RE: Do Markets need Regulation?
The problem with the "communist commissions", or rather "party committees", as that is what they were, is that they were distanced away from reality of the common people. Planned economy, or rather USSR like, is VERY good at doing rapid industrialization (and other large scale projects), but not so good at anything else. It does lack flexibility, and the feedback is lacking. Besides, they operated under pressure, and a lot of decisions including Nixon Shock, as well as Reagan policies, that resulted in our current predicament, we based on the fear of USSR overtaking the USA, don't you agree?
But after the events of the 2008 crisis, can you say that the market is much better? The situation in the banking sector is sooo distanced from reality that the results of the system are the same for common people. Oh, and this bit:
What about wages? Well, it is still the same thing. If wages are low, due to the job market being over-saturated or less jobs available, that is not the markets fault. Salaries are always fair, because it reflects workers productivity.
Would you be so kind to back those claims, please? I agree with your further points, that financial education is really important, and regret that I was so carefree that I started so late on it, apart from some idle curiosity that I've had for years.
By the way, the problem in USSR was not the "communist comissions", but that due to ideological pressure, the mathematical models used to do the planning were very simple. In fact during 60s there was a movement of digitizing all that, but sadly it lost to the hardliner faction. It is doubly a pity, because the only actuall example of planned economy based on cybernetic principles was a great success.
Beginning in the early 1960s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union considered moving away from material balance planning in favor of developing an interlinked computerized system of resource allocation based on the principles of Cybernetics. This development was seen as the basis for moving toward optimal planning that could form the basis of a more highly developed form of socialist economy based on informational decentralization and innovation. This was seen as a logical progression given that the material balances system was geared toward rapid industrialization, which the Soviet Union had already achieved in the preceding decades. But by the early 1970s the idea of transcending the status quo was abandoned by the Soviet leadership because it threatened to undermine the existing power structure, and the decentralized nature of the proposed system was seen as a threat to the authority of the party.
And the working example for such a system was in fact created in Chilie, during Aliende administration. Ever heard of Project Cybersyn? Do look it up, fascinating stuff! In fact, the same technology that we are using, as well as cybernetic principles it may be possible to achieve post scarcity society, now that solar and other alternative energy sources are efficient enough.
In my opinion, the problem in todays world is inefficiency in logistics, partially caused by the fact it is very profitable. :->