If Ludwig von Mises somehow considered Milton Friedman a socialist and he also considered fascism socialist, then doesn’t that mean that by being an economic advisor to the Austro-fascist, Engelbert Dollfuss, that he himself was assisting socialism? Surely, he himself thus became a socialist?
I won't put S because there are only 6 slots and I prefer to put the original ones, so if you would like to choose S, just choose A.
I saw a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME1hVozRIcA&list=WL&index=3&t=12s) from a heavily left leaning Youtube channel in which the creator debunked The Economic Calculation Problem. I was wondering what you think of their points.
I have described their main points relevant to the Economic calculation problem (ECP) itself below. Be advised; these are not direct quotes despite the quotations, however close to it:
Chapter 1.5.
“ECP falls apart when taken into consideration satellites, internet, and modern computing. By the 1940s the theoretical responses to the ECP solved this non-issue especially in relation to consumer goods. By the 50s L.V. Kantorovich proved that you could carry out rational economic planning and optimize production without money ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.6.4.366 ) Lange, Davidson, and dozens more have contributed to this discussion.”
Chapter 2: Failures of the Market
“Robin Hahnel argued that markets are systematically inefficient because externalities are pervasive, and markets are rarely truly competitive or in equilibrium. Manipulation of supply and demand through arbitrary pricing, hoarding, lobbying, brands as status symbols psychological targeting for artificial demand, simulated peer pressure and unethical consumer targeting are important realities of inefficient markets. These uniformly competitive markets found in textbooks do not exist in real life and real markets don’t conform to those models. Fully competitive markets are impossible and undesirable to capitalists.”
“If the market is so efficient, why are boom and bust cycles and their severe negative effects so common, and why is it that when these severe recessions happen, capitalism isn’t saved by the market mechanism but by government bailouts. “Even in market economies, the markets described in textbooks are the exception of areas like the world oil and currency markets. The main industrial structure of an economy depends on a complex interlinked system of regular producer-consumer relationships which the same suppliers make regular deliveries to the same customers week in, week out.”"
Chapter 3: Planning Under Capitalism
In this chapter the creator claims that large corporations, like Amazon and Walmart, are example of large-scale successful planning. I decided to skip this chapter as the creator doesn’t seem to understand that these corporations still rely heavily on price signals in decision-making. They recomm
... keep reading on reddit ➡According to Mises the capitalists that fail to meet the most urgent of the not yet satisfied wishes of consumers are forced to go out of business. Capitalists are forced to direct production to the demands of the masses.
The thing about this phenomenon is that it’s not the fault of the providers of the content, it is the fault of the consumers. Socialist content is in high demand. According to Mises the bigger the enterprise the more it has to subordinate its activities to the demands of the masses.
“The fundamental principle of capitalism is mass production to supply the masses.”
This is why Michael Moore has a net worth of $30 million making anti-capitalist content
Those who fail to provide content that conforms to the demands of the masses will forfeit their preferred position.
You can read the whole thing here. It kind of explains why different content providers become successful because they are providing content different people want to hear.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/305962-in-the-market-economy-the-consumers-are-supreme-consumers-determine
"Whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars." (Liberalism)
Referring to secession: "If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done." (Liberalism)
In other words, he believes that every state, or act by a state should be able to be countered by an act of secession (even down to the individual). This would give the state no authority and thus make it not a state. He was an anarchist.
A Government always finds itself obliged to resort to Inflationary measures when it cannot negotiate loans and dare not levy taxes, because it has reason to fear that it will forfeit approval of the policy it is following if it reveals too soon the financial and general economic consequences of that policy. Thus inflation becomes the most important psychological resource of any Economic policy whose consequences have to be concealed; and so in a sense it can be called an instrument of the unpopular, i.e. of anti democratic, policy, since by misleading public opinion it makes it possible the continued existence of a system of government that would have no hope of the consent of the people if the circumstances were clearly laid out before them. This is the political fuction of inflation. It explains why inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of Socialism. When governments do not think it necessary to accommodate their expenditure to their revenue and arrogate to themselves the right of making up the deficit by issuing notes, their ideology is merely a disguised absolutism.
Hope you find this helpful. Please let me know.
"How is the price of an article determined?"
"The price is the labor it has cost to make and deliver it, and it is determined by the first principles of arithmetic. The million workers in the nation's wheat fields have worked a hundred days each, and the total product of the labor is a billion bushels, so the value of a bushel of wheat is the tenth part of a farm labor-day. If we employ an arbitrary symbol, and pay, say, five dollars a day for farm work, then the cost of a bushel of wheat is fifty cents."
It seems Ludwig von Mises was not the first person to wonder how prices would be calculated in the socialist commonwealth. This quote from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" includes a discussion on the matter. (Unless Sinclair's socialism involving prices meant it wasn't socialism?)
I saw a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME1hVozRIcA&list=WL&index=3&t=12s) from a heavily left leaning Youtube channel in which the creator debunked The Economic Calculation Problem. I was wondering what you think of their points.
I have described their main points relevant to the Economic calculation problem (ECP) itself below. Be advised; these are not direct quotes despite the quotations, however close to it:
Chapter 1.5.
“ECP falls apart when taken into consideration satellites, internet, and modern computing. By the 1940s the theoretical responses to the ECP solved this non-issue especially in relation to consumer goods. By the 50s L.V. Kantorovich proved that you could carry out rational economic planning and optimize production without money ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.6.4.366 ) Lange, Davidson, and dozens more have contributed to this discussion.”
Chapter 2: Failures of the Market
“Robin Hahnel argued that markets are systematically inefficient because externalities are pervasive, and markets are rarely truly competitive or in equilibrium. Manipulation of supply and demand through arbitrary pricing, hoarding, lobbying, brands as status symbols psychological targeting for artificial demand, simulated peer pressure and unethical consumer targeting are important realities of inefficient markets. These uniformly competitive markets found in textbooks do not exist in real life and real markets don’t conform to those models. Fully competitive markets are impossible and undesirable to capitalists.”
“If the market is so efficient, why are boom and bust cycles and their severe negative effects so common, and why is it that when these severe recessions happen, capitalism isn’t saved by the market mechanism but by government bailouts. “Even in market economies, the markets described in textbooks are the exception of areas like the world oil and currency markets. The main industrial structure of an economy depends on a complex interlinked system of regular producer-consumer relationships which the same suppliers make regular deliveries to the same customers week in, week out.”"
Chapter 3: Planning Under Capitalism
In this chapter the creator claims that large corporations, like Amazon and Walmart, are example of large-scale successful planning. I decided to skip this chapter as the creator doesn’t seem to understand that these corporations still rely heavily on price signals in decision-making. They recomm
... keep reading on reddit ➡