from any sort of input from the corporations producing said products. The issue is not consumers and prices, it is profitability. Soviet firms notoriously operated outside of this concern.

An important distinction.

Galbraith observed that Soviet firms (who received direction from GosPlan) operated more or less analogously to American firms in which the founder or CEO had tried to monopolize decision-making on himself rather than submit his power to committees. Both should yield their power to the superior decision-making skills of committees of educated experts in their technostructure because of the immense specialization required in myriad fields to collect and analyze the data necessary to make the firm run.

 

[Yeekim]

So tell me, then: how does a corporation even functionally exist if economic planning is impossible?

Well, they don't. Most go bankrupt within few years. Eventually they all do - or they get sold to investors who are willing to cover the losses to keep potentially profitable brand alive. However, they are being constantly replaced by more successful and more lucky rivals.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Well, they don't. Most go bankrupt within few years. Eventually they all do - or they get sold to investors who are willing to cover the losses to keep potentially profitable brand alive. However, they are being constantly replaced by more successful and more lucky rivals.

Once companies make it to the big leagues (i.e., they become publicly traded), I'm sure the "failure" rate is much lower. It is indeed very high for small, private businesses - some types more than others - but then, being bought out isn't exactly a failure for a corporation: it preserves the power of most of the management and allows them to continue the organization down their envisioned path. After all, their goal is not necessarily to remain isolated from competitors, it is to maintain the facade of independence from the government. They already cooperate within present markets as an oligopoly for purposes of predictability and stability. Their "failure" is being bailed out or nationalized; ironically, what we have recently dubbed being "too big to fail." But paradoxically, it is also a sign of their success: lesser corporations aren't powerful enough to demand public money to catch them when they fall.

 

[luiz]

I'm not clear on what "outside information" means here.

All sorts of information. In a Capitalist system, corporations will for instance be able to calculate the opportunity cost associated with any new investment, and thus capital will be allocated more effectively. Without knowing opportunity costs you'll end up allocating capital on a bunch of underperforming investments. This is of course just one small example of the sort of external information vital to a corporation's proper functioning.

Only if price controls were dictated by the government, separate from any sort of input from the corporations producing said products. The issue is not consumers and prices, it is profitability. Soviet firms notoriously operated outside of this concern.

And by doing that they notoriously failed to meet the demand. The Soviets were not stupid, they obviously used inputs from the corporations producing and even from consumers to determine the prices of the products. But it didn't work out well. Only through the combined input from consumers and producers, and their countless transactions, can products be properly priced and thus production correctly paced. This is not the sort of thing that can be solved via government surveys; it is a very complex and entirely dinamic mechanism.

Galbraith observed that Soviet firms (who received direction from GosPlan) operated more or less analogously to American firms in which the founder or CEO had tried to monopolize decision-making on himself rather than submit his power to committees. Both should yield their power to the superior decision-making skills of committees of educated experts in their technostructure because of the immense specialization required in myriad fields to collect and analyze the data necessary to make the firm run.

But unlike their Soviet counterparts, American CEOs can and frequently are fired if their corporations fail to meet the expected profitability, which is why American corporations, generally speaking, have been quite succesful. The American system is also very capable of liquidating bad corporations, something that did not happen in the USSR, resulting in great costs.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's not state capitalism either because state capitalism is an oxymoron. China is a blend of a capitalist welfare state with some central planning.

Only if you assume that "capitalism" refers exclusively to laissez faire, free market capitalism, which isn't the case; "capitalism" refers only to an economic system in which a "capitalist" class controls, directly or indirectly, the means of production, having no particular implications as to the nature of government. State-capitalist interaction doesn't simply refer to a "mixed economy", but can mean a system in which the capitalist class also dominate national government- such a scenario, for example, was found in Great Britain prior to the democratic reforms of the late nineteenth century.

Communist government is also an oxymoron yet those seem to exist according to you.

Only if we assume that "government" exclusively refers to a centralised state government, which isn't the case; communism, or any form of non-individualist anarchism, is potentially compatible with a bottom-up, subsidiaritarian form of government. After all, if communists, as a group, are willing to accept that "dictatorship" can be used in a manner other than the popular form, why should they get caught on the same sort of silliness here?

Honestly, you guys are doing a lot of assuming-that-things-refer-exclusively-to-subsets-of-that-thing today. What's that all about?

 

[Hakim]

What? You do realize that the USSR cut across 11 time zones, with dozens of ethnicities, and dozens of cultures and languages right?

Yes, but it started in Russia with mainly Russian population and the communist state replaced the previous Russian one. So people who didn't agree with the principles would take the perspective that the state should revert and hope for this, not that perhaps they should move instead (and were stopped when trying to do so). For natural reasons they'd felt that they belonged there, stayed and weakened the spirit from within. If you start with a fresh country there at least won't be any language, ethnicity or history to keep people there who is otherwise alienated (they won't go there in the first place).

Sounds like a strawman.

No, no I just tried to identify reasons why existing attempts of communism have failed and reason aloud if these can be addressed differently.

A lot has changed as well. For instance, while I still think the market mechanism to allocate resources is superior in efficiency, have there been any serious attempt to use today's IT technology and organization experiences (eg Open Source-movement) to do the same task without involving currency? Perhaps it wasn't possible then, but is now.

You're welcome to write an Ayn Rand-style book about commies who go on such a retreat, though, if only to parody "collectivism" (as she essentially did to capitalism). That may actually be worth reading, at least.

Well, someone should have done it already. The Green Mars/Blue Mars books comes to mind, I think the writer tried to outline some kind of communist society there for the independent Mars.

 

[civ_king]

1. It saves time to type numbers instead of words (and time is money, and money is the most important thing in the capitalist world we live in)
2. sh*t i mean U may be rich and I poor, but by working harder then u, we will become equals
3. Capitalism>communism, because capitalism is more fun, and easier to maintain
my rant above clearly stated that, communism is boring, thats y we need capitolism
4, 8 hours, well lets do the math:
168 hours in a week
-8 hours of work
-60 hours of sleep (average sleep for an American in a week)
that leaves exactly 100 hours, wat do u intend 2 do with that time:
1. Cant play civ, not enough resource 4 their to be a civ disk 4 every person, not enough computers, not enough xboxes
2. cant read, the tree hugger trait i see in most communists i no means their wont be books
3. cant watch tv, same reason
4. In short can't do anything with ur free time, u will just be bored while walking around in circles cutting ur live expectancy in half as the only things 2 do will be weed and alchohol

1) time is money? only when you are a wage slave
2) Circumventing filters is not tolerated
3) Communism is boring? prove it!
a) not everyone needs a copy of civ, one per family!
b) Libraries?
c) same reason as?
d) weed and alcohol? you really can't come up with anything else?

Okay, I suppose 10 is too low, 30 is better

168h
-70h sleep; what people should be getting
98h
-23h eating
77h
-30h work
45h can you come up with what to do over that time?

All sorts of information. In a Capitalist system, corporations will for instance be able to calculate the opportunity cost associated with any new investment, and thus capital will be allocated more effectively. Without knowing opportunity costs you'll end up allocating capital on a bunch of underperforming investments. This is of course just one small example of the sort of external information vital to a corporation's proper functioning.


And by doing that they notoriously failed to meet the demand. The Soviets were not stupid, they obviously used inputs from the corporations producing and even from consumers to determine the prices of the products. But it didn't work out well. Only through the combined input from consumers and producers, and their countless transactions, can products be properly priced and thus production correctly paced. This is not the sort of thing that can be solved via government surveys; it is a very complex and entirely dynamic mechanism.


But unlike their Soviet counterparts, American CEOs can and frequently are fired if their corporations fail to meet the expected profitability, which is why American corporations, generally speaking, have been quite succesful. The American system is also very capable of liquidating bad corporations, something that did not happen in the USSR, resulting in great costs.

if only they made it to computers, would have made their economy so much better

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

All sorts of information. In a Capitalist system, corporations will for instance be able to calculate the opportunity cost associated with any new investment, and thus capital will be allocated more effectively. Without knowing opportunity costs you'll end up allocating capital on a bunch of underperforming investments. This is of course just one small example of the sort of external information vital to a corporation's proper functioning.

This is actually one of the primary functions of the planning system and the reasons behind its power: with increasing technological demands, time between conception, creation, and production grows. Companies have to be sure that their expenditures will yield returns several years down the road when new products enter the market; its a waste of capital to create a product meant to be sold five years ago, and have no buyers for it. And materials must be specially-created for these new products: when Ford began his enterprise, they used general-grade steel to build their cars, the kind that could be mass-produced and bought on any market, which was were almost everyone got them. But today's cars require specific tempers of various metals, the only user for whom will be the [corporate] buyer, special acrylic paints, special everything, ordered by the manufacturer. For these things, the market is too unpredictable to be left to its devices, because it can incur unforeseen costs, and these things must be predictable for years beforehand, else the capital needed to create them would not be invested in the first place. And for that reason, corporations themselves have done away with the market in select environments where it suits them. The contractual planning that goes on in this way benefits every party, including the eventual consumer, for whom the product would never exist if things were left to the chances of the market.

You can see, of course, where there is both an appropriate and necessary place for economic planning. The mistake comes when applying those things in the wrong areas. Like, for example, restaurants or car repair, where both perfect competition exists and the market can function like it theoretically should. Likewise, there is really no reason to try and plan these areas, as both the value of their product and the capital required to produce them are exponentially smaller.

And by doing that they notoriously failed to meet the demand. The Soviets were not stupid, they obviously used inputs from the corporations producing and even from consumers to determine the prices of the products. But it didn't work out well. Only through the combined input from consumers and producers, and their countless transactions, can products be properly priced and thus production correctly paced. This is not the sort of thing that can be solved via government surveys; it is a very complex and entirely dinamic mechanism.

I think the greater problem facing the Soviets was their refusal to acknowledge that a healthily-strong consumer economy is necessary in a modern society. After all, it is not as if American corporations don't and haven't drastically overproduced and under-produced items, or otherwise horribly misjudged demand. Else we would not have discount and overstock stores.

But unlike their Soviet counterparts, American CEOs can and frequently are fired if their corporations fail to meet the expected profitability, which is why American corporations, generally speaking, have been quite succesful. The American system is also very capable of liquidating bad corporations, something that did not happen in the USSR, resulting in great costs.

American CEOs, by and large, are disposable. That is why they are so easily fired; they are figureheads appointed by board members. You don't go through and clear out the management, the real brains behind the operation.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Communism assumes everyone is equal, and in order for it to work everyone must be equal (and therefore identical). However we all know thats not the case. Some people r smarter, some r stronger, some r more beautiful, some r all 3. So in theory Communism is better, as a fascist, and a sworn enemy of communism I am willing to acknowledge that. But in real life capitalism works better. It encourages human nature. Encourages people to compete against each other, encourages them to work hard. If we r talk about ideal capitalism then we should talk about what ideal capitalism is:
Ideal communism suggests:
Everyone is equal

Ideal capitalism suggests:
I may be rich and u poor, but by working harder then u, we will become equals.

Ideal capitalism is perfect. It acknowledges that their is luck in this world, and that the world is far from perfect.

Also think about this. (2 all u communist who r arguing against capitalism)
If everyone was perfect imagine how boring the world would be. As a quote from a biblical analysis "perfection cannot be obtained indefinitely"
And as a quote from my favorite anime "The world isn't perfect, thats what makes it beautiful"
Both of those r true, perfection leads 2 boredom. describe what a perfect world would look like in ur eyes and wat u would want ur role to be in it, then imagine living like that 4ever. If ur life is fully planed out 4 u, then u cant call it life, as it was never urs from the start. (change is good, just not to much of it)
U may argue that if the world was perfect we would then loose knowledge of boredom or some bull, and the ability to be bored (or some bullsh*t like that) but that happened we would be soulless.

Wait, you're a fascist? Well, I know there are different meanings, you're not talking Hitler fascism are you?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

His name is Il Duce, so you figure it out.

 

[Karalysia]

Hitler fascism is the best type.

 

[Merkinball]

when Ford began his enterprise, they used general-grade steel to build their cars, the kind that could be mass-produced and bought on any market, which was were almost everyone got them. But today's cars require specific tempers of various metals, the only user for whom will be the [corporate] buyer, special acrylic paints, special everything, ordered by the manufacturer. - Cheezy

I get what you're saying, but this is a terrible example of it. Auto manufacturers buy cheap crap to make cars out of. There's nothing special about anything that a car is made out of, except for maybe that catalytic converter. Everything else is dirt cheap, and readily available.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hitler fascism is the best type.

Strasser 4 life, yo.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I get what you're saying, but this is a terrible example of it. Auto manufacturers buy cheap crap to make cars out of. There's nothing special about anything that a car is made out of, except for maybe that catalytic converter. Everything else is dirt cheap, and readily available.

Its not merely the materials used to make the car (which you're still wrong about), its the tooling necessary to manufacture the car. You've got to make sure everything works the first time around correctly, because re-tooling a factory or twenty is expensive as balls, and takes a long time to boot. Again, back in the olden days, the Ford guys would just take the car back to their workhouse and keep screwing with it until the owner was satisfied. Can't do that today.

 

[luiz]

This is actually one of the primary functions of the planning system and the reasons behind its power: with increasing technological demands, time between conception, creation, and production grows. Companies have to be sure that their expenditures will yield returns several years down the road when new products enter the market; its a waste of capital to create a product meant to be sold five years ago, and have no buyers for it. And materials must be specially-created for these new products: when Ford began his enterprise, they used general-grade steel to build their cars, the kind that could be mass-produced and bought on any market, which was were almost everyone got them. But today's cars require specific tempers of various metals, the only user for whom will be the [corporate] buyer, special acrylic paints, special everything, ordered by the manufacturer. For these things, the market is too unpredictable to be left to its devices, because it can incur unforeseen costs, and these things must be predictable for years beforehand, else the capital needed to create them would not be invested in the first place. And for that reason, corporations themselves have done away with the market in select environments where it suits them. The contractual planning that goes on in this way benefits every party, including the eventual consumer, for whom the product would never exist if things were left to the chances of the market.

You can see, of course, where there is both an appropriate and necessary place for economic planning. The mistake comes when applying those things in the wrong areas. Like, for example, restaurants or car repair, where both perfect competition exists and the market can function like it theoretically should. Likewise, there is really no reason to try and plan these areas, as both the value of their product and the capital required to produce them are exponentially smaller.

Your logic is only half right. While it is obviously true that corporations do a lot of planning, what I am arguing is that said planning is only made possible because of a huge amount of information from the market. When one says that a planned economy does not work, one is not arguing for the abolition of all planning. Even in markets with perfect competition, there is still a good degree of planning.

It should also be noted that corporations are trying to greatly diminish their reliance on long term planning and are embracing market unpredictability. Even for the most specific product, a factory is now expected to be able to switch production quickly and without much prior notice. Corporations that cannot quickly adjust to a changing market are being swept out.

I think the greater problem facing the Soviets was their refusal to acknowledge that a healthily-strong consumer economy is necessary in a modern society. After all, it is not as if American corporations don't and haven't drastically overproduced and under-produced items, or otherwise horribly misjudged demand. Else we would not have discount and overstock stores.

The Soviet economy had many problems, and as I said that it could not properly price things was one of the major ones. They did use sophisticated mathematical models to try and plan production, but they failed.

American corporations can also fail, of course, and as I said those who rely too much on prior planning and are unable to adjust to changing demands are being driven out of the market and replaced by more efficient firms; and that is yet another strength of the American system.

American CEOs, by and large, are disposable. That is why they are so easily fired; they are figureheads appointed by board members. You don't go through and clear out the management, the real brains behind the operation.

Some CEOs are useless, some are brilliant. Just like managers in general, really. There are examples of CEOs who really gave a priceless contribution to their business.

 

[Merkinball]

Its not merely the materials used to make the car (which you're still wrong about), its the tooling necessary to manufacture the car. You've got to make sure everything works the first time around correctly, because re-tooling a factory or twenty is expensive as balls, and takes a long time to boot. Again, back in the olden days, the Ford guys would just take the car back to their workhouse and keep screwing with it until the owner was satisfied. Can't do that today.

Cheezy, I'm an automotive mechanical engineer. I hate to tell you this, but you are wrong. Cars are made out of generally cheap crap. One thing is for sure, all of the materials are quite common and dirt cheap. It costs about $3000-$4000 to make your average mid-size car.

You're right about tooling and manufacturing. It is expensive, but there are methods of cutting down costs and they almost never have to retool them until they're finished with a particular platform (IE: recalls requiring it). I won't deny that, and I won't deny that it's complex and takes an immense amount of planning. But I am denying that cars are expensive and use super high tech materials. Because that's just pretty much farcical.

 

[aelf]

No, no I just tried to identify reasons why existing attempts of communism have failed and reason aloud if these can be addressed differently.

A lot has changed as well. For instance, while I still think the market mechanism to allocate resources is superior in efficiency, have there been any serious attempt to use today's IT technology and organization experiences (eg Open Source-movement) to do the same task without involving currency? Perhaps it wasn't possible then, but is now.

To be frank, I don't understand why you equate communism with collectivism.

 

[ilduce349]

Wait, you're a fascist? Well, I know there are different meanings, you're not talking Hitler fascism are you?

Hitler was not a fascist he was a Nazi. Nazism is national socialism, as fascism is national capitalism, their is a difference:
Over 30 countries in the 1920's and 30's called themselves fascist, all though most of them adopted central economics when they became greedy: I follow the Romanian Fascism branch:
1) Most right wing of the fascist states: so right wing that by the late 1930's the Germans owned most corporations in Romania. (Hitler used this 2 his advantage to forge an alliance properly)
2) Was racist: lets face it, Bulgaria was the only European country (unless u count turkey) that wasn't racist against Judaism in the 20s and 30s. Evan though they where racist remember, Jews were being prosecuted in Poland, Finland, Italy, Russia, Japan, France, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China, Mongolia and a few others countries before Hitler came into power in the 30's. So although we blame Hitler and Fascism for the Holocaust, it wasn't entirely his fault. (American propaganda is the reason for that)
3) Was a dictatorship: Gained efficiency as a result
4) Was actually fascist: one of the few fascist countries that actually followed the fascisms ideologies.

Hope that clears things up

 

[Merkinball]

Hitler was not a fascist he was a Nazi. Nazism is national socialism, as fascism is national capitalism, their is a difference: - Ilduce

I'd really be interested in watching you dichotomize Nazism's economics with Il Duce's, who, after all, was a card holding socialist until the day he died.

so right wing that by the late 1930's the Germans owned most corporations in Romania. - IlDuce

Some might call this nationalization. Ya know, like national socialism...

 

[Karalysia]

So of the Romanians on this forum, one is a drunken womanizer musician, the other is just a drunk, and another is most likely also a drunk but also a fascist. The Romanians are clearly representing well on this forum. But the Iron Guard is a pretty cool name so I have to give you that.