ECP Nonsense

The standard argument for markets and against economic planning is the ECP, or the Economic Calculation Problem. Critics of economic planning assert that without the signalling function of prices it is impossible to rationally and efficiently allocate resources and other factors of production as well as distribution.

Another standard argument is the failing of the U.S.S.R. centrally planned five-year plans. The ECP criticism of planned economies boils down to this: we can't plan, therefore markets. I can't even begin to describe what a load of BS this is. Well, wait. Let me start by saying that most perceived benefits of the capitalist economy is based on the nonsense we're made to believe in order to maintain hierarchical social order based on capital. For example, capitalism will have you believe that capital itself is a creative force. Capitalist theorists will have you believe that capital itself gives shape and opportunity to labor. Capital creates production, jobs, new technologies, and a general prosperity; it is the starting point for a whole bunch of extrapolated nonsense, like the "trickle down economy".

The obvious truth however is what Marxist theorists will have you believe, which is that of itself, capital cannot produce anything; it is the thing that is produced by labor. Only human labor can create the farm and the factory, the machine and the computer. It's so obvious: "what people need for survival is found in nature but rarely in a form suitable for immediate consumption. Labor therefore becomes a primary condition of human existence. But labor is more than a way of providing for survival. It is one of the means whereby people develop their material and cultural life, acquiring knowledge, and new modes of social organization." (Michael Parenti - "Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism").

Here's another quote from that brilliant little book by Michael Parenti:

Capitalism is not just an economic system but a political and cultural one as well, an entire social order. When we study any part of that order, be it the news or entertainment media, criminal justice, Congress, defense spending, overseas military intervention, intelligence agencies, campaign finance, science and technology, education, medical care, taxation, transportation, housing, or whatever, we will see how the particular part reflects the nature of the whole. Its unique dynamic often buttresses and is shaped by the larger social system -especially the system's overriding need to maintain the prerogatives of the corporate class.
_{source: DocDroid}

You don't need to be a conspiracy-theorist to understand the truth of what Parenti says here; you just need eyes, ears and a functional brain to know that we are indeed governed by the corporate class and that the stories they tell us, "capitalism good, communism bad" and "planning impossible, markets necessary", are the stories devised to keep us and them in our respective places on the socioeconomic ladder. Capitalism has become the new world-religion and economists its new priests. The below linked video, specifically about the nonsensical nature of the Economic Calculation Problem, starts with a paraphrasing, a summary of the argument as formulated by its founders, Ludwich von Mises and his student Friedrich Hayek, both depicted in the image above this post:

Rational economic decision-making is not possible without the price signals provided by genuinely competitive markets based on private ownership of the means of production and investment on the basis of profit-maximization.

The creator of this video, Hakim rightly points out that this summary is based on ideology, not on real world facts, and he immediately focuses on the word "rational", which is one of capitalism's greater overarching myths; as if we act rationally to always maximize personal benefit. This is simply not true by any means or standard, it's a negation of what it means to be a human being. And I would like to add to this by pointing out the profit-maximization; the so called "efficiency" of markets is only real so far as profits are maximized, not the satisfaction of human needs. Really, how can anyone in their right mind believe in the "efficient allocation and distribution of resources" of markets, when people die of hunger and the environment is ravaged, when we're perfectly capable of producing enough food for twice the world's population and doing so in a sustainable fashion. It's not that we can't, it's that the capitalist ideology, and it is an ideology, don't be fooled, won't let us.

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