0
1

How does communism deal with zipf's law? (self.DebateCommunism)

myassisglowing が 投稿

The natural tendency for extreme inequality to arise in a natural system be it wealth distribution, ecology, annual book sales etc, colloquially knows as "Rich get richer effect".

Ex: Now, don't say you need a strong state to equally distribute wealth, which has been tried. A reversal test easily points the obvious flaws in such a system, for example; if you had a state authority assign equal quotas for book sales of every author or a similar system. It's fuckin' ridiculous.

I think the reason markets work so well, because on a abstract level it tends to behave like a system which is in the "edge of chaos", a system i.e exactly in between that of order and disorder. It can simultaneously switch between two states thus maintaining something akin to a dynamic stability. I think the reason central planning doesn't work is because the system is too rigid, can't keep up with changes in the environment and people's need. Interesting thing about system which operate under edge of chaos tend to produce a power distribution i.e as predicted by zipf's law. Vsauce did a pretty good introductory video on zipf's law, I recommend you watch it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE

Edit: I found a simple guide on understanding chaos and complexity. I recommend anyone who wants a technical introduction to the topic can go thru it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465602/

全 31 件のコメント
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]lovelynothing 8ポイント9ポイント  (4子コメント)

Zipf's 'law' is clearly just a theoretical justification for bourgeois ideology (i.e. capitalism). That being said, you're clearly conflating the highly bureaucratic Stalinist 'central planning' with planning. I wouldn't even argue the ludicrously chaotic Stalinist bureaucracy was anything resembling planning of any sort.

Anyway, genuine economic planning - in the Marxist sense - is nothing but the conscious and self-controlled economic activity of the producers. It has nothing to do with 'keeping people equal' or whatever else, it has everything to do with eliminating the anarchy of the markets (i.e. overconsumption and scarcity from abundance).

The point is, there is an abundance of resources available in the world for global peace and total human happiness, we need to be free from capital to utilize it. Markets do nothing but create waste and scarcity from an overwhelming abundance.

[–]myassisglowing[S] -3ポイント-2ポイント  (3子コメント)

I seriously don't know where to start.

Zipf's 'law' is clearly just a theoretical justification for bourgeois ideology

Addition and subtraction are used to calculate profit and loss. Hence they too are just a theoretical justification of bourgeois ideology. Are you trying to troll me?

you're clearly conflating the highly bureaucratic Stalinist 'central planning' with planning. I wouldn't even argue the ludicrously chaotic Stalinist bureaucracy was anything resembling planning of any sort.

Economic planning doesn't work. It didn't work in Sovient russia, China, Venezuela. I think Venezuela economic collapse is equivalent to watching a car-wreck in slow motion.

It has nothing to do with 'keeping people equal' or whatever else, it has everything to do with eliminating the anarchy of the markets (i.e. overconsumption and scarcity from abundance).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[–]lovelynothing 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Economic planning doesn't work. It didn't work in Sovient russia, China, Venezuela. I think Venezuela economic collapse is equivalent to watching a car-wreck in slow motion.

First of all, Stalinism has nothing to do with Marxism, planning, communism, socialism, or anything of the sort. That is clear to anyone who has studied even a modicum of Marxist material. Second of all, Venezuela is a capitalist country.

You seem to assume that government action - something required by capitalism - is communism.

[–]AnCom9 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Economic planning doesn't work. It didn't work in Sovient russia, China,

So could you explain why the Soviet Union became a world power that rivalled the U.S.? Or why the same happened to China even though their open market economy is guided by a planning agency?

(Not saying that state planning is socialism. It's just still a form of planning though).

[–]allhailkodos 4ポイント5ポイント  (3子コメント)

Dear /u/myassisglowing,

Your basic argument - that planning is too rigid and simplistic for dealing with a system as complex as an economy - is not news. I am not familiar with thinking about systems or "zipf's law", but I would suggest that it is possible to design a system that is less crisis prone and more egalitarian than contemporary social relations.

And how far one can bootstrap their way to communism from there is up for debate. Look forward to the responses of others.

[–]myassisglowing[S] -3ポイント-2ポイント  (2子コメント)

Empirically, we know markets perform better compared to state planning. "Equitable" distribution of resource inherently involves state planning. I'm trying to provide a theoretical frame-work to why markets are better compared to state-planning. It's is next to impossible to have a equitable society and at same time enjoy the benefits and innovation which markets confers.

Let's imagine two systems, where the books sales are guided by the market and the one where the government in-states quotas for equitable book sales. Which system do you think would produce better quality of books and also match the tastes of readers?

[–]QuintonGavinson 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Empirically, we know markets perform better compared to state planning.

What is the basis for this statement? That markets are empirically superior? I personally don't agree that state planning is socialism, but I think it's quite interesting that you would so boldly label it less effective than a market system. I'd be interested if you can actually provide historical data that proves markets have historically been proven to perform better, in similar conditions to those with state planning.

[–]allhailkodos 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Dear /u/myassisglowing,

The problem with your argument is the problem with most market fundamentalist arguments: it's a circular argument. You like markets because markets are good and markets are good because you like markets.

Rather than arguing about state-led or market economies, it makes more sense to look in detail at what's going on in the economic system. For example, currently, global capitalism is driven in part by state-directed manufacturing growth in China that depends on using currency rates as a means of boosting exports and protecting against imports. And it's been wildly successful, by any economic measure except human rights. At the same time, you have finance capital fleeing the U.S. manufacturing sector over decades and leaving a bizarre residue behind that I think is still in formation and for which we don't have a name yet. All of which is to say that these are the social and political conditions for the argument you are making (as mine) - you are mimicking the arguments that provide a justification to capital flight from the global North to India/China/etc.

So the question I have at that point is: can you go a level of analysis even deeper, as Marx does, and understand things in terms of coercive laws of capital and the nature of the capital-labor relationship? And, separately, depending on your answer to that, what possible interventions are possible and how deep do they go?

To me, this line of analysis is a more effective tool for figuring out what we see and what we can possibly do about it. Rather than an outdated binary between 'the market' and 'the state' which is rooted in Cold War politics and in any case was never very descriptively accurate.

But I will grant you that there are limits to subject agency in a system. Which some might not agree with.

[–]MarxCantMeltSteel 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

This post reads like it was written by an angst filled teenager. You found some obscure "law" that validates your thinking and now you are taking it an running with it. You make no clear reference to any marxist or leftist ideas other than "central planning" which is, apparently, bad because of reasons that you don't explore. This, coupled with your responses to other comments leads me to believe that you are trying to solidify your current beliefs rather than debate.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Zipfs' law is a pretty well known and well studied phenomena. I would condense my argument for easy understanding. Markets follow zipf's law, which means they naturally results in highly unequal distribution in wealth i.e 1% owning vast amount of wealth. The reason we see this is because economy follows non-linear dynamics. You can use chaos theory to model it pretty well actually, lead to more accurate economic prediction.[0]

The ideal goal of socialism is to produce equitable distribution of wealth, but this is not the natural state of order. The irony is you don't make any concrete claims, say my argument lacks substance.

[0] http://www.nature.com/articles/srep06834

[–]AnCom9 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Markets follow zipf's law, which means they naturally results in highly unequal distribution in wealth i.e 1% owning vast amount of wealth.

That's one thing though, in regards to economics, how do you know that the law isn't just purely a market law, rather than a natural law that exists regardless of what system we have? I.e. Isn't it possible that this is a law that could be eliminated with the establishment of decentralized economic planning?

The ideal goal of socialism is to produce equitable distribution of wealth,

Nope, wrong. Statements like this is why others are telling you to read some Marxist theory before debating on here.

but this is not the natural state of order.

We socialists agree, which is why we (at least generally) don't believe that everyone should be equally rich.

[–]lovelynothing 3ポイント4ポイント  (5子コメント)

This comment is directed to the one you deleted from your other account, I was about to post it and then you deleted it for whatever reason:

I have read a lot of bourgeois and Marxist socio-economic works, I assure you I am not jumping to any conclusion. Your 'arguments' are stereotypically free market capitalist nonsense and you've said nothing to refute any Marxist theory in any sort of depth.

I'm going to assume you've read no Marxist theory and have nothing of substance to say about it. If that's true, with all due respect, this conversation will go nowhere fast and I think I'll leave you to it.

Also, pick an account and stick with it. No point switching in the middle of a conversation.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

My bad! I usually use alt-account to discuss my political views. My co-workers know my main account. As I said earlier, you are just making broad claims here. The computer you typing on, reddit itself are the products are capitalism. Name at least a single product in your home which isn't produced via capitalism. You can that a failure, far from it.

I don't understand your emphasis on reading Marx works, that would be equivalent to saying you must read vodooo, in order to prove that it's a bunch of hokum.

[–]lovelynothing 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

The computer you typing on, reddit itself are the products are capitalism.

The working class, actually. You are right though, capitalism does enable a lot of fantastic things. Why stop at fantastic things? Why not go further than the simple production (and overproduction) of products? Why not go for global human freedom and total emancipation from any and all oppressive socio-economic activity? Human beings are more than resources to create nice things, they are real beings who desire to become fully-rounded and totally fulfilled individuals.

I don't understand your emphasis on reading Marx works, that would be equivalent to saying you must read vodooo, in order to prove that it's a bunch of hokum.

Perhaps you should read some Marx and find out why I'm putting emphasis on it. Here is a good place to start.

[–]AnCom9 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Name at least a single product in your home which isn't produced via capitalism.

Any of the products that has historical origins in feudalism or ancient slave-society. Are you saying that people should start going back to either of those two systems or view them as good just because they still use products that originated in those systems?

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

You seriously think the current system is slavery? If so, why do people willingly try to advance their careers and earn more money. If that was the case, the first thing they would try to do is get out of the system and immigrate to a country with more socialist policies which ironically doesn't treat its own citizen's as slave. I don't see American, EU people willingly migrate to SU and Mao's china in its socialist heydays, but quite the opposite. So, your argument is essentially is all these people who emigrate from socialist countries to capitalistic one are masochist desperately in search of a master to enslave them?

[–]AnCom9 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You seriously think the current system is slavery?

Where in my comment did I say that I think the current system is slavery?

I just said that

1) Certain products were originally produced under (I.e. had originated in) slavery or feudalism

2) the logic you're using seems to imply that individuals agree with slavery or feudalism simply because they use products that originated in those systems.

E.g. An individual uses a product that was originally introduced to society from the feudalist system. Therefore, this person must agree with feudalism since this individual would not have ever been able to use this product if feudalism had not introduced that product to us as a society.

[–]xplkqlkcassia 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

The USSR was the second-fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. It was one of the most egalitarian societies humanity has produced, with freedom from financial worry and a lack of homelessness and unemployment. Central planning was able to produce this. See this short article on economic conditions in the USSR and if you have more time have a read of Towards A New Socialism by W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell if you're interested in a response to the argument that "central planning doesn't work is because the system is too rigid, can't keep up with changes in the environment and people's need".

Chapters 3 to 9 would probably be the most useful to you. It makes the case that "modern" computer technologies by far outstrip even the best pen-and-paper planning methods, and that the economic calculation problem is no longer accurate, given that we can no longer say that it is impossible to collect, record, process, and apply enormous amounts of data over a large scale. It may have been in the USSR, leading to occasional overproduction and underproduction of different resources and consumer goods, but, as the authors argue, along with a detailed plan for implementing such a computerised planning system, is not something that is impossible today.

They tested it out, in fact, on an old IBM computer - it was able to allocate resources between one hundred thousand different factories to produce twenty thousand different products in accordance with consumer values in little under an hour once they used a neural networking system with simulated annealing to maximise output and resource use. Think about it - modern market economies take anywhere from days to months to adjust to changes in resources and consumer demand. The decentralised-ish socialist planning system outlined in Towards A New Socialism would allow for the mass coordination of millions of factories over the span of entire countries in a hyper-efficient manner in milliseconds. But that summary is nothing compared to reading the book for yourself, it's what originally changed my mind about the viability of economic planning as a means of coordinating production in the first place. The book also covers innovation and decisions on what to produce in a planned economy, as well as a wide spread of other topics which I personally found interesting.

Edit: by the way, most of the other responses you got were complete trash and you should ignore them, except for the second paragraph of lovelynothing's top response. This is a shit sub to learn about communism, /r/communism101 will be much more helpful if you're looking for a decent response to your questions.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Ah, this reminds me of new yorker article I read few months back, about using computers to efficiently allocate resources in chile under socialism. It didn't work though, but it's still a interesting possibility since we are seeing an explosion of sensors (i.e internet of things) and moore's law.

[–]xplkqlkcassia 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for the article - it was a fantastic read. It's pretty sad how Project Cybersyn was cut off short of its potential. Economic planning becomes more and more easy with every step forward in technology, and Pinochet's reactionary capitalist coup was an unfortunate step back for a technology which could have given pointers for future attempts at building computer-aided socialist economic planning.

[–]scientific_thinker 1ポイント2ポイント  (8子コメント)

I will take a closer look when I have time but I am pretty sure zipf's law is nonsense.

The laws of thermodynamics explain among other things, why we can't get something from nothing.

Since we can't get something from nothing, the rich getting richer is actually a small group stealing from a larger group. In our case, using systems designed to accumulate wealth like markets, money, and finance (I will explain this assertion in more detail when I have more time).

The reality (according to thermodynamics) is energy tends to spread out. The opposite of the idea that the rich get richer.

[–]myassisglowing[S] -2ポイント-1ポイント  (7子コメント)

You're name says "scientific_thinker", but you seem to lack a basic understanding of physics. Yeah! the first law of thermodynamics state the entropy increase with time in the entire universe, but earth is different case since it constantly receives energy from sun. Yes! overtime; due to entropy the universe will experience heat death, but that is billions of years from now. I'm pretty skeptical on your ability to disprove zip's law when you are deficient in basic high school physics.

[–]scientific_thinker 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

My username is a warning. I am telling people I expect arguments built on facts and conclusions based on sound logic.

So far, everyone that has complained about my username has failed to meet these expectations. You are no exception. None of your conclusions use facts and sound logic. You pointed out the fact that the earth receives energy from the sun. This fact is not unknown to me and does not prove I don't have a basic understanding of physics. This fact does not change the fact that even here on earth energy will tend to spread out. Granted, there are temporary exceptions like life but these exceptions don't mean the rich getting richer isn't in direct contradiction to energy's tendency to spread out rather than accumulate.

As far as Zipf's law goes, you are right, I am not able to disprove it. The problem is not with the law but your interpretation of it. Zipf's law doesn't mean there is a tendency for extreme inequality. It nothing more than observation that some things like words can be distributed in an interesting way where the second most used word will be used half as much as the most used word. The third most used word will be used a third as much as the most used word and so on. This is an interesting form of distribution found in some sets of data, nothing more. It certainly isn't some universal law capable of contradicting the laws of thermodynamics here on earth.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

Kudos! you watched the first 2 minutes of the video, now that's a start. It would be great if you can complete watching the entire video. Yes! Zipf's law deals mainly with word count, but that phenomena was seen in other systems too, it's also called power law distribution. I tried to start off with zipf's law to act as a primer, the same phenomena is referred to as power law distribution in statistics, Pareto principle in statistics and colloquially called 80-20 rule.

I don't know how you linked thermodynamics and economics, seems like most of understanding of economics come from /r/badeconomics. Now, not only it seems that you lack any expertise in physics, but also economics.

But, I feel obligated to disprove your claims with sound science, even though you would accuse me of not doing so. Here goes.

This fact does not change the fact that even here on earth energy will tend to spread out. Granted, there are temporary exceptions like life but these exceptions don't mean the rich getting richer isn't in direct contradiction to energy's tendency to spread out rather than accumulate.

Thermodynamically speaking, earth is a open system, not closed. Since, it constantly receives energy from sun. I don't know how you linked money and energy though, that's seems like bad economic thinking to me. Even if we assume your claim is true, it doesn't hold up to science.

I forgot, you asked me back my claim. I thought, you will be smart enough to do a google search, but since you're a "scientific_thinker", I guess I need to cite obvious stuff. Just check the examples, see the number of system which exhibit power law distribution. There is ample amount of empirical data to back its universality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law#Universality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law#Examples_of_power-law_functions https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Long_tail.svg/1000px-Long_tail.svg.png

[–]scientific_thinker 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

You didn't prove anything. I never argued the earth was a closed system. Once again not a single conclusion of yours is based on facts or sound logic.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

The total entropy of a system doesn't increase provided there is a inflow of energy. If you knew what entropy and open system mean, you wouldn't have asked that question. Your'e like a liberal arts major masquerading as a physicist.

[–]scientific_thinker 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The total entropy of a system doesn't increase provided there is a inflow of energy.

This is false. Total entropy can change based on the amount of energy being added to the system. The amount of energy can increase or decrease total entropy. This isn't physics, this is algebra buddy.

This argument is a red herring anyway. Your logic is pathetic.

[–]tubitak 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

No, that would be the second law, as stated only picturesquely by Clausius. /u/scientific_thinker had the right idea with "spreading of energy", which can be made into a description of entropy from the viewpoint of statistical mechanics. The laws are quite general, but not that general since they apply under strict circumstances which you should know, so don't apply a pseudoscientific analogy. When in doubt, think of a paramagnet - a very big lattice of spins. Can a system be compared to a paramagnet? If not, don't apply loose thermodynamic analogies. So don't think about the solar system, which it is made up of just a few planets governed by celestial mechanics, as a representative (neither is the surface of Earth). Thermodynamics in cosmology is a thing, but a very academic thing. Unless you have a thorough understanding of 70s and 80s general relativity as a base, don't dabble in it. I can recommend books, but they are technical (theorem->proof).

Now, Zipf's law itself is empirical. It cannot be "disproved" or "dealt with". It can be observed in systems, well, similar to those in which it is observed to hold. Can you empirically prove that it holds even in the current market, and not in a hand-wavy way? That it holds in a different economy? For example, recently, using network theory (and a very good computer :) ) it was shown that top firms that already control the majority of the market are also dramatically interconnected, owning each others stocks etc. It's not trivial by any means. Zipf's law is an observation about a system. Claiming that it's "truer" just begs the question. At the same time, the mechanisms for how the rich get richer etc are well known and documented, it really shouldn't take any abstractions to explain this.

I'm sorry for being harsh, but you struck a nerve. It's not your fault, it's mine, because I can't deal with lay explanations, and I'm still offended that physics became a "philosophical topic" shortly after the first work on relativity :) People don't discuss even basic mathematics, let alone deep mathematics, but physics buzzwords get thrown around all the time.

So don't get your physics from youtube and wikipedia and then throw that at people. And don't get your political theory from there as well. And don't start mixing them up. Cheers.

[–]Admiral_Duckington 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I think the reason central planning doesn't work is because the system is too rigid, can't keep up with changes in the environment and people's need.

But businesses don't use an internal market to allocate resources within the company, they centrally plan what resources to allocate to manufacture products or provide services.

The U.S. military doesn't use a market to supply its troops, they use logistics to determine needs.

The open source movement provides software to people for free and components of it are used as the backbone of the internet and FOSS has been a major driver of technological innovation. There is no real market for purchasing or selling FOSS software because anyone can use or contribute to it.

The USSR beat the US to every major space milestone except getting to the moon and they had a planned economy.

There are a variety of flavors of socialism. Some centralize planning, some decentralize planning, some do both, some use a marketplace.

[–]myassisglowing[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I assert that one of the reason why corporation ability to innovate and gains in efficiency is inversely proportional to the size of the firm. Many companies have tried and succeeded implementing an internal prediction market to aggregate internal information, the research says there was a noticeable improvement in organizational efficiency. [0] [1]

USSR was blessed with vast amount of land, natural resources mainly petroleum products and natural gas. Since there were no competition and the government owned companies mined these natural resources provided significant source of revenue for the Sovient union, even then during the height of cold war roughly 50% of SU GDP consisted of Defence and military spending. While America's was only 7% on average. :) [2]

Open source software is pretty example of system where you see the emergence of spontaneous order, where there is no central authority allocating resources, assigning priorities and maintaining consensus, but these emerge due to collective activity of individuals interacting with each other. It's not a top down, but a bottoms' up process just like the markets. Open source is actually better than the one's which involve planning committees.

[0] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f03fc956-9586-11e2-a151-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3mFWEAwLC [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market#Use_by_corporations