getfiscal posted:

i think that arguably there was a labour market insofar as firms were semi-autonomous and funded themselves from sales (which they did for most of the soviet years). if you are funding yourself from sales then there is a tendency (not the only tendency) to try to be "profitable" in terms of aiming towards reducing labour costs, increasing productivity from labour, substituting towards machinery to discipline labour, and so on.

as you said, there were countervailing factors though, such as:
- prices didn't give strong signals to firms because they were generally set too low, and often not allowed to float, which was connected to widespread bureaucratic fears that sharp rises in key prices would lead to riots.
- projects had huge amounts of inertia given labour market rigidities and political practices, such that it was generally considered unacceptable to lay off people or relocate or even reduce state orders of certain goods (such as tanks).
- there was a lot of innovation within research facilities but there weren't good systems to diffuse this innovation within actual industrial practices. this wasn't to say there wasn't attempts at it, they just tended to be much slower and less effective than comparable projects in the west (computerization, for example).
- there were principal-agent problems given complex system of (dominant) state orders. the state order system made it so that the market was structured in such a way that there was a state/political filter between consumer demands and actual production, such that it was unclear whether the main aim of a firm's manager was to target sales to consumers or to target maximizing resources out of the state. usually the latter won out. and because of all the above then there were issues like featherbedding (labour hoarding).

one example is, say, shoes. under khrushchev there was a shift towards light industries producing consumer goods like shoes. by the late brezhnev period the government boasted about the large numbers of shoes produced, more than the US actually. but an economist pointed out (in 1983 iirc), well, okay, sure, but the soviet union doesn't need a lot of shoes. it needs shoes that fit specific demands of consumers - different styles, more durability, etc. - but the soviet economy just mass produced a narrow line of shoes, and probably way too many of them. but there wasn't much of a way to get that basic message integrated into the actual practice of the economy.

getfiscal posted:

im busy dying

SovietFriends posted:

getfiscal posted:

well it had some interesting stuff but i don't see why it contradicts any sort of growth theory. "steady-state economics" doesn't really make much sense to me as a thing, like, how does it differ from any other sort of economics except being skeptical about growth. the main argument for "unlimited" growth is robert lucas' one about information. but i mean he says growth might continue for a few hundred years. okay well then why freak out about it.

the good contribution on that from the steady-state school is on entropy and how it limits growth, it is basically lots about ability to produce energy and energy efficiency science usually

i am sure if you searched around that blog it would have something about it on since he is trying to marry physics and economics through green lark

p.s. the steady state school isn't great though as they tend to not understand economics enough to know how exactly to stop limits however they really are quite good on painting major systemic green limits even if they cannot exactly work through how they would become apparent in everyday life

Have you read anything on steady state economics by economists? Or something on the limits of economic growth? I don't think I've ever heard/read anything addressing limits to growth by professionals...