Interesting read

theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/306397

"Omniscience is a little harder to gauge than omnipotence. Maybe The Market has already achieved it but is unable—temporarily—to apply its gnosis until its Kingdom and Power come in their fullness. Nonetheless, current thinking already assigns to The Market a comprehensive wisdom that in the past only the gods have known. The Market, we are taught, is able to determine what human needs are, what copper and capital should cost, how much barbers and CEOs should be paid, and how much jet planes, running shoes, and hysterectomies should sell for. But how do we know The Market's will?

In days of old, seers entered a trance state and then informed anxious seekers what kind of mood the gods were in, and whether this was an auspicious time to begin a journey, get married, or start a war. The prophets of Israel repaired to the desert and then returned to announce whether Yahweh was feeling benevolent or wrathful. Today The Market's fickle will is clarified by daily reports from Wall Street and other sensory organs of finance. Thus we can learn on a day-to-day basis that The Market is "apprehensive," "relieved," "nervous," or even at times "jubilant." On the basis of this revelation awed adepts make critical decisions about whether to buy or sell. Like one of the devouring gods of old, The Market—aptly embodied in a bull or a bear—must be fed and kept happy under all circumstances. True, at times its appetite may seem excessive—a $35 billion bailout here, a $50 billion one there—but the alternative to assuaging its hunger is too terrible to contemplate.

The diviners and seers of The Market's moods are the high priests of its mysteries. To act against their admonitions is to risk excommunication and possibly damnation. Today, for example, if any government's policy vexes The Market, those responsible for the irreverence will be made to suffer. That The Market is not at all displeased by downsizing or a growing income gap, or can be gleeful about the expansion of cigarette sales to Asian young people, should not cause anyone to question its ultimate omniscience. Like Calvin's inscrutable deity, The Market may work in mysterious ways, "hid from our eyes," but ultimately it knows best.

There is, however, one contradiction between the religion of The Market and the traditional religions that seems to be insurmountable. All of the traditional religions teach that human beings are finite creatures and that there are limits to any earthly enterprise. A Japanese Zen master once said to his disciples as he was dying, "I have learned only one thing in life: how much is enough." He would find no niche in the chapel of The Market, for whom the First Commandment is "There is never enough." Like the proverbial shark that stops moving, The Market that stops expanding dies. That could happen. If it does, then Nietzsche will have been right after all. He will just have had the wrong God in mind."

THE MARKET WILL DECIDE

Remember having a similar thought, and capital is essentially God's bless, if someone is wealth, the market has willed therefore it's right.
It's all a death cult really

And economists are the high priests bringing us the messages

Ok dis Kanye's way of thinking

Crazy how Kanye goes from preaching prosperity gospel to overthrowing capitalism in a span of minutes

Personal worth's not what a person is worth

I CAN GIVE A DOLLAR TO EVERY PERSON ON EARTH

According to him, when he was 53M in debt it's because he "wasn't right with God". Now that he has turned his life over to God, he is a billionaire

markets can fail and produce inefficiency, but it's still better to allow people the means to exchange for their needs rather than stupid ideas like central planning, which breed inefficiency

interested in what AI can do for this

First of all central planning by far produces better results for people welbeing than markets.

But even if you wanna hold the capitalist standard of "efficiency" as the end all be all, the USSR had the fastest growing GDP per capita in the world during the period where they had central planning besides Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

But central planning does have its own problems, that's why we need cybernetic planning.

palladiummag.com/2020/09/23/how-capitalist-giants-use-socialist-cybernetic-planning

ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf

Yeah .. his worldview is really full of contradictions

That's what being a mindless contrarian does to a mf

precisely

central planning gets you hard results in the short term when youre building up from being either completely bombed out, or an agrarian pre-industrial society. you get to skip a lot of steps. you eventually run out of juice though when you have to start contending with consumer goods beyond just developing industrial capacity. USSR hit this roadblock

before the ussr entered stagnation, some of the most popular econ textbooks were literally arguing the superiority of their system, the idea that western economic thought has always vilified central planning is fallacious. it took the actual failing of it for this bent to fall in popularity.

you will encounter the economic calculation problem

as for cybernetics, ill have to read those articles. in principle it sounds way more workable than central planning, by a long shot, i still have some concerns for individual freedoms but that could just be me on my lib s***

How can you say planned economies were inefficient when it allowed the USSR to become a superpower within 3 decades, whereas countries with a similar GDP per capita in the 1920s couldn't (like India or Brazil)?

Planned economies (and to a certain extent: state capitalist economies) are absolutely superior at rapid industrialization and heavy industries. The major problem they had were consumer goods and light industries. It's here where they couldn't keep up with market economies, and this is where a lot of the cybernetics / AI stuff can come in handy. The planners of the USSR tried to push for cybernetics and a precursor to the internet in the 1960s (called OGAS) but were shot down by party bureaucrats because it would threaten their power. The planning system would have been far more decentralized, far quicker, would have a***yzed and collected far more information...but this would have also made a lot of people with political power less important, so it was scrapped. Huge mistake stemming from putting party power above the needs of the economy.

Furthermore, we should also dispel the notion that "capitalism = market" and "socialism = planned economies".

For example, ancient palace economies like Babylonia were planned economies. This mode of production was quite prominent in the Near East during the Bronze Age.

Another example would be the Incans, who had a very advanced planned economy in the 14th and 15th century that sadly got ruined via diseases spread by Western colonialists.

Another example would be wartime economies in capitalist states, like price controls in the USA during World War 2.
Another example are the internal economies of huge corporations like Wal-Mart or Amazon, which also feature many elements of central planning.

Another example would be state-capitalist economies that were ruled by the state and a handful of conglomerates co-operating closely with the state, such as (historically) Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

On the other hand, a socialist state could have a market economy as well. The major example for this would be Yugoslavia, which did not have a planned economy but a state enforced, yet worker-controlled co-op based market economy.

At least traditional religions brought people together.

We should dispel the idea that capitalism = market and socialism = planning, youre right

but on this forum in particular you do tend to see the latter supporting planning and the former supporting markets so im writing to that audience

and youre also right that planned economies offer rapid industrialisation. this is good if youre pre industrial, but after a while the inefficiency kicks in, the state just isnt as good at taking preferences and planning for them as just letting people figure it out themselves

which is why ultimately if you want to do socialism long term, youll have to ease off the state central planning and either introduce markets or pursue the cybernetics @Scratchin_Bandit posted

ive read the two articles and i cant find anything im able to argue with

No disagreement there. I also support cybernetic socialist planning. The "problem" here is that it is a very democratic form of planning and absolutely makes the state administration much more lean - the Soviet party would have never allowed this, despite being the one nation that could have pulled it off and then inspired others.

Many people would have lost their jobs and their power so it was not pursued despite the planners begging for it. Also a lot of corruption and accountant book-cooking would have been revealed.

Ultimately, the planning system alone would have not been a silver bullet because the state institutions wouldn't have allowed such a planning system in the first place.

The problem was not just the lack of cybernetic reforms, the problem is that the party wasn't democratic enough to attempt them.

What about consumer products exactly makes it that it can only produced in a market economy?

Also there was never stagnation in the USSR, post 70s the economy didn't grow was fast as before, but it never stagnated (or rather collapsed) until Gorbachev's reforms, just a quick google search shows this too so idk why people say this all the time.

Even if it did stagnate (it did not), would the economic failures of one country prove anything? How many capitalist countries have and are facing economic stagnation? That's simply not an argument

And USSRs model ever being regarded as superior in the West is a just not true lol what? Throughout the majority of the USSRs existence the dominant macro economic schools of thought were Keynesianism which was followed by neoliberalism

Please read this article, bc you have a lot of misconceptions about how central planned economies worked historically:

gowans.blog/2012/12/21/do-publicly-owned-planned-economies-work/amp

completely agree, this is the problem with extractive institutions, theyre set up to benefit whatever apparatus at the top, i cant explain in full but you've just touched on a key argument of the book 'why nations fail'

White people need to stick to their Greco Roman culture and keep God out of their philosophies.

Yup.

It’s viewed as perfect and omnisciently just. Totally natural and thus out of the purview of political reform. Its tyranny is so much more sinister because it isn’t even considered a political issue that humans have the power to change, but instead, like the article says, as “Calvin’s inscrutable diety”.

Traditional religions just as much, if not more, divided people as well.

no one believes centrally planned economies cant produce consumer goods. the issue is that gathering information on consumers is more costly than allowing consumers to participate in a market and exchange at their own pace. this doesnt incur the cost of gathering preferences. this is the essence of the economic calculation problem.

cybernetics probably alleviate this issue if successfully implemented

The second article is a whole book