[dalbasal]

Textiles is a funny one, it makes for a great (extreme) example for looking at current and past economic system debates. Free market emergence vs centralized design. Consumerism vs.. whatever the alternative is.

For a central planner in 2018 (if planned economies were still a thing), clothes would be an easy one. It's easy & cheap to make enough clothes for everyone to wear, in above-median economies. You might face inefficiencies. but, there is little chance of failure like the eastern block's automative industry failures in the 70s.

Free markets see efficiency differently, but from a planning perspective, the free market for textiles seems pretty inefficient. The hard inputs are cheap. The biggest "value adds" are not strictly necessary: fashion-design, wholesale, retail and marketing.

I realize this is a cheat, but imagine a small, leninist country popped into existence today. The central planning comittee could go to a global clothing manufacturer and order 1 million winter jumpers. They would buy them at a small fraction of retail prices. Jumper problem solved. You can deal with a lot of inefficiency before the cost of a jumper approaches the average retail cost of free market jumpers.

The variety, choice and such will be gone, but it's unlikely there will be a shortage of jumpers.

I've framed this in a potentially argumentative way, but if we look past the ideological aspects, the fashion industry has a lot more of "avoidable" costs, from a purely utilitarian perspective.

Thinking back, It's interesting to recall the last days of planned economies in eastern europe. There were all sorts of shortages. Most iconic was cars. Most ridiculous was consumables like toilet paper or tires.

With clothes.. One recurring story from eastern european travelers in the late 70s and early 80s was jeans. Jeans represented western youth culture, rock and roll, liberalism.. People wanted them, really wanted them. I've heard several people (famous people and people I know) talk about exchanging pants with someone (presumably someone they like) in the street, and making their day.

I don't think they had pants shortages though. People had pants, they just didn't have cool pants.

Curious.

The practical, measurable, rationally justifiable needs this industry serves represents a tiny fraction of its economic output. Mostly, it's about decoration.

[icebraining]

You can deal with a lot of inefficiency before the cost of a jumper approaches the average retail cost of free market jumpers.

Can you really? Primark sells jumpers for less than ten bucks. Can you really buy and distribute for much less than that?

[dalbasal]

Possibly not, but that isn't the average price of a jumper. It's the lowest price.

What I mean is this. A soviet-like economy might be able to produce enough jumpers for everyone, at a lower average price than a modern one. There won't be the choice or fashion and consumers may not like them as much, but they will be perfectly functional jumpers.

This is not the case for cars or smartphones...

[cornholio]

>Possibly not, but that isn't the average price of a jumper. It's the lowest price.

As one who lived in an eastern Europe stalinist country, I assure you that the mass produced, single version of jumper provided by the state will be typically of an inferior quality that even the lowest priced free market version.

I vividly remember the way common western goods seemed almost magical before and shortly after the fall of communism. They were slick, finished and of an exceptional quality, the Pepsi Cola bottle seemed to me almost an abstract work of art.

The free market incentives affect production and design to such a degree that it's often impossible for a centrally planned economy to reproduce: the most inferior capitalist good is still the result of a selection process that induces large survivor bias, so even if the central planners are just as competent and motivated, you would still usually end up with an inferior product due to sheer luck. And once production is in motion, small inadequacies pile up without a strong and conscious efort to improve the product, to the point where people in my country were buying in 1989 a car that was in every way inferior to the same car built by the same factory in 1970, itself a replica of a 60s western car.

There are exceptions to this, particularly with fungible agricultural goods: when things like butter or cheese were available, they were of very high quality and made to traditional recipes compared to the more "efficient" free market versions that have copious amounts of fillers, adulterants and preservatives.

[dalbasal]

Sure, I'm absolutely not argueing for Stalinism, just using it as a mental prop to think about textiles. In any case, clothes would not be a reason for Stalinism even if they were great.

The point that I was trying to get at is that it is fairly easy to make/get clothes. Most of the retail price, and most of the competitive dynamics between operators are related to things outside the basics: materials, manufacturing and logistics. These are shockingly cheap in 2018.

You're point on food quality is interesting, an example where open markets have produced excellent volume and variety, but often poor quality, especially in the previous generation.

Belarus?

[golergka]

I want to argue with you, but I have problem understanding where you're making a factual observation and where you're making a value judgement.

You're using words "utilitarian perspective", "rationally justifiable", "decoration". I hope you don't want the whole society to be based on such values, do you?

[dalbasal]

Utilitarian = gets the job done. In this case, producing clothes.

Rationally Justifiable = justifiable in non-subjective ways: warmth, durability...the kind of argument you could make to a central planner.

Decoration = Not Rationally Justifiable

BTW... central planning is not a rare thing. Tesla is centrally planned, so is Shell. If you want to argue for private offices or gym memberships in a company, you'll generally be limited to "rationally justifiable" (to stick to this choice of words) reasons. People will get more done, employee churn will be lower..

^ I'm not going to argue back