Re: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I skimmed the articles, and then did a search for "alibaba logistics," alibaba being China's e-commerce giant. Commentators on the latter's growth in size and scope point to advantages similar to those enjoyed by Amazon in terms of using data to become a service provider to companies big and small looking to outsource many kinds of function. For instance: http://fortune.com/2017/06/26/china-alibaba-jack-ma-retail-ecommerce-e-commerce-new/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Great set of links, thanks! I agree that the algorithms, factors, variables, etc. etc. would all be dramatically different. The question is does the hardware and math involved make socialist calculation qualitatively more feasible? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Andrew: is there any reason to believe that the database calculations used for amazon/whole-foods would in any way be useful for in-kind calculations based on physical, non-monetary variables? i'd be curious myself to see what can be learned about Amazon/WF logistics and algorithms, but i have this funny feeling their whole computational flow is based on lowest cost or highest profit to amazon, with delivery time as secondary factor. i also doubt we will see actual algorithms in use save for what they are willing to put into patents or academic papers. a little googling to get a sense of the big picture and a place to start. logistics: http://logisticstrendsandinsights.com/the-focal-point-of-amazons-logistics-network-fulfillment-by-amazon/ https://logistics.amazon.com/ (distributed transport/delivery) https://ilsr.org/amazon-logistics-map/ http://www.mwpvl.com/html/amazon_com.html https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/29/is-logistics-about-to-get-amazoned/ jobs: https://us-amazon.icims.com/jobs/328931/web-development-engineer-ii,-amazon-logistics-technology/job?mobile=true=false algorithms (some pieces are known, somewhat): https://www.a9.com/whatwedo/product-search/ http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2016/04/mythbusting-the-amazon-algorithm-reviews-and-ranking-for-authors/ https://theconversation.com/algorithms-can-be-more-fair-than-humans-64047 https://www.fastcompany.com/3060803/algorithmic-pricing-is-creating-an-arms-race-on-amazons-marketplace https://www.propublica.org/article/amazon-says-it-puts-customers-first-but-its-pricing-algorithm-doesnt Les On 06/26/2017 01:51 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: I've mentioned here and on Facebook the relevance of the logistics revolution - most recently manifested in the Amazon/Whole Foods merger - to these questions by virtue of the computing power behind them. It would be good IMO to get details on this, for instance what computer programs and mathematical tools are used by leaders in the field for their just-in-time stocking, their next day delivery, etc. etc. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * All very useful, thanks Jim and John. I've mentioned here and on Facebook the relevance of the logistics revolution - most recently manifested in the Amazon/Whole Foods merger - to these questions by virtue of the computing power behind them. It would be good IMO to get details on this, for instance what computer programs and mathematical tools are used by leaders in the field for their just-in-time stocking, their next day delivery, etc. etc. All of this, of course, must be coupled with the reminder that it's not always rocket science needed. In the article Louis forwarded on Johnston - and another Times article this weekend on why men won't take nursing jobs (the punchline of the author: because they suck) - it's clear to those who want clarity that you don't need even a PC to figure out how to shift resources from manufacturing to care work. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
ities of those different products can be chosen from the myriad of possibilities so as to achieve maximal results from minimal inputs. The point of all this (and the point of Cockshott's paper, I believe) is that with the collapsing of capitalism--happening now before our eyes and, unfortunately, not being assisted or hastened in its destruction to any meaningful extent by any great proletarian upsurge--can and must be assisted by the development of a socialist economic program that would detail how and with what and in what manners and ways can the existing economic substructure be adapted to the production of the necessary (and then even the desirable) human means of consumption and of those means of production necessary to facilitate this. This--again to my way of thinking--is in league with Marx' expositions of the nature, operation and laws of the fundamentals and the flaws of the capitalist system; only that Cockshott's exposition is prescriptive while Capital, et al are, as valuable as they are, remain merely descriptive; for they both are intended to be armaments fashioned to aid and be utilized by the working class in its historical mission to eliminate class. The one points to the sources of the problems; the other to their solutions. Cockshott's ideas on such a transitional socialist economy and its workings are fleshed out fully in his (and Allin F Cottrel's "Towards a New Socialism". ( https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Towards+a+New+Socialism%22=utf-8=utf-8). We must discuss and develop and introduce into the popular social discourse the ways and means, the methods and manner, the program by which a socialist commonwealth--with the ultimate goal of global communism--can not only function but itself be amenable and adaptable to change with the ever-changing needs and desires of its constituents, the human race. JAI Message: 3 Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2017 03:42:56 GMT From: "Jim Farmelant" <farmela...@juno.com> To: marxism-tha...@lists.riseup.net, marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union Message-ID: <20170624.234256.321...@webmail05.vgs.untd.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 In the Soviet Union, the economics profession was divided into two branches: the political economists and the mathematical economists, with the great majority of Soviet economists being political economists. The political economists were trained mostly in the work of Marx & Engels, Lenin, and their successors. Most of them did not have much mathematical training and their published research made little use of mathematics. The mathematical economists on the other hand were trained very proficiently in higher mathematics and their work was very technical in nature. The mathematician and economist Leonid Kantarovich was one of the founding fathers of the Soviet school of mathematical economists and he would win both the Order of Lenin Medal and later the Nobel Prize in economics for his work as one of the founders of linear programming. One of their concerns was to try to make Soviet economic planning more rational and to that end they introduced a variety of optimization techniques which implicitly or explicitly relied upon marginalist economic ideas. So that way, a lot of neoclassical-type economic thinking was brought into the Soviet Union. Oskar Lange in a 1945 piece, Marxian Economics in the Soviet Union, which appeared in the American Economic Review, took note of the Soviet debates that were going on then over the law of value and whether this law is operative under socialism. Lange was of the opinion that this law is operative under socialism and on that basis he argued for the adoption of marginalist economic analysis as a tool for making socialist economic planning more rational. A few years later, Stalin came around to a somewhat similar position in his pamphlet, Economic Problems of the USSR. People like Lange would then cite Stalin's work as a basis for their own advocacy of economic reforms in the socialist bloc countries. One of my FB friends, Barkley Rosser, has said of his Russian-born wife, Marina Rosser, who was trained as an economist in the Soviet Union: "There was a split between "political economy" and the more mathematical "cybernetics." She went through both, meaning she knows her Marx more than you or Doug Henwood or even Paul Cockshott do by a country mile, She can cite chapter and verse all the way down to the most minute detail any of you can come up with,, and in her heyday before the KGB arrested and tortured her she had access to the Marx-Engels library, which still exists, which was only accessible to very high level people like her who also did major translations of foreign authors, She learned western econ through courses on "Bourgeous theories of economics," some of these taught by westerners such as the late Lynn
[Marxism] Mathematical economics and political economy in the Soviet Union
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In the Soviet Union, the economics profession was divided into two branches: the political economists and the mathematical economists, with the great majority of Soviet economists being political economists. The political economists were trained mostly in the work of Marx & Engels, Lenin, and their successors. Most of them did not have much mathematical training and their published research made little use of mathematics. The mathematical economists on the other hand were trained very proficiently in higher mathematics and their work was very technical in nature. The mathematician and economist Leonid Kantarovich was one of the founding fathers of the Soviet school of mathematical economists and he would win both the Order of Lenin Medal and later the Nobel Prize in economics for his work as one of the founders of linear programming. One of their concerns was to try to make Soviet economic planning more rational and to that end they introduced a variety of optimization techniques whi ch implicitly or explicitly relied upon marginalist economic ideas. So that way, a lot of neoclassical-type economic thinking was brought into the Soviet Union. Oskar Lange in a 1945 piece, Marxian Economics in the Soviet Union, which appeared in the American Economic Review, took note of the Soviet debates that were going on then over the law of value and whether this law is operative under socialism. Lange was of the opinion that this law is operative under socialism and on that basis he argued for the adoption of marginalist economic analysis as a tool for making socialist economic planning more rational. A few years later, Stalin came around to a somewhat similar position in his pamphlet, Economic Problems of the USSR. People like Lange would then cite Stalin's work as a basis for their own advocacy of economic reforms in the socialist bloc countries. One of my FB friends, Barkley Rosser, has said of his Russian-born wife, Marina Rosser, who was trained as an economist in the Soviet Union: "There was a split between "political economy" and the more mathematical "cybernetics." She went through both, meaning she knows her Marx more than you or Doug Henwood or even Paul Cockshott do by a country mile, She can cite chapter and verse all the way down to the most minute detail any of you can come up with,, and in her heyday before the KGB arrested and tortured her she had access to the Marx-Engels library, which still exists, which was only accessible to very high level people like her who also did major translations of foreign authors, She learned western econ through courses on "Bourgeous theories of economics," some of these taught by westerners such as the late Lynn Turgeon who was the person who was responsible for us meeting, who gave me her phone number when I went in 1984 to Moscow and met her. He gave her away in our wedding, and I remain grateful to him, and we wrote a published paper with others about his work later. She had the best English of any of his students at MGU, and translated his lectures into English, which were later published as a book. After she got out she worked at the Institiitute for International Economics and Relations (IMEMOE, I might have its precise title wrong, although it still exists) which in the old days advised the Central Committee of the CPSU, and she was involved with its 25 year planning activity when I arrived in 1984 to disrupt her Soviet economic career, BTW, one of her students after she started working at IMEMO was the current Chair of the Russian Central Bank, and, well, enough for now..." Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math 1 Cup of This (Before Bed) Will "Destroy" Your Nail Fungus Wellness Above All http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/594f314d40409314d2c8ast03vuc _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
