> From: James Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:10515] yet more planning & democracy Sorry to put you out of sorts, Jim. I know that snipping your posts annoys you so I tried to inhibit myself. I'm doing the best I can. For me at least, it gets hard once you're past four or five levels of back-and-forth to maintain a coherent exchange. I'll state how I see our differences and leave you the last word. Given the capacities and inclinations of persons in an economy where capital is held in common, there are one or more allocations of resources which are feasible and which do 'pretty well' for social welfare and efficiency. Maybe there is even one best one, but that is not material to my argument. Democracy in its myriad forms gives play to individual and group interests, the aggregation of which would not be consistent with any of those 'pretty good plans.' More and better democracy for this reason does not move a society closer to a good plan, though it has appeal for other reasons. The free play of self-interest does not make chaos inevitable. Political harmony can indeed result. I see no normative economic value to such a harmony, though I can see other values pertaining to justice, among other things. By contrast, you seem to define a good plan as the one which a democratic process throws up. I think this is a circular argument. In this vein, I see political rights (including the procedures for making collective decisions) as much more elastic than property rights, your vehemence notwithstanding. All things considered, the implied economic outcome of a democratic process appears to be bereft of normative economic content, such as social efficiency. That's why, in my view, you haven't answered how something as basic, albeit profound, as a relative price consistent with a pretty good plan would be determined. In this light, I suggest that "social efficiency" means quite a bit more than achieving an arbitrary set of goals at least cost. Bringing up 'Nazi death camps' in this context is a little over-heated. Having said all that, like you I'd be for "giving it a try" if there was a snowball's chance in hell of such experimentation. I will risk incurring your further wrath with one snip, your final paragraph, in toto: > Equity and efficiency and democracy have to work together; they should be > seen as complements, not substitutes. These are the normative principles. > Ultimately, the economist's abstract conceptions of equity and efficiency > must be subordinated to what people want, i.e., democratic decision-making. > Planning is one part of making this work. That we would like equity and efficiency and democracy to be complements does not mean that they are or that they can be. That they 'must' is not a normative principle to me, since it begs the question of whether or not a circle can be a square. If, "ultimately," our own notions of these things must give way to "what people want" -- granting the problematic premise that they will get what they want by some kind of democratic process -- then I would say that you have extracted economic science, radical or otherwise, from the process. You are left with plans to make plans, rather than economic progress. Cheers, Max =================================================== Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===================================================
