[TeMPOraL]

And how does the free market solve this problem? By overproducing the shit out of everything, letting it rot on the shelves and then throwing it away. This is the cost associated with the abundance of products - especially short-lived ones - in the stores.

Yes, in recent years the market learned to optimize, to run on supply lines with very little buffering at endpoints. Still - the producers get information about how much to make from the sales at endpoints. Why the same scheme should not be available to central planners? Does centralization somehow preclude from measuring at the endpoints?

Hell, if you really look at it, isn't the optimizations market learned basically central planning, but in the hands of private planners and not state ones?

[andrenth]

Because no central planner can have all the information about every aspect of the market in order to plan correctly. This is impossible not only because of the volume of information, but because the information in question is highly subjective (they amount to personal preferences). So the "optimization" has to happen in a distributed manner, with each agent taking in account his own preferences and the information available to him.

Finally, a centrally planned economy precludes the entrepreneurial function.

[ZenoArrow]

So you don't manage it centrally, you manage it regionally and monitor stock levels.

One item taken = one sale, so you have the same level of information to manage the economy with.

[andrenth]

Monitoring stock levels is hardly all you need to manage an economy.

You need to consider innovation, the creation of the very same information agents in an economy use to decide the actions they take. This is the entrepreneurial function. If production is ruled by coercion of a central planner, you eliminate that, and then what incentive is there for anyone to produce?

In this scenario, at the very best you get crony capitalism; at the worst, you get communism.

[ZenoArrow]

> "Monitoring stock levels is hardly all you need to manage an economy."

I didn't say it was, what I did say is that you lose no 'sales' information from removing money from the process of transferring goods from the manufacturer to the consumer. In other words, removing money doesn't make managing an economy harder.

> "You need to consider innovation, the creation of the very same information agents in an economy use to decide the actions they take. This is the entrepreneurial function. If production is ruled by coercion of a central planner, you eliminate that, and then what incentive is there for anyone to produce?"

Innovation can happen faster without the overhead of competition. What you want to encourage instead is collaboration. Innovation does not have to be a top down affair if you remove money from the economy.

Whilst it's not a perfect example, consider the development methodology of open source. Whilst there are problems with the open source approach, I'd argue that shortage of innovation is not one of those problems.

[andrenth]

> I didn't say it was

You said "One item taken = one sale, so you have the same level of information to manage the economy with." so I think you did.

> what I did say is that you lose no 'sales' information from removing money from the process of transferring goods from the manufacturer to the consumer

Money is a tool, and a useful one. It provides portability, divisibility and allows indirect exchange. How do you propose that manufacturer to be payed? Do you see a return to a barter economy? Or do does the manufacturer only gets whatever goods the central planner allocates to him?

> Innovation can happen faster without the overhead of competition.

Can you give an example of that? I'd be more inclined to say that competition is one of the major drivers of innovation. You have to provide more at a lower cost, or you lose your customers.

> Whilst it's not a perfect example, consider the development methodology of open source.

There is a lot of competition (and money!) in open source.

[ZenoArrow]

>"You said "One item taken = one sale, so you have the same level of information to manage the economy with." so I think you did."

If you think I said that, let me clarify then.

You said... "Monitoring stock levels is hardly all you need to manage an economy." ... I never claimed it was enough to run an economy, because it takes more than monitoring sales to manage an economy.

However, monitoring stock is enough to track sales, that's my point, tracking sales can be handled without money and without losing the benefits of money in tracking sales. By tracking stock you have all the sales information you need. However sales information is not enough on its own to manage an economy. Hope my point is clearer now.

>"How do you propose that manufacturer to be payed?"

Why would the manufacturer need to be paid when everything is free? I'm proposing a system without money, without a need for trade. There are many options, my personal favourites are variations on the resource-based economy ideas.

>"There is a lot of competition (and money!) in open source."

Competition yes, but largely uninhibited collaboration also.

As for money in open source, open source (or rather the free software movement) existed before the money started rolling in. Furthermore, the main benefit that the money brought was that people could work on open source full-time and enjoy a decent standard of living. If you take away the need to earn money to survive the level of activity around open source is unlikely to be diminished.