Talk:Economic Calculation Problem

Introduction

miscalculation

capitalist pricing is very flawed and often miscalculates: I don't think it so much "miscalculates" as produces a calculation of obscure significance. i.e. when a buyer and seller operate in a public market their agreement of a transaction is a precise measure giving a piece of historic data. Not only that, but in a public market the final sale in an auction is also instantly communicated to others in that market. However there are a range of other factors going on which can effect matters and many transactions do not happen in this way. My concern here is not that the capitalist pricing miscalculates but that what it is that it actually calculates is unclear and often creates an idealised proxy for what it is pretended to calculate. This means that manipulation of information related to the shadow world between the proxy and the titular object being calculated creates fertile room for speculation. One of the functions of the capitalist pricing mechanism is precisely to maintain this shadow world. Leutha (talk) 12:18, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

early moments of economic modernization

central planning only worked well (and at a costly human price), in the early moments of economic modernization and stalls in the informational stage: Not sure what this means. Does it mean British colonial planning in the 19th century? i.e planning geared to delivering cheap commodities important for the global development of the imperial economy with marginal consideration for the colony? What is more relevant in terms of the literature cited is the development of planning in the context of the First World War. Check Weber's critique of Neurath in this respect:Economy and Society (1922)

Michel

Can easily agree with your first remark, with the caveat that there is no true pricing under capitalism, given social and environmental externalities that are not counted in.

For the second, we mean the first decades of the industrialization process under Soviet style planning, with at huge human costs (stalinist collectivisation, repression, etc ..), achieved much faster growth than their capitalist counterparts. But the price paid by early capitalist modernization (see the book Victorian holocausts) was just as high and without the same social benefits). See both the black book of communism and the black book of capitalism for figures about the human cost of modernization. --MIchel Bauwens (talk) 06:28, 12 January 2016 (UTC)