« 1:30:55/146 | Main | The Active Side of Infinity »
February 22, 2006
Drudgery of planning
This morning and part of the afternoon I began to consider what I'd ask for if this were mainly a plan-based economy rather than a market-based economy. Easier said than done.
While out running I realized that the near totality of what I have is not so much what I want but instead what I thought I needed at some point. Even on my bookshelf I found almost no books I would have on my shelf even if there were a big lending library of English-language books nearby. I'd surely keep Philip K. Dick's book VALIS and the collection of stories by Borges called Labyrinths in English translation. Yet those are only two books. Why do I have multiple shelves full? (Couldn't I share some of this stuff? Books are useless when sitting on shelves.)
Once I started looking at what I sort of feel I have to have, but do not really want (house, car, furnishings, etc.), I realized that figuring out my hypothetical, first draft request was not only not going to be easy, it was also going to be drudgery.
The market relieves us of this particular drudgery. As you can tell after spending a few hours with children who watch television, enterpreneurs see advantage in figuring out for you what you want, whether you actually want it or not. They've done a good job for me, and my own ability to determine what I want has atrophied. I sit there staring at a blank piece of paper and all I can come up with is, "Running shoes to replace worn out pairs."
Would the drudgery of planning be worse than the drudgery of working extra hours for capital's rent? Certainly the answer is yes if I leave it up to central planners. But am I not doing something very similar to that by leaving my planning up to entrepreneurs and salespeople?
Posted by Mark at February 22, 2006 08:20 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mcraig.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1380