Against competition

Chris Dillow examines the case Against competition.

The point of all this is not necessarily to argue for state direction of the economy. If bosses can't know much, nor perhaps can governments: Orgel's second rule says that "Evolution is cleverer than you are."

Instead, it is perhaps to defend the real world in which market forces don't select very strongly. As Nick Bloom and colleagues have shown, there is a large variation in corporate efficiency around the world. From a conventional point of view, this is sub-optimal. But from a Darwinian point of view, it might not be. As Andrew Lo says, what look like suboptimal strategies might in fact be second-best adaptations which permit survival in a changing environment. And the same lack of selection that allows inefficient firms to survive also supports a diversity of firms which stabilizes the economy in the face of shocks.

We know that cognitive and cultural diversity are good things. So too is ecological diversity.

Emphasis Mine

Dillow implicitly assumes that firms within a future Communist society will not be open to change.

In a historical sense, we have only seen Communist societies built upon economically and politically backward ones. These societies were playing catch-up to the rest of the industrialised work. They had a clear goal of what they wanted to achieve, and how to achieve it. In these cases, state direction was essential and successful.

In a Communist society built upon an advanced ecomonic and political base will be completely different in character. This society will have different goals to a Capitalist one, but will not know the correct path to take. In this case, the workers will have to have the confidence to make mistakes and to correct them as needed.

The setting of direction will have to be done through intense democratic discussion at all levels of society. So the society is then built with the consent of all, instead of haphazard ideas that flourish and die with great rapidity.