I started at the 'top of the pile', and responded to Allin's later
endorsement of Paul C.'s post first. So I will just fill in some gaps here:
Paul C. writes:
> the claim that the Mises/Hayek critique of socialism is sound. I think we
> should be quite clear as to the implications of this. If it is true, then
> the
> whole communist idea, of which Marx was a leading theoretical exponent,
> is invalid and utopian. If Mises/Hayek are right, then
> capitalism is eternal, there is no feasible alternative to
> a capitalist market economy.
This is mere assertion. The notion of planning through a data-base of
vertically integrated labour times *is* utopian. It carries forward the
capitalist fallacy of the 'techno-fix' for what are at bottom social
problems.
> Our argument is that if one basis oneself on the Marxian labour
> theory of value instead of neo-classical value theory, then the
> von Mises critique can be shown to be flawed. The labour theory
> of value treats prices as being determined by values, something
> which is determined in production prior to sale. It is thus possible
> to base economic calculation on something other than price -
> on the labour time necessary to produce things. We then argue
> that whilst under a market economy this labour time is only
> indirectly represented in prices, it can, under a different sort
> of economy be calculated directly.
This, even it were the case, which, as you know, is not uncontroversial,
this doesn't deal with the - intrinsically distributed - information
problem. Planners anyway still need to know *what* to produce.
>
> If there exists a common database of labour contents of goods
> it is possible for workers at a given unit of production to chose
> the technique of production which, considered overall, is the
> most economical to society in terms of its time.
> This, in my opinion, is why it is so important to defend the distinction
> between prices and values. If values can only be derived from prices,
> then the Austrian critique of socialism holds - socialism without
> a market to determine prices would flounder in a morass of
> economic inefficiency.
Which it may well do. The Austrian critique of planning cannot be reduced
to a critique of socialism without further discussion. Because we don't
like what we see to be the political implications of a body of thought may
motivate but it cannot be the ground of our critique of that body of
thought.
> their ideas were perfectly
> suited to the needs of reaction, providing an
> ideological cover for attacks on the living
> standards and social power of the working class.
> The fact that the reactionaries found them suitable
> does not mean that we should thus give them any credence.
>
I agree. But 1. Neither is it in itself a cogent reason for dismissing
their arguments.
2. It is childish name-calling to lump everyone who rejects the 'values are
determined in production' fallacy, and the ahistoric conceptualisations
that go with it, in with the reactionary politics of the Austrians.
Michael
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Dr Michael Williams
"Books are Weapons"
Department of Economics Home:
School of Social Sciences 26 Glenwood Avenue
De Montfort University Southampton
Hammerwood Gate SO16 3QA
Kents Hill
Milton Keynes
MK7 6HP
tel:+1908 834876 tel/fax: +1703 768641
fax:+1908 834979
email: mwilliam@torres.mk.dmu.ac.uk mwilliam@compuserve.com
http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/~mwilliam