Justin, we have been over this before. The Austrians merely assert that somehow
in all of the entrepreneurs and will be able to coordinate their decisions, even
though many of these decisions depend upon them being able to anticipate each
other's plans in the future. In a static world, prices could offer a signal to
allow coordination, but not in a dynamic world.
Then you ask about incentives. The Austrian world is a world of entrepreneurs.
The capitalist world is a world in which the owners are short-term
stockholders. Their incentives are for a quick profit rather than the long-term
health of the company. What incentive do the masses of workers have?
The success of the socialist economy does not depend so much on the wisdom of
planners, but on the potential of encouraging the masses of workers to feel a
part of the overall operation. I once worked in junior management. I can tell
unequivocally that the people I work with would not lend credibility to the
fantasy of Hayek.
But then, we've been over this. What is the use of covering the same terrain?
Justin Schwartz wrote:
> The question is: incentives for what. The Austrian argument that I accept
> foicus not on incentives to work hard and avoid shirking, but on incentives
> to gather accurate information. I think you overstte the importance of the
> tactic dimension in Hayek: you are relying a lot on Polyani. I consider
> myself a sort of Hayekian, and Hayek's theme was incentives to get accurate
> information much more than inarticulable "how to" tacit knowledge. The
> Hayekian point is that plans need accurate information, but pure planning
> systems create incentives to generate inaccurate information. I am a
> pragmatist and not a bigor about planning: we know empirically that some
> things can be well planned--medicine, the military, utilities,
> education--and maybe better than markets can do. Those things we should
> plan. But we also know from experience that many things cannot be effective
> planned,a nd I think Hayek was right about why not.
>
> --jks
>
> Austrians are very interested in
> >"planning", just household, firm, individual plans, but not the planning of
> >other social groups--communities (unless privatized?), state, nation, etc.
> >i want to know what the logical reason is for permitting some social groups
> >to
> >plan but not others. i thought the Austrian argument was that the
> >successful
> >plan negotiates a terrain in which meaning is not always obvious, so
> >interpretation requires discovery which requires both tacit and explicit
> >knowledges, and tacit powers are denied agents of the state. if
> >policymakers and
> >planners can draw on tacit powers than this is not the case, and we would
> >be in
> >a situation in which these different spheres are not treated as so separate
> >and
> >different, rather states, markets, and other settings are intersecting and
> >overlapping and there are probably some kinds of problems more conducive to
> >being solved through certain institutional mechanisms under certain
> >conditions
> >and others through others or even combinations. but there would be no
> >LOGICAL
> >reason for privileging market mechanisms a priori. and there would be no
> >justification for the dichotomous treatment of "markets" and "states."
> >
> >but the key to your position may be revealed in your response to Peter's
> >question about alpert and hahnel: your focus on incentives. but then if
> >that is
> >the case, the argument is not about what institutions are most conducive to
> >tacit knowing.
> >
>
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--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
