From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 06:12:15 -0800 (PST)
To: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Subject: Re: John's: In anarchy -everyone responsible
Message-ID: <199702111412.GAA19434@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 01:35 AM 2/6/97 -0600, snow wrote:
>> At 09:05 PM 2/4/97 +0000, Attila T. Hun wrote:
>> >on or about 970204:0312 Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com> said:
>> >+   Is the desire for an anarchic community at odds with a desire for 
>> >+   good use of resources?
>> Actually, it is quite possible that an "anarchic community" is _more_ 
>> efficient in the use of resources than some sort of organized community.    
>> It is explained, for example, that the reason there are so many different 
>> kinds of life on earth is that there are so many ecological niches to 
fill.  
>
>     Good does not necessarily mean efficient, and efficient does not
>necessarily mean good. 

Since the definition of "good" above wasn't specified, I substituted 
"efficient."


>    Picture--if you can--the "perfect" centrally planned economy where all
>possible market conditions, wants and needs are taken into account. Factories
>are placed optimally for access to natural resources and distribution to 
>consumers etc. Also assume that the people running this society _are_ 
intersted
>in efficient production methods, and activly look for new and better ways of 
>getting things done--benign facism/socialism if you will. This would 
(assuming 
>perfect people, but bear with me) be the _most efficient_ method of producing 
>and delivering goods, but it would introduce certain "choke points", one 
>natural disaster or war could cripple production of necessary items. 

Let me suggest, however, that in addition to the "choke point" problem, it 
is also impossible, maybe even theoretically so, for a similar reason 
"Maxwell's Demon" is.

Maxwell's Demon, for those unfamiliar with thermodynamics, was a gate which 
was postulated to allow the passage of molecules of energy greater than 
average, and stop the passage of molecules of energy less than average.  The 
net result would have been, theoretically, a separation of a gas into two 
halves of dramatically different temperatures.

However, given such a heat separation, it should be possible through some 
heat engine to extract energy from this difference, and return the  gas to 
its prior statistical distribution of energies.  Was this "something from 
nothing"?

Obviously this appeared to be a serious contradiction, given the various 
laws of thermodynamics, and it was.  It turns out that the source of the 
contradiction is the false presumption, implied above, that it is possible 
to identify and thus separate molecules without using appreciable amounts of 
energy.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the amount of energy needed to do the 
separation is at least as great as whatever amount of energy you could 
theoretically extract from the system, almost magically balancing the books.

I suggest that centrally-planned economic theory may fail for a very similar 
reason:  Implicit in that analysis it is assume that it is possible to do a 
"cost-free" plan, where in reality costs do occur.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com