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Despite the fall of communism, we are in fact living in planned economies.
Anyone,
What I just heard bears repeating. What I will quote, now, is very interesting stuff.
When Karl Marx was writing about central planning, there was actually no centrally planned economy. Where did he get the idea? He got it from corporations. So corporations might look free, kind of, when it interacts with other corporations, but internally it's a very hierarchical organization.
When false information, or dogma, is produced there are inevitable contradictions that arise; and the above is an example.
The involuntary capitalists are apt to sling mud at the involuntary socialists, and inevitably, since they are both founded upon the same principle, the mud splashes back to the source of it - and visa versa.
All these companies are planning things more and more. I mean, not just--we are not within national borders anymore. I mean, they are transnational and there are a lot of planning elements. Now, therefore, I argue that the question is not whether to plan or not, because we are already planning. The question is what to plan, exactly, at what level.
JAY: And for who.
CHANG: Exactly. Yeah. The Soviet experience has shown that this internally centralized kind of uniform planning doesn't work. On the other hand, it's not as if there is any real-world economy that is not planned at all.
I can add something I found in a book titled:
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
The author of that book quoted Karl Marx (explaining the quote):
For Marx, capital and labor were not merely two economic categories. Capital for him was the manifestation of the past, of labor transformed and amassed into things; labor was the manifestation of life, of human energy applied to nature in the process of transforming it. The choice between capitalism and socialism (as he understood it) amounted to this: Who (what) was to rule over what (whom)? What is dead over what is alive, or what is alive over what is dead? (Cf. E. Fromm, 1961, 1968)
I prefer to measure the differences between a socialist based ideology and a capitalist based ideology by illustrating how the two ideologies work in combination, and I can do so by an illustrated example in history, and an illustrated proposed hypothetical example.
History example:
Give away the razor, to sell razor blades.
The costly negative profit gift of producing and then transferring a razor to people who will use a razor is, by itself, a very charitable, and definitely non-profit (actually negative profit) social investment, to give, to serve, to expend personal power in an effort to empower everyone else, by that personal gift.
That is the socialist ideology at work, as an example of a socialist idea, followed by a socialist act, a plan, and then following through with the plan. Working, expending personal power, personal cost, with the idea of making other people more powerful.
In combination with that socialist idea, and that socialist act, is an additional attachment to that socialist, planned economy, whereby another amendment to that socialist plan, is a capitalist fine print clause. The plan continues past the personal sacrifice, to the benefit of all, into a personal gain, whereby the person following through with this combined socialist and capitalist combination, sells razor blades at a profit to the people who have been given a razor.
Does that make any sense?
My proposed hypothetical combination of socialism and capitalism is a familiar story for me, because I've written extensively on this idea in the past.
Product 1 represents the socialist part of the plan, or the giving away the razor part of the plan, whereby this product is given away by the producer of it, which is a voluntary government agency type thing, an agreeable law, a lawful money product, and it is a non-profit product, that takes the form of an interest free home mortgage loan.
The gift is a gift to anyone who needs the credit needed to purchase a home, and once the person has that credit, the person buys a home, and moves into a home, or the person can pay off an existing interest bearing mortgage, with the Product 1 gift, that isn't a gift, it is merely a loan that does not charge interest. The person getting the gift does have to pay back the entire loan back, but the gift part, is the part where the person getting the gift, doesn't pay interest. Product 1 is permission from all the other volunteers in the voluntary government, to go ahead, and borrow from yourself, and the job of accounting is awarded to the person, or company of people, who are awarded the contract to produce Product 1, and Product 2.
That is the socialist part, and that is the part that is the same thing as selling the razor.
The capitalist part is the part where the legal loan license, given by the socialist government law enforcement central planning department, is a license to profit at a rate of 1 percent, for a second product that can be sold, and the second product is another loan, where the loaned credit is only used to purchase things that produce more power, such as a Solar Panel, or an electric car whereby the cost of running the car is, so far, about 80% less than a gasoline car, even before the price of oil goes up.
I can add that to the discussion offered in the Real News report - so I did.
No. I mean, you know, there are certain things that we really need central planning for.
That is a case of false choices. There is a plan, and a plan is executed, whereby a few people gain power and then a few people use the power they gain in the work of limiting choices. A part of that plan is to create false choices such as:
1. A planned economy
2. Not 1
There are many choices, not just those two, and the Real News here is that there are two opposite choices at work in reality, and it is important for anyone, anywhere, to be aware of these two opposing categories of choices as such:
1. Voluntary associations (with or without agreement to use plans)
2. Involuntary associations (where one plan is followed or failure to follow the one enforced plan includes the one planned act of punishment for failure to obey the one plan)
One plan, the involuntary plan, uses power to enforce the one plan, and the same power is used in the work that is necessary to eliminate all competitive plans, so as to enforce only that one plan.
If there are more plans than one, and the power of voluntary association remains a workable power, then the better plan, the least costly plan, the most beneficial plan, will be the winning plan, until such time as a more beneficial plan, at a lower cost, is planned into existence, or just happens to fall out of the sky.
CHANG: No. I mean, you know, there are certain things that we really need central planning for.
JAY: Like, we're talking about a new green economy [crosstalk]
CHANG: Green growth. Exactly. Yeah. Without a concerted, centralized effort, also globally coordinated, it's not going to happen.
That is code, or double speak, for a troubling problem, and a false solution.
The troubling problem is the problem that keeps on troubling mankind. Some individuals, within the group that is mankind, plan on, and then enforce their plan, whereby innocent people are victimized, on purpose, for the benefit of the few who come up with this plan, and the few who execute this plan, and as always, the only ones who pay for this plan, are the honest people who produce wealth, which is measurable as power, as anyone with a brain can know, the criminals with this criminal plan, don't waste their power stealing from people who have nothing, they target people who have something to steal.
The false solution is to become a criminal so as to fight crime.
1. Voluntary associations are required in order to produce power, or wealth, and if a voluntary association is incapable of using the power that is created in the work of defending against crime, then crime will occur.
2. Involuntary associations are examples of crime, the definition of crime, therefore an involuntary association is a false solution to the crime problem.
If criminals admit that they are criminals, the victims then know who to avoid. If the criminals can convince the victims that crime is a solution to crime, guess what happens?
Legal crime.
JAY: Okay. Moving on, Number 20: Equality of opportunity may not be fair. What's that mean?
I stopped at the announcement of that statement and I'm going to guess at what that means.
That is another very loaded series of words. What that loaded series of words brings to my mind, is a situation whereby credit is distributed within a social structure that is both voluntary and heavily involuntary in form, purpose, structure, and in actual operation.
If credit flows only to those who earn credit, is that fair?
If the answer is no, then the word fair must be explained in order to explain why the answer is no.
If the answer is yes, a fair distribution of credit is a distribution whereby credit flows only to those who earn it, then I can report that such a place as that, where credit flows only to those who earn it, is the place where the least crime occurs, and such a place will be the place where the most power is produced, and such a place will be the place where the average person is almost as powerful as the exceptionally powerful person, and the least powerful person is almost as powerful as the average person.
If credit flows to people who steal credit, then what does that measure, if that is an example of "fairness"?
Who has the power to define the meaning of fairness, and how is fairness measured by that definition, as that person, or that group of people, define the meaning of fairness? Do they have the exclusive power to define the meaning of the word fairness, and do they impose that definition, in measurable ways, upon people who don't define fairness in the official, authoritarian, and criminal, way?
I am returning to the Real News report.
But it is not because these kids are, you know, inherently incapable. It's because they were not properly catered for. If you have a disabled kid, then, you know, you have to have a program to fit an artificial leg to this kid so that he can actually run.
That can be just about anything, but I think that the above falls into two major categories:
1. Charity
2. Not 1
If that is charity, then that it what it is, and many people are charitable, so long as there is enough power to be charitable, and if there isn't enough power to be charitable, then how can more power be produced, so as to reach a level of power, whereby charity is once again possible?
If a person with one leg can begin producing much more with an artificial leg, more power production is possible compared to the rate of production with only one leg, then power flowing to the person with one leg, so as to purchase and gain an artificial leg, is an example of power (or credit) flowing to someone who can earn power, and earn even more power with two legs, and not someone who is in need of charity.
What is the mechanism by which power flows to the "disabled" (less powerful) person?
A. An involuntary mechanism
B. A voluntary mechanism
If an involuntary mechanism is used then crime is the solution to the disabled problem, and it is therefore possible, if not likely, that the person who was unable to produce more power with one leg becomes someone who produces even less power, consuming more power, with two legs, such as having the innocent one legged person employed in work that reduces power further, in some way.
1. Charity (the flow of power flows voluntarily to people who cannot produce power)
2. Crime (power is taken from people, by fraud, by threats of violence, and by examples of violence, that may include chopping legs off of two legged people, creating a whole lot of one legged people, and then power is transferred to an army of one legged people, who are employed in the work of enforcing the involuntary association, whereby they chop legs off of people who don't obey, and they attach artificial legs to the people who learn to obey)
Choosing the voluntary solution to the one legged problem becomes a situation whereby credit flows voluntarily to those who earn credit and therefore a third option comes into view:
1. Charity (assuming that there is enough power available to be charitable)
2. Crime (assuming that the power available has already transferred from those who create power to those who steal it, and then the criminals use that power to chop off legs, and attach artificial legs in the effort to keep the power flowing to the criminals from those who produce power)
3. Investment (assuming that power does flow voluntarily, by some means, to those who earn credit, including honest working people who can, will, and do produce more than they consume with or without an artificial leg, and if they can produce more with an artificial leg, then, with their credit that flows to them, they buy an artificial leg, or make one, or make more than one, store one, or make more than two, and sell the extra one)
I have to divert attention elsewhere at this time, and I intend to return to this Real News report.