[DJP]

An interesting subject for sure. Another well known pop-psychology book that deals with related books is “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell. As to illustrate one of the examples in this book by making things easier for people will increase your success; since the membership application form has been available online we have recieved as many membership applications in 2 months as I believe we had in the last year or so.But, as we are not pushing a belief or faith, we should also be critically looking not just on how we say things but what we say as well. “Irrationality” by Stuart Sutherland is a good read on this subject. I’ve downloaded the book but don’t have an e-reader so don’t know if I’ll get chance to read it, laptop screens are painful to read text from over a long period of time.

[DJP]

I think that articles just a bit of hype, though interesting. More people have tweets with ‘Karl Marx’ in themhttps://twitter.com/#!/search/karl%20marx

[DJP]

robbo203 wrote:

Just noticed your comment above.   I don’t want to put words in your mouth but are you suggesting that a socialist society would be unable to determine whether a luxury yacht, say, was more important than an ambulance?   Agreed, these determinations are subjective but then that is the whole point, isn’t it – its a question of values and values cannot really be measured.  We can say that one thing is more “valuable” than another but we cannot definitively say by how much.  Even von Mises conceded that some things cannot be subject to calculation

It depends on how many yachts or ambulances society already has or needs. A socialised mode of production requires and makes possible a free flow of information, this is what will guide production. Producers and consumers (who are of course the same people) will vote with their feet as to what they want to produce and consume, that’s how society will determine what is important.I don’t think we have much to gain by trying to incorporate spurious models from capitalist economics into projections of how a future society may work.Sorry if this sounds brief but I don’t have the time to write long forum posts at the minute.

[DJP]

Ha ha, got them! Is there a prize?

[DJP]

ladybug wrote:

Hello comrades! :)I recently read the article by Robin Cox called The “Economic Calculation” controversy: unravelling of a myth (http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm). Overall I found the article convincing, and it laid to rest various scepticisms I’d had about a moneyless system, but there were still a couple things that remained problematic for me. (They are explained below.)

I recently re-discovered this video thanks to another thread on here. Perhaps this answers your questions, particularly the bit from 24mins onwards. Would like to know what you think?

[DJP]

gnome wrote:

Idiot indeed.  Another ignoramous who hasn’t a clue about the world he lives in.  

Though in fairness he has previously changed his mind on certain things (i.e. 911 conspiracies) in light of the evidence. So perhaps he will correct himself here. I’ve emailed him a link to the Anarchist FAQ!I’m not holding my breath though!

[DJP]

It seems it is not only alive but booming. See how many views this idiot is getting for his video.

[DJP]

Some thoughts in no particular order:Firsty the money / market system doesn’t effectivly solve these problems since market decisions are made according to ‘effective demand’ i.e who has money, not human need. But we all know this…The ‘community’ is the whole world so if needed scarce resources can be bought in from elsewhere.When the determining factor is not what takes the less labour-time but what fulfills needs to the highest degree, I think resources will rapidly be pushed into finding alternatives to materials that are scarce.Supply and demand can be tracked directly as goods flow through distribution centres. It is unnecessary to have a centralised plan or meetings to decide what people want.I’m not sure if it is really possible to rank needs in such a way as you are describing, since ‘use’ is something entirely subjective and it is impossible for individuals (and a society at large) to come up with a priotised list of wants, since these are constanly changing. I think you’ve bought this idea accross due to the influence of marginalist economics. (I’ll probably have to say more to explain this better)If there is no need or incentive for individuals to hoard I don’t think overconsumption would be a problem. An accumulation of stuff you don’t need is a burden.Here’s an article on labour vouchers. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/history/labour-vouchersThere’s a lot more detail that could be gone into..

[DJP]

gnome wrote:

And I see EARB is showing a film on the last Saturday of that month:-http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/human-resources-film-and-discussion-norwich

Indeed there is. But unfortunately I will be at a day school at London School of Economics that day.So is weekend of 18th Feb good with people?

[DJP]

A nice potted history of the rise of marginalist economics is in Ben Fine & Dimitris Milonakis ‘From Political Economy to Economics’But neo-classical economics is possibly on the way out, there’s a lot of text being produced within the field itself which criticize it and suggest a move to more ‘heterodox’ approaches. But as well as Marxian approaches this heterodoxy includes everything from Austrian economics to behavioral economics.My Open University textbooks for this year include a lot of hetrodux stuff, but no Marx.

[DJP]

Well I’d be up to coming down to London one weekend to help film these. February too soon?

[DJP]

Not sure if you’re confusing profits with super profits?Don’t have my textbooks to hand right now. Is this what you’re talking about?It remains to be seen how you can achieve perfect competition in the real world.

[DJP]

Excellent. Just a slight modification of your idea. Instead of commentary on news items, which may go out of date, why not short FAQ type answers? We could film a bunch together then gradually release them on the youtube channel. I think there a lot you can do with 5 minutes…

[DJP]

gnome wrote:

I think you’ll find Mark has already been nominated…………..and has accepted

One step ahead. I like it!

[DJP]

Without wanting to throw a damper on your enthusiasm. What the party suffers from is not a lack of ideas but a lack of people who are willing to put them into practice. So perhaps you should seek nomination to the AV dept and put your ideas into reality.

[Author]

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