I'm looking for some reading sources--or just someone's 2-minute overview--of the debates on LVT; and on the mid-century calculation debates between the austrians/neoclassicists and the advocates of central planning.

These things seem like consistent sticking points when dealing with True Believer libs. I don't expect to convince them--neoclassical economics's very first act in most textbooks is to open up with the myths of barter and marginal utility, and to trick people into ignoring the "time" axis on the supply/demand curve, so if you accept those you've already taken the leap of faith--but what I rarely see are in-depth counter-arguments or criticisms of the rejection of LVT, and the rejection of planning. In fact, I couldn't even articulate why LVT was rejected among 'conventional' economists or tell you the broad outlines of the debate.

I'd struggle with something math-heavy but i'm not beyond reading in-depth texts and original sources

  • nobodycares [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Sure, but on the calculation debate--it was a thing that happened and it's fairly important, and I don't really know where to look to find a high-level guide to it which is what i'm after, even if it's just historical.

    I mean on it's face it's ridiculous. Markets allow "action at a distance" on prices but they also have massive externalities and they're lossy so it hardly stands that other means to calculate prices would all be inferior and might in fact be better especially considering the computing power available today. Leigh Phillips has massive galaxy-brain but i'm with him on that one, but don't really know where to look to learn more b/c LOL Jacobin doesn't even index their books, let along print bibliographies in them.

    On LVT--what does neoclassical econ say prices reflect? Inputs + demand? Does it really claim that all profits can be attributed to marginal utility? I mean i realize in a way these are ridiculous questions because bourgeois economics is fundamentally ridiculous but i do want to understand what they think they're getting at when they get cranky about government meddling and how they explain the "success" of neoliberalization (to the extent that it can't entirely be explained as primitive accumulation and commodification in the developing world)