Leontiff also won the Nobel Memorial prize in economics -- not for work he did in the USSR, though. He had great respect for Marx, I believe contributed a paper to an MR anthology on Marxist Economics put together by David Horowitz (!) in the old days.
Oskar Lange, later like Kantoworitz a hands-on central planner, showed that on neoclassical assumptions you could model a nonmarket economy to mimic market efficiencies using "shadow prices" (see Lange & Taylor, "On the Economic Theory of Prices," a response to Hayek from, I think 1938 http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Theory-Socialism-Oskar-Lange/dp/B0006AO488 The calculation debate swayed back and forth for a long time. The standard view, last time I checked, and I think this is correct, is that Lange actually missed Hayek's point. Hayek is not a neo-classicist but a sharp critic of neo-classicism. He's an institutionalist whose critique of planning is based on realistic observations about the operation of people in organizations gives in the incentives pure planning gives them. In this respect Hayek also differs sharply from Mises, who was ferociously a priorist, though not neoclassical. Hayek is a lot closer than Lange or Mises to Marx's approach. I'd say he's been soundly vindicated. Btw, he was not opposed to planning on efficiency grounds, as opposed to ideological ones, where experience showed it would work. He supported national health care, for example. Kantorowitz's mathematical achievement was awesome and knocks the math of neoclassicals into a cocked hat. It's also true that, as Cockshott argues, he was in many ways ahead of his time in that a lot of what he advocated could not be done on any existing computer technology available in his lifetime, especially in the USSR. However, I think he also does not come to grips with Hayek's objections. Not to put a fine a point on it, with a computer-based planning system running linear program models, you have the engineer's standard worry: GIGO. Hayek's fundamental argument was that the incentives of central planning produced GI, guaranteed you bad data to start with, so any models, no matter how good and how fast, starting with that data, would produce GO. Kantorowitz -- and I've read his big book -- does not concern himself with the quality of the input data. I have a long-standing interest in the calculation debate, as some of you know, but in some ways it's passe. There's no active audience outside a small handful of academic theorists interested in what is now the purely theoretical possibility of a nonmarket economy. There's a small handful of die-hard, mostly Stalinist, leftists, who Believe, but they're really not interested in even the broad strokes of the debate, because they Know the answer. No state exists anymore that even aspires to a nonmarket system, and none is likely to emerge. So apart from amusing people like Cockshotte and me, what exactly is the point? I suppose if you're writing about Marx and you are persuaded by one or the other side you can say, well there exist models that show that a nonmarket system, maybe like what Marx envisaged, is theoretically possible. Or: not. Anyway, work calleth. Justin --- On Tue, 9/22/09, Ralph Dumain <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Ralph Dumain <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the > socialist calculation debate revisited > To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and > the thinkers he inspired" <[email protected]>, > [email protected] > Cc: "marxist philosophy" <[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 10:39 AM > Not that I endorse an exclusive > concentration on economic > calculation, but Cockschott's overall perspective can be > found here: > > 21st Century Marxism > http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/21stCenturyMarxism.htm > > At 11:02 AM 9/22/2009, Ralph Dumain wrote: > >Some time ago Jim gave us this reference. If you are > interested in > >Cockshott's analysis of the socialist calculation > debate, high-tech > >socialism & e-democracy more generally, see his web > site: > > > >http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/ > > > > > >At 09:37 PM 5/24/2009, Jim Farmelant wrote: > > > > >Paul Cockshott on how the Soviet economist and > mathematician, > > >Leonid Kantorovich (who was the only Soviet > economist > > >to ever win the Nobel Prize in economics), > > >used his work on linear programming to > > >answer the arguments of economists like Ludwig von > Mises > > >and Friedrich Hayek who argued that rational > socialist > > >economic planning was, even in theory, > impossible. > > > > > >"Calculation in-Natura, from Neurath to > Kantorovich" > > > > > >http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/standalonearticle.pdf > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > >[email protected] > >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > >http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > [email protected] > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
