From: Robert Peter Burns <rburns-AT-scf.usc.edu>
Subject: Re: Democracy and Planning: [WAS] Re: Young Liberal Fascist (XII)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 08:26:24 -0800 (PST)


Brian, you just missed a big debate on MS on this
list.  But just to give you the briefest of answers:
In the version of MS I support (see David Schweickart, 
AGAINST CAPITALISM, Cambridge University Press 1993, 
paperback edition forthcoming from Westview Press), what 
is planned are investment *aggregates* (i.e. total funds
available for investment in each broad sector).  
Particular individual investments are a matter for
individual enterprises and individual investment
agencies.  Which individual investments succeed is
not determined by the central planning.  
However, the aggregate planning reduces uncertainty
for all market participants by improving the information
available to them about aggregate demand.  It also avoids
wasteful duplication of investment.  By contrast, determination
of investment by market forces is liable to lead to oversaturation
of particular sectors--e.g. commercial real estate in the USA
and UK in recent years.  I'll forward some more posts of 
mine on some of these issues.

You also seem to think it is nonsensical to leave
some decisions to the market and others to planning
processes.  It is this thought of yours which is 
nonsensical.  You don't even need MS to see examples
of this combination.  Lots of countries even in the 
capitalist world determine the production of, say, 
health-care, education and national defense by planning, 
and the the production of tomatoes and hair-driers to the
market.  Think of France, Austria, South Korea, Japan.
Each has had a significant role for investment planning
in manufacturing and banking sectors for most of the postwar 
era.  Furthermore, there are a lot of economic decisions that 
are determined by planning within large capitalist corporations, 
and not by market exchanges.  A lot of the interactions within 
large businesses are determined by administrative decree,
not by price and bargaining. 

Peter
rburns-AT-scf.usc.edu


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