*sighs*
Maybe this will help --
How to Disagree, Paul Graham
Where to start...? There's probably little point in doing this, because I guess that if it's not obvious now, it never will be. Nevertheless...
I wrote my "treatise-length post" because someone asked a question earlier in the thread. That question was, basically, "Is there a reason communism failed beyond the fact that its leaders were destructive tyrants?" Or to put it another way, "Could communism work with competent, elected leaders?" It has nothing to do with being fashionable (?), or wanting you to bow down to the almighty dollar (not so almighty anyway), or trying to prove humans incapable of acting beyond a narrowly defined sphere of self-interest. I said nothing about about these disparate subjects. None of these things are essential to capitalism or communism. They are beside the point I was trying to make.
"You reduce everything to economics!" The debate I was having, or trying to have, was about economics. Asking what stops communism from working is a question about economics. All the other stuff -- wanting to live non-greedy lives of poetry, passion and organic yoghurt weaving -- is fine by me, but I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion. It's pretty simple (though there is some interaction between the following points):
- Rational economic planning on a nation-wide scale is very, very difficult, if not impossible, because knowledge is tacit, temporal and dispersed.
- Rational economic calculation is impossible on a nation-wide scale if you don't have a price system.
Or you can just attempt my thought experiment: On what basis or according to what criterea would you manufacture capital goods, that is, the seccond, third, and so on, order goods that are used in the production of other goods, in a Communist system?
Ironically, nomadologist, you also gave a pretty good description of the invisible hand:
I don't think you have to be *book smart* to make good decisions about how to live or even how to allocate resources. Most people will do the "smart thing" that benefits as many people as possible if they have enough accurate information to use in charting the way.
That's my point. That's why it makes more sense to make your own decisions than have a government make them for you.
btw I'm more a fan of democratic socialism myself, but I'm so so sick of the idea that because it's difficult to set up a communist government that all communist governments are ipso facto authoritarian regimes.
Bully for you, but the whole point of communism is mutual ownership of the means of production, i.e. to bring the mechanisms of production under the aegis of the proletariat, i.e. under the control of the central government body, which acts
on behalf of the proletariat.
oh wait, i forgot, "economics" dictates that you can't set up a government with a set of elected officials that redistributes wealth in order to ensure all humans live up to a certain standard
I never said that, and I don't think anyone else did either.