Towards a new socialism
by W. Paul Cockshott · first published 1993
53% recommend47% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Proposes computer-based economic planning as an alternative to markets, with practical detail on how it could work, including algorithmic computational complexity. For readers of socialist planning and computing.
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There are various new approaches to central planning that may be of interest, such as those in Towards a New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott. I don't think central planning is necessarily something bad, and there are certainly sufficient alternatives from both inside and outside Communism. Many Communists such as myself…
on “The deep roots of modern resentment” ↗If you're interested in Project Cybersyn, maybe you should read into Paul Cockshott's proposals and book: Towards a New Socialism, were he explains exactly why and how computers should be used in the planning of the economy. Paul Cockshott has a PhD in CS and a BA in Economics. Really great stuff, I'm sure it'll shape the economics…
on “Project Cybersyn (2016)” ↗>but this idea is something that economists have already discussed to death: google "the Socialist Calculation Debate" I wouldn't say it's been "discussed to death" at all; have you read Cockshott's "Towards a New Socialism"? He tries to explain why the problem isn't really a problem at all, with his idea of computerised central planning.
on “Optimizing things in the USSR (2016)” ↗…projects which rely not at all on agrarian population; they believe that education should be tailored to fit the current mode of production; for a view on this, you may be interested in Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism in which he elaborates what a society might look like under lower-stage Communism and what methods can be used to get there, and how an economy might be organised. Communism is nothing about farming…
on “China Makes Chat Group Administrators Criminally Liable for Unlawful Messages” ↗…Commune nor in revolutionary Catalonia, nor to my knowledge Burkina Faso under Sankara. If you want to read up on the modern advances in Socialist economy, I'd recommend looking at Paul W. Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism; to dismiss it without doing this research reeks of laziness or worse dishonesty. But please don't make assumptions about what Socialism is about while you have clearly failed to do the required research.…
on “A student loan collector must halt collections” ↗Check out "Towards a New Socialism", by the aforementioned Cockshott and Cotrell. Cockshott himself is a computer scientist and proposes planning the economy based on solving a linear system of labour inputs.
on “Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP (2010)” ↗For some Marxist readings on the alternative, I recommend Marx's own Critique of the Gotha Program and Cockshott and Cotrill's Towards a New Socialism, which seeks to develop a basis for a post-capitalism society with a cybernetically planned economy and direct democracy.
on “Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?” ↗Related, this is an interesting relatively modern (1993) book about socialist planning + computers + networking: "Towards a New Socialism" / Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/
on “The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)” ↗I take this opportunity to point out Paul Cockshott's book "Towards a New Socialism" where he goes down to detail on how an entire economy could function with cybernetic economic planning. Even if you're not interested in socialism, it still has some great ideas and insights that could…
on “Project Cybersyn” ↗…technocratic planning systems, however they were never realised, partially due to lack of sufficient hardware and Soviet bureaucracy. For a good read on modern methods, take a look at Paul Cockshott's Towards a New Socialism in which he proposes calculation in kind paired with linear programming methods. It's worth noting that the USSR's model was also ridiculously inflexible, and the whole idea of a "5 year plan" probably…
on “Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS” ↗…planning; scientists in the USSR were repeatedly shut down by bureaucrats for suggesting it. There exist modern planning methods, though still academic, such as those elaborated by Cockshott and Cottrell in Towards a New Socialism, it's worth a look if you haven't seen it already. Nobody is suggesting rigid five year plans any more.
on “Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to citizen-driven governance” ↗See also "Towards a new Socialism" by Cockshott and Cottrell: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/
on “Project Cybersyn” ↗If someone's interested in Cybernetics, I recommend to look at Paul Cockshott's work; mainly his book "Towards a New Socialism" were he explains why and how computers could be used in economy planification. Really interesting stuff, no matter where you sit on the "political spectrum" or whatever. Direct link: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_soci...
on “The cybernetics scare and the origins of the Internet (2009)” ↗A couple of books on this topic: Cockshott, Cottrell: Towards a New Socialism, brief synopsis as well as a link to the PDF version at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_New_Socialism Phillips, Rozworski: People's Republic of Walmart, https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-...…
on “Texas power crisis revealed flaw in market’s design” ↗I can highly recommend "Towards a new Socialism" by Cockshott on this topic. It gets into the details of economic planning from a practical side, and even discusses the computational complexity of different algorithms
on “The Socialist Calculation Debate” ↗