Luo says that the "general desire for a better life" is enough of an incentive for
everyone to tell the truth, even if that means making oneself work harder with fewer
resources, or voting to disrupt your life by shutting down an inefficient enterprise
or even a line of work (think of typesetters). i don't believe it. i think that common
interests like that are too weak to overcome individual interests. Note that I am not
positing some sort of a priori selfishness, but am talking about the historically
located incentives created by planning itself. This is a wholly materialist approach.
I disagree, too, that Hayek's approach is about the USSR. In fact, Hayek's key papers
were written in the 30s, during the first five year plans, not during the NEP.
Obviously the USSR was (and remains) a main testing ground for theories of planning.
People like Harry Braverman used to point to it to show that Hayek was wrong. But the
argument is general, and it is confirmed by all kinds of planning experiences,
capitalist (think of the Pentagon!), monopologtsic, as well as state socialist.
In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 3:11:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Louis Proyect
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
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The "incentive" is a desire to make a better life for all of society, as
hard as that is to believe. Most human beings would prefer it that way,
despite libertarian propaganda.
The Hayekian critique revolves around the former Soviet Union, despite
Justin's claim that it is a "general" argument. The problem is that as
Harry pointed out there was a general disappearance of planning in the USSR
during the time that Hayek was developing his critique.
>>
