Socialism: The Command Economy

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Economics is greatly impacted by how well information travels through society. Today, social media giants Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are major forces on the information super highway. (Credit: Johan Larsson/Flickr)

Decisions ... decisions in the social media age

To post or not to post? Every day we are faced with a myriad of decisions, from what to have for breakfast, to which route to take to class, to the more complex—“Should I double major and add possibly another semester of study to my education?” Our response to these choices depends on the information we have available at any given moment; information economists call “imperfect” because we rarely have all the data we need to make perfect decisions. Despite the lack of perfect information, we still make hundreds of decisions a day.

And now, we have another avenue in which to gather information—social media. Outlets like Facebook and Twitter are altering the process by which we make choices, how we spend our time, which movies we see, which products we buy, and more. How many of you chose a university without checking out its Facebook page or Twitter stream first for information and feedback?

As you will see in this course, what happens in economics is affected by how well and how fast information is disseminated through a society, such as how quickly information travels through Facebook. “Economists love nothing better than when deep and liquid markets operate under conditions of perfect information,” says Jessica Irvine, National Economics Editor for News Corp Australia.

This leads us to the topic of this chapter, an introduction to the world of making decisions, processing information, and understanding behavior in markets —the world of economics. Each chapter in this book will start with a discussion about current (or sometimes past) events and revisit it at chapter’s end—to “bring home” the concepts in play.

Introduction

In this chapter, you will learn about:

  • What Is Economics, and Why Is It Important?
  • Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
  • How Economists Use Theories and Models to Understand Economic Issues
  • How Economies Can Be Organized: An Overview of Economic Systems

What is economics and why should you spend your time learning it? After all, there are other disciplines you could be studying, and other ways you could be spending your time. As the Bring it Home feature just mentioned, making choices is at the heart of what economists study, and your decision to take this course is as much as economic decision as anything else.

Economics is probably not what you think. It is not primarily about money or finance. It is not primarily about business. It is not mathematics. What is it then? It is both a subject area and a way of viewing the world.


Part 3 of Lessons for the Young Economist

Lesson 15: The Failures of Socialism—Theory

Lesson 16: The Failures of Socialism—History

Test PDF eBook: 
Socialism: The Command Economy
Download Socialism Economy Test PDF eBook
15 Pages
2014
English US
Educational Materials



Sample Questions from the Socialism: The Command Economy Test

Question: *Why doesn't a market economy suffer from the same calculation problem that plagues the socialist planners?

Choices:

The market overcomes the calculation problem because no one group is "in charge" who needs to decide everything. The decisions are instead dispersed among all the owners of producer goods (including labor). The profit and loss test, as revealed by market prices, guides the owners when they decide how to deploy their resources.

Question: Explain why you probably receive better service at Walmart than at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Choices:

The DMV has a monopoly on its "services" and thus has little incentive to keep its "customers" satisfied. In contrast, if Walmart employees consistently treat customers rudely, Walmart will lose market share and eventually go out of business if the problem is severe enough. Sample Partial Credit Answer Walmart has competition.

Question: Describe socialism's "calculation problem" (which is NOT the same as the incentive problem).

Choices:

If the government owns all of the resources, then there can be no market prices for them. That means the government, when drawing up the detailed plans for what should be produced, won't have any way to quantify the costs of their decisions. The planners won't know if they are using resources efficiently. Sample Partial Credit Answer The government won't be able to calculate if it is doing a good job in its plan for the economy.

Question: What is ironic about the various schemes that can be implemented to "cure" socialism of its problems?

Choices:

In order to solve the problems of socialism, the central planners might (say) allow workers to swap their finished goods with each other and to vote on what gets produced, and the planners might also allow the factory managers some discretion in how much they produce, based on their expectations of customer demand. Yet with each refinement, the system would more closely resemble capitalism. Sample Partial Credit Answer The socialist system turns into a capitalist one.

Question: What do beer companies and electric utilities have to do with socialism?

Choices:

The argument in the text is that during summer months, companies that enjoy government-granted monopolies such as electric and water utilities often restrict their service, whereas private companies in open competition (such as beer and soda producers) welcome the boost in demand for their products.

Question: Could a socialist government use punishment to overcome the problem of shirking among workers?

Choices:

For certain, simple tasks—such as garbage collection and painting barns—a socialist government could use punishment to get workers to carry out their assigned duties. But many jobs require creativity and other unobservable aptitudes. A market economy allows workers to choose their own occupations and discover the fields where they can contribute the most. Even with the use of punishment, socialist officials wouldn't be able to force their subjects to produce the same output. (Could you really use a whip to force someone with nimble hands to spend years training to become a brain surgeon?)

Question: What is the incentive problem for workers under socialism?

Choices:

If people are not paid in accordance with their productive output—if they're paid according to "need"—then they might not work as hard under socialism as they would under capitalism. There would be fewer goods and services produced overall, meaning that the average standard of living would have to fall. Sample Partial Credit Answer People would have no reason to work as hard.

Question: What is the incentive problem inherent in the slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"?

Choices:

The policy of this slogan severs the connection between work and reward. It is unlikely that workers would contribute as much to the pile of total output, if the amount they got to consume (or give to their family) had nothing to do with their contribution.

Question: Contrast the very worst that a capitalist "tyrant" can do to you (as a malcontented worker or an obnoxious customer) versus what a socialist tyrant can do to you.

Choices:

A capitalist boss can at worst fire a worker or refuse to sell to a customer. In contrast, the socialist ruler can assign an enemy to grueling work in Siberia (or its equivalent), deny educational opportunities to his children, provide inadequate health care, etc. Sample Partial Credit Answer A capitalist boss can fire you, that's really it.

Question: Explain the term command economy.

Choices:

The term refers to the fact that under (State) socialism, a group of a few (or one) political authorities controls all productive resources, including labor.

Question: *Does the historical record prove that socialism is a flawed economic system?

Choices:

No, because we can never know how history would have unfolded in an alternate timeline where socialism hadn't been implemented. (For an analogy, if someone has a headache and takes an aspirin, and then the headache gets worse, that doesn't prove that "aspirin makes your head hurt." It's probably the case that the headache would have gotten really bad had the person never taken an aspirin.)

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Source:  Dr. Robert P. Murphy, Lessons for the Young Economist. (Mises Institute), http://mises.org/document/6215/Lessons-for-the-Young-Economist (Accessed 04 April, 2014). License: Creative Commons BY
Briana Knowlton
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