Tag Archives: Cookbooks for Workshops of the Future

The first is a distateful counting of the victims of capitalism in the twentieth century. The second concludes that no-longer-actually-existing socialism was about as efficient as western countries. The last argues that general prosperity first declined with the introduction of capitalism. Salvatore Engel-DiMauro. 2021. Anti-communism and the hundres of millions of victims of capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism 32(1): 1-17. Peter Murrell. 1991. Can neoclassical economics underpin the...

[embedded content]Hakim on the Economic Calculation Problem Reactionaries often bring up the Economic Calculation Problem (ECP) as a fatal objection to socialism, considered as entailing central planning. Ludwig Von Mises put this forth in 1920 as an argument in principle that central planning is guaranteed to be highly inefficient. He postulates that the planning authority knows the prices of consumer goods and all technical possibilities, including the endowments of originary factors of...

Socialist and coomunist parties have formed various internationals over the course of centuries. I consider a declaration of the Socialist International, adopted at its First Congress held in Frankfort-on-Main on 30 June-3 July 1951 an authoritative statement of "The Aims and Tasks of Democratic Socialism". This declaration was re-affirmed in 1962. The declaration starts as follows: 1. From the nineteenth century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces. It has done so...

Girardi, Mamunuru, Halliday, and Bowles investigate, does studying economics make you selfish? In contrast to earlier research, they conclude no. Angus Deaton, in his book Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality apparently says, "A reader might be forgiven for thinking we are scoundrels concerned only with our own financial gain." Apparently, the Rochdale Principles were set out in 1844 in Rochdale, England, as principles for running cooperatives....

[embedded content]The Start Of This Video Is An Anecdote About George Dantzig1.0 Introduction Ludwig Von Mises popularized the Socialist Calculation Problem and brought it to wider attention. (This problem is also known as the Economic Calculation Problem.) In Von Mises' 1920 paper, he argues rational economic planning is impossible without market prices for capital goods and unproduced resources. Thus, anybody advocating socialism is advocating a system that cannot obtain a high material...

[embedded content]On Another Topic, with an Appearance by Rutger Bregman. This post does not answer the question, but merely provides a bibliography. I have not read everything below. I suppose this is something of a hodge podge. I include a book from Peter Kropotkin, even though it is much older than the remaining non-fiction works, since I am currently one third, maybe, through it. Novels (Ken Macleod, in The Cassini Division has a more complete list as chapter titles.) Edward Bellamy....

The strongest argument against socialism, understood as entailing central planning, comes from Enrico Barone. Von Mises popularized this argument. Maybe he was subjectively original. I think von Mises did not have a good understanding of duality theory and shadow prices. Anyways, his argument is supposed to be an argument in principle, an impossibility argument. Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, and Fred Taylor, for example, provided answers. Hayek proposed a revision emphasizing practicality and...

This post draws attention to the existence of a vast web of existing organizations that, perhaps, operate partly outside and partly inside a capitalist logic. These standards organizations define technologies vital to keeping our society running. I think I would find it interesting for some scholar interested in council communism or syndicalism to look into these. The examples I list are perhaps idiosyncratic, out-of-date, and reflect my personal history with computing. Here is a list of...

This is about Shove's review of The Socialist Tradition. Apparently Gray does not take those important in the development of economic thought seriously. Since Piero Sraffa is neither the recipient nor the sender, and the topic is not his work, maybe the editors of his collected works should not include this. 8, Abbotsford Park, Edinburgh. 10. 3rd November, 1946 Dear Shove, (If the fact that we occupied adjacent seats on the occasion of one of my rare visits to the Annual Meeting of...

Engels had a lot to do with formulating orthodox interpretations of Marx in the period after Marx's death. So it is interesting to see what he says. I have transcribed another letter before, about the law of value. The following is about historical materialism and the relation of the superstructure to the economic base: According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this...