Communist Failure and Markets

Dear Alan and Randall: I agree with Randall's response to Alan. I, too, am
critical of capitalism. And I also agree that it wasn't just the particular
historical manifestation of Marxism that failed; there are basic problems 
with
the general theory. Take, for example, markets (no, they aren't free; they
always exist within a particular legal framework which favors some more than
others). Markets are quite good at pricing goods. If one central authority 
has
to price all the goods to be sold they will find themselves overwhelmed by 
the
task. The same goes for production decisions. How in the world do we decide 
how
many size 10, brown wing-tip shoes to produce and then how much do we 
charge for
them? Ok, now how many size 9's? And now keep going until you cover all the
goods sold. The Soviets found that the biggest, fastest supercomputers they
could find were not up to the task. Nor would any present-day computers, 
since
such matters are subject to fickle fashion and taste. It is no surprise 
that the
Soviets could never quite get any of this right; no one could! That is why 
they
were constantly best by shortages and lines. I would therefore argue that we
utilize markets, but that we also keep on eye on the legal framework to 
counter
the injustices and other problems that arise. All for now.  Randy Groves