It’s kind of a lib book, but the people’s republic of Walmart (or whatever it’s called) shows that central planning and logistics have advanced so much that it’s far more achievable than it used to be.
I’ve also worked doing demand planning and transport logistics for huge supermarket chains and food companies… They manage pretty well, even without supercomputers or fancy optimization algorithms. The systems that already work pretty well could be largely left alone, just changing the key variable from profit to some measure of social benefit. Of course, not every organization has good logistics or planning, nor it’s easy to get there, but it is possible!
I have my own criticisms of central planning models, mostly when it comes to governance and community consultation, but it’s silly to look at the current global trade networks and say: nope, no planning here! It’s impossible to coordinate people towards a common goal if they’re motivated to achieve it!
I have read it. It is a lib book. That’s why I have seen it in so many ‘deprogramming/disillusionment reading lists’.
It doesn’t detract from the point about modern logistics having solved many of the problems that plagued earlier implementations of central planning.
why is it lib?
If everything can’t be planned then just plan as much as you can ? There really isn’t an argument against planning, the people who are vehemently against it are just interested in having a market and empowering the class that runs that market. Being anti-planning is just absurd.
amazon will preship goods based on aggregate wishlists, and ai will price items exclusively for your paygrade, but you, dear consumer, will always think it’s something that happened by vibes.
i do think final goods is whatever for central planning, more trouble than worth, basic commodities however are a must
> Market dictates the price and the demand.
> *Looks inside*
> Planned allocation.
I do generally think (and agree with rightwingers) that central planning suffers from new categories appearance, if there is no vision (say, cellular phones), there is very small group of people which will deny you funding/allocation/workforce, while capital allows say 50 banks to shop around with business plan. But something silly like we need 50 million tons of steel, is easily solvable
*and obvious solution is doing fairs with new products, where planners judge interest by general public, but whatever, haven’t had that in ussr for new categories
I do generally think (and agree with rightwingers) that central planning suffers from new categories appearance, if there is no vision (say, cellular phones)
I think that phenomenon is largely historical and not intrinsic, the result of practically all socialist states being born out of (or continuously laboring under) apocalyptic war conditions or literally at the beginning state, the most dire feudal conditions on planet earth at the time
By way of comparison during wartime, particularly WWII, the production and availability of small, non-essential consumer commodities (like radios, toys, and luxury trinkets) ate absolute shit in both the US and UK
I think it’s basically production level fumble which could have been avoided if the problem was recognized as such. Like you can know about history of the radio all you like, but you have to see it implementation dialectically, not as necessity first (be it propaganda or military) but both necessity and nicety
But capital naturally moves to monopoly and ‘Central planning’ anyhow. The argument that things would be rubber stamped by 50 people is more accurate of capitalism, as socialism allows a bottom up approach to innovation. People with more free time, better conditions can innovate and be noticed. There are committees at multiple levels of planning as well.
yes, but evidently, ussr was fumbling semiconductors and consumer electronics for decades, despite them being not that hard to do (hard, but not that hard).
it allows, but wasn’t allowed to, they may pioneer some tech, but then adopt it after western consumers proved it feasibility for mass production.
Wasn’t the export of new strategic computer technology and sophisticated electronics machinery to the Soviet Union literally banned during the Cold War?
I do generally think (and agree with rightwingers) that central planning suffers from new categories appearance, if there is no vision (say, cellular phones), there is very small group of people which will deny you funding/allocation/workforce, while capital allows say 50 banks to shop around with business plan.
This problem is solved in a communist world if we eliminate borders by allowing people to make their case to any administration they want instead of just the administration in their home country. There can be options because there will be hundreds of different administrations optimising for the specific local conditions they have.
basic commodities however are a must
They are already largely centrally planned, too! Supply and transport contracts are done often for five years at a time or similar times for long lead time products (like commodities or raw materials, which often require processing and transportation across the world). But call it a five year plan and it suddenly is impossible.
You’ve just made me wonder, does Bezos have a horrible relationship with Trump? He’s got the largest and most well organised delivery company in the world with some genuinely incredible infrastructure. He seems kinda left out though? Not in China and I rarely see him involved in anything the current gov is doing.
Not only that but he’s running the infrastructure that runs most of the internet too.
I think he chose to keep himself out of the spotlight. Bunch of Amazon money thrown to the Trump admin though, and some Amazon people in key positions, mostly labor related.
Also as you mentioned, he doesn’t really have a lot to win by being friends with Trump, and rather he has a lot to lose by falling out of favor with him (as other billionaires have already). If anything it’s pretty smart he keeps a cordial distance from him.
If anything it’s pretty smart he keeps a cordial distance from him.
He does come off as one of the smart billionaires but some of these dudes from like Goldman Sachs and Blackrock that went to China with him are not dummies either. It just feels like his absence from practically everything is kinda obvious when you think about it a little. He’s really stepped into the background.
It might be a mix of prudence and conceit. He obviously considers himself above everyone else, and that includes Trump, so he doesn’t feel he needs to grovel or kiss the ring the way that others do.
It’s also that a lot of his empire is based on the last bit of the American economy that’s not just people exchanging money back and forth, or some sort of scam. He actually owns and builds infrastructure, and provides necessary services. What could he win by getting closer to Trump that he already doesn’t have? He exploits his employees to insane levels, essentially has a monopoly on online shopping and web services, he seems to have a pretty secure position with little room to grow. And the government has largely left Amazon alone even when people have complained.
Idk about the people who went to China with Trump, but if they’re bigwigs at investment banking firms, I’m sure there’s a bunch of regulations and compliance stuff that he could help them get rid of, so it tracks that otherwise sensible people are now donning the red cap.
Idk about the people who went to China with Trump, but if they’re bigwigs at investment banking firms, I’m sure there’s a bunch of regulations and compliance stuff that he could help them get rid of, so it tracks that otherwise sensible people are now donning the red cap.
This was not a normal visit to China. The real ruling class wants something serious and they all showed up.
I think they can be classified as either hardware companies, banks, tech companies, government contractors, and agroindustry (that one’s just Cargill, tho). Banks benefit from a looser regulatory landscape, hardware and tech companies suffer greatly from trade war and chip shortage created by Trump’s and China’s policies, and Cargill does too, only with a food and seed intellectual property angle.
It is scary snd concerning, don’t get me wrong, but it seems to me all of them have an obvious reason to try to get something out of Trump or from a China-friendly Trump. Maybe it’s a failure of my imagination, but I don’t see why brezls would be in that same club.
The funniest part about this nonsense is the fact the socialists won the debate 100 years ago, but it just didn’t matter because the capitalists embraced fascism and red scare politics and killed millions of people to bury that academic and concrete economic victory
The existence of supercomputers simply makes what was once a moderately laborious process into a trivial afterthought
Course if you asked these neoliberal dorks if central planning doesn’t work then how the fuck do multinational corporations exist? They’ll get a glazed look in their eyes as they realize they never bothered to even define terms like “centralized” and “economic planning”
The existence of laptops and scripting languages makes it a trivial afterthought.
Programmers deal with this all the time. If we did map directions to find the “best” route, it would take longer than the heat death of the universe. Instead we fudge it, break it down into smaller components, use heuristics, and then select a good enough answer. It’s no different for Cybernetics.
Somebody should tell them china exists.
Liberals : even with supercomputers we couldn’t manage economic planning!
European countries in 1914:
These clowns really think novel small consumer goods are more important in an economy and the entire economy should revolve around it.
it’s obviously worse and ineffective but if you try it we will invade you
As a free market enthusiast I’ve come to tell you that everything should be a free market. Your sleep? Free market. Your emotions? Free market. Your country? Free market.
Anything else is global communism
Oh god I listened to some of this since it showed up in the Jacobin feed I subscribe to for some reason. It’s extremely bad. Very typical economist-brained professor and a sycophantic cohost going over the most basic-bitch arguments against central planning (the information problem, and incentive structures are hard)
I got debunked on this shit 3 years before this piece landed. The economists can’t even create new red scare propaganda.
Explaining The Economy of The Soviet Union (Responding to Economics Explained)
“Economic Calculation Problem”: The Worst Argument Against Socialism
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Is this even a psyop? I don’t feel psyopped, I just feel confused.
The demsucc in the States reading this is definitely buying whatever anti-communist rhetoric they sell.
JacobinVerso is the Jacobin of book publishers after all.
Isn’t it the same writers but 300 pages instead of 15?
I honestly think the quality and rsdicslity of writing on verso books is far higher than on jacobin, even for the same writers. Idk if it’s the jacobin editors shutting radical ideas down, or verso people encouraging radical ideas, but there’s a big difference.
Co-signed. There are definitely some limits as to what Verso will publish (note that they’ve printed plenty of Losurdo, but drew the line at Stalin: A History and Critique of a Black Legend) but by and large they have the best library of contemporary theory that’s readily available in English. They also publish books that disagree with their other books. For example, they have several books advocating for degrowth, and they also have Matt Huber’s Climate Change as Class War, which argues against it.
Chibber’s podcast here, Confronting Capitalism, shares a title with a Jacobin-branded book that Verso published, but that book (as I recall) aims a hell of a lot more toward guiding people leftward (by explaining basic concepts like the reserve army of labor, and that kind of thing) than it does at stopping them in their tracks. I gave my copy to a lib I was trying to radicalize and while my work is very much not done it made the task a bit easier.
Here is Sebastian Budgen (Senior Editor of Verso, Editorial Board of Historical Materialism, Contributing Editor to Jacobin) insulting Rockhill with ad-hominem attacks on social media for daring to criticize Western Marxism, and explicitly saying that he stopped the publishing of Rockhill’s book with them: https://x.com/GabrielRockhill/status/2005093043012337674
I’m not interested in going to bat for any publishing house or editorial team. I have no dogs in any of these races. I just mentioned something I noticed reading the same authors, first on verso, then on jacobin, and noticing the differences, even when speaking about the same topics.
Then I just wrote some conjecture on whether this difference could be explained by each org’s editorial lines or teams, which seemed the most likely to me.
Hope this clears up what I meant by the other comment.
This is how the Compatible left operates.
I don’t understand what you meant by that comment, or if it was directed at me or the people you mentioned earlier.
It also feels to me like you have an axe to grind, and I’m not interested in participating or feeling like I have to keep explaining myself, so I’ll disengage.
I am talking about Verso.
I think this is also an interesting example of the concept of Zombie Ideas, except in this case it’s expanded into a new concept of a Zombie Debate where neoliberals argue themselves into an untenable and exploded position regarding the empirical and quantifiable beneficial reality of planning
