RE: The Economic Calculation Problem and Libertarian Socialism
It seems to me, there is little or no attempt to determine relevant variables, measure them, almost no use of physical referents, little attempt to make quantified predictions... Lots of sitting down and trying to use reason and logic to figure out a problem, little collection of data
If you want a scientific study of data analysis and prediction, you have to look at the former "communist" states.
For example the GDR (where I was born) had an incredible sophisticated planning system. They were really good and based their plans on a vast amount of data. And since they could always see how planning and reality resulted, they had it a lot easier then "capitalistic" researchers. They had a "look what happened, why it happened, and adjust plans" cycle going.
(There is still the problem that it is nearly impossible to predict, especially at very small points, what will happen in 10 years when you start making the next 5 year plan).
I am only a little bit familiar with some efforts in the Soviet Union to feed data into computers and crunch out predictions. But nothing successful that I know of. Do you have any materials that describe a successful solving of a problem in GDR using the approach you mentioned?
In general I am extremely skeptical about efforts to predict what will happen with the economy as a whole. Instead, a much more viable approach seems to be to identify a concrete problem and work on it. Like Uber predicting at what times and in which places in a city there will be demand, and positioning their drivers in those places in advance. I consider that a real solution to a real problem. Comparing it with the philosophizing of economists... it's like night and day.
Thats what they did. 134 persons eat 5478kg potatoes a year, so we need X land and 4 machines which need 34,73 screws per year... and so on.
If you want to build a car you need to have the ship to bring in the ore, so to speak.
Sorry, no english source at hand. I have mostly seen a 2-hour docu about it a few years ago.