Cockshott Thread: Dickblast Towards a New Socialism

Don't worry about it comrade - that stuff is relatively advanced and you don't need to know it to understand / explain Cockshott to people.

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anyone have the archives from the last thread?

Hopefully one day I'll be able to get it, because it seems like a really interesting field of study that's not really touched upon when most people discuss economics. Like, I can discuss general economic concepts and I like to think sometimes I have pretty solid understanding of the classical view of capitalist economics and the Marxist view of those economics and capitalism as a whole, but this is something else entirely which goes far beyond just merely analysing generalized commodity production and equilibrium prices in capitalism. This is inserting thermodynamics and the like into the mix, and that just simultaneously astounds and bypasses me completely.

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Can anyone give me a simple explanation of how Cockshott economy would work? I'm a brainlet and I need help.

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labour theory of value as developed by Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It is
a model in which consumer goods are priced in terms of the hours and
minutes of labour it took to make them, and in which each worker is paid
labour credits for each hour worked. Th e consistent application of this
principle eliminates economic exploitation.

Retail enterprises for example, work on a break-even rather than profi t
making basis. We envisage the transition to publicly owned enterprises
as being a gradual process that will occur after rather than before the
abolition of the wages system.

This applies in particular to decisions about the level of taxation and
state expenditure. Such democratic decision making is vital to prevent
the replacement of private exploitation with exploitation by the state.

This only tells me that the only thing different is the implementation of direct democracy.
How is Cockshott thought different from the labour theory of value?

I wish I could also understand it, but I've come to the conclusion that my work is better served in doing practical things - so for now I've accepted the division of labor which Cockshott has been afforded to be able to produce his wonderful work. However, I fully encourage you to study mathematics (especially applied math / calculus) and physics if you really want to understand econophysics. Its very advanced stuff, but if you put in enough effort you'll be able to get it. Just know that, as Marx said, the road to science is not an easy endeavor.

...

He is not different from the labour theory of value, and in fact has proven with his colleagues that the LTOV still operates, as the labor theory of value applies to the dual-character of labor under capitalism. Where he is different is that in his book Towards a New Socialism, he has constructed a working model of socialism based on the experiences of the Soviet economies and modern-day economic physics that could actually be implemented by a socialist party. He also has worked out how social labor would be divided, how firms would track the necessary amounts of goods needed and sold, how computers have bypassed the socialist calculation problem, how surplus is gathered under a socialist economy, how to overcome problems that were central in the Soviet economy, how to best implement labor-saving technology while ensuring that labor is most efficiently applied in firms, amongst a host of other things he has worked out. So, if you are interested in questions about how a socialist economy would be ran, then read Towards a New Socialism and watch the videos on his youtube channel.

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kek

Shit I forgot my shitposting flag I did actually laugh.

As someone who became acquainted with this work after his university and graduate stuff, I can tell you this: You're more than capable if you're willing to afford yourself the time to learn these matters correctly and comprehensively. It is an immensely rewarding field to work in, despite the difficulties of research. I can only say that should any opportunity arise and present itself, seize upon it - we can always use more motivated persons who are actually interested in the material

Thank you for your kind words comrade. May I ask what your field of study in uni was and what you did to get to a point where you could contribute to econophysics?

Mathematics and Physics, double major, at the start. Added on Political Economy later on. I have always been a Marxist, but I stuck with typical and inoffensive research topics to avoid striking a bad chord with anyone. There is an enormous amount that can be interacted with in the field that doesn't require you to be intimately acquainted with higher methods of approximate analysis. I spent some time doing independent research into methods of computational economics after reading about developments being made in the field for comparative computation (attempting to find a practical application for quantum computation over classical computation) and found this huge cache of Glushkov/Kantorovich/etc. work that seemed immensely interesting. The main thing you get out of applying an existing background to the mix is that you have a better ability to recreate and simulate new results, but theres nothing in there that should stop you from pushing forwards and consuming as much material as you want - just the time is hard to find to sit and read the stuff.

Stupid but sincere question even if it sounds like anti commie propaganda – what would ensure efficiency or productivity? Why would I be trying to get the work done quick and well if dragging it out gets me more credits?

I guess there would still be people checking that you're actually doing your job, somehow you need to know if someone is contributing.

Chapter 2, page 34, in Towards a New Socialism states the following:

We may well wish to argue that socialism should provide favourable general social conditions for the production of a surplus, if workers feel that they are working ‘for the good of all’ rather than for the profits of a ‘boss’. But it would
be naive to assume that this will solve all problems. Aside from making general
use of the strategies of ‘enlightened’ capitalist enterprises (public recognition
of worker achievement, construction of democratic working environment) there
may still be some need to gear individual pay to productivity. Morale problems
can develop if people believe that they are putting in more than the usual effort ‘for nothing’ or that a colleague is slacking, coasting along on the backs of his fellows.

One way of gearing reward to effort would be an economy-wide system for
the grading of labour. For instance, there could be three grades of labour, A, B
and C, with B labour representing average productivity, A above average and C
below average. New workers might start out as ‘B’ workers and then have their
performance reviewed (either at their own initiative or at the instigation of the
project for which they work) with the possibility of being regraded as A or C.
Note that these grades have nothing to do with education or skill level, but are
solely concerned with the worker’s productivity relative to the average for her
trade or profession.

These grades of labour would be regarded for planning purposes as ‘creating value’ at different rates. Rates of pay would correspond to these differential
productivities: grade ‘B’ workers would receive one labour token per hour, ‘A’
workers rather more, and ‘C’ workers rather less. The rates of pay would have
to be fixed in such proportions as to keep the total issue of labour tokens equal
to the total hours worked. The exact rates of pay could be worked out automatically by computers once the number of people in each grade was known.

There need be no stigma attached to being a ‘C’ worker; such a worker
basically chooses to work at an easier pace—and correspondingly accepts a
somewhat lower rate of consumption. Not everyone has to be a Stakhanovite,
and there is no call for resentment of the less productive worker if he makes no
pretense at being anything else. But in this way the highly productive worker’s
contribution is recognised and encouraged, while at the same time the planners
get a more accurate fix on the distribution of social labour.

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Also, sorry for the formatting, I just copied and pasted from the pdf.

I studied sociology, with an emphasis in qualitative political economy of globalization - so I don't really have the math background nor am going into a field that requires it either. Is it possible to review the literature or econophysics and gain even w/o a background in maths / physics?

The literature, absolutely. Econophysics, you can definitely keep up with a non-mathematics background. Don't expect to be reproducing proofs and staring at stochastic distributions all the time, there's plenty you can understand about all of it without worrying about the methods and material of the research aspect. That's what people forget when they try to hop into a book like Classical Econophysics , they notice unfamiliar ground and they worry they won't be able to make heads or tails - and that's totally okay! The work was generally intended for a highly specialized audience and those whom have the background to continue the work. That does not, by ANY MEANS , mean that there isn't easily approachable and digestible works that can give the non-field reader an excellent idea of the work being done and its value. I hope you find what you're looking for in the way of information!

That's awesome that I can still gain from it without needing a math based background. Do you recommend any beginner or introductory readings, or should I just dive into Classical Econophysics?

As I'm wont to do with most topics, always see if there are background writings (essay, journal, article, etc.) by the authors with whom you've taken an interest. Make SciHub and LibGen your friends in searching for all the material that you'd like to read. As far as what I'd recommend, I'd say just hop right in, and as you read you'll no doubt find connections and citations of other works which you might interest yourself in

Hey, I got that book too, but I believe it was called approximate methods of higher analysis.

If you're referring to the book by Kantorovich, yes, I believe that was the name. But I was talking about not needing higher levels of mathematical analysis (such as real, complex, and functional analysis) to interact with a lot of the material

Please comrade math-magician, Do you have some specific reading tips for someone who is already aquainted with a reasonable understanding of university level mathematics and probability theory? Also please upload some of the stuff from the Kantorovich treasure trove.

I apologize, there is an excellent compendium piece called Essays in Optimal Planning which I have in text form, but am completely unable to find a pdf form. It includes many shorter pieces, essays, and polemics that Kantorovich wrote since he was engaged in the optimization of a plywood factory, which would lead to the development of linear programming.

In all candor, I am not all too certain of what to tell you as far as what you can do outside of using modern tech (Mathematica, Matlab, etc.) to attempt to create a simulation of the observed phenomena. This is kinda boring and tedious, but it is an excellent exercise, especially since we'll be dealing with a very limited framework as far as parameters and data, given the circumstances of the literature. Since we're both familiar with a lot of the same groundwork, I can assume your familiarity with a lot of these pieces and their format - many truncated and parsed equations passing by very quickly, as we were always used to in non-proofs based mathematics courses. I usually attempt to extrapolate from what is given in the book to attempt to recreate a similar problem, on paper hopefully, that will prove a practical example of how the material works. That, or you could go to the compendium/appendix in the back and work out the proofs of the theoretic material, yourself, just to make sure you're following along! If it is a really in depth text, you can do this in between lines (where applicable), as many of these books will not provide the steps so you can just fill them in for yourself as practice.

Besides that, just keep a notepad or preferable means of recording observations to the side so that you can mark specific areas where needed and also have scratch paper ready if you want to work out the quantitative stuff. There's no magic involved, so just read as you please!

Because dragging it out doesn't get you more credits. It'd go by the socially necessary labour time, i.e. the average amount of time taken to produce a given thing when working at an average level of effort. Work less, get less.

(me)
And apparently it is taking the server too long to submit these pdfs so I'll just give you a useful link where you can download a lot of the texts, yourself:
gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=L. V. Kantorovich&column=author

/thread

Has Cockrifle ever suggested to deal with the inventive problem with equal wages? How is skilled labour going to be "paid"? AFAIK the USSR greatly equivalised wages under eyebrow man which eventually resulted in stagnation.

For skilled labor, the argument for higher pay in capitalist society is money spent on training/schooling and wages forgone while being educated. In his model, and most socialists agree, education is free of charge and students are payed for their labor as students. These two things negate the reasons for skilled labor being paid higher in capitalist society.

I wouldn't say that equivalized wages was what eventually resulted in stagnation, it was more an additional problem that led to stagnation (not because equivalized wages is faulty, but because how the Soviet economic system worked). Here's what Cockshott states on the matter in Arguements for Socialism:

It is easier for an economy to grow rapidly during the initial phase of industrialisation
when labour is being switched from agriculture to industry. Afterwards growth has to rely upon improvements in labour productivity in an already industrialised economy, which are typically less than the difference in productivity between agriculture and industry.

Labour was probably not used as efficiently in Soviet industry as it was in the USA or West Germany. In one sense, or course the USSR used labour very effectively, it had no unemployment and the proportion of women in full time employment was higher than in any other country. But a developed industrial economy has to be able transfer labour to where it can be most efficiently used. Under capitalism this is achieved by the existence of a reserve of unemployment, which, whilst it is inefficient at a macro-economic level, does allow rapid
expansion of new industries.

The Soviet enterprise tended to hoard workers, keeping people on its books just in case they were needed to meet future demands from the planning authorities. This was made possible both by the relatively low level of money wages, and because the state bank readily extended credit to cover such costs. The low level of money wages was in turn a consequence of the way the state raised its revenue from the profits of state enterprises rather than from income taxes.

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Learning mathematics and physics is easy today. Plenty of online resources to do it. Use Khan Academy and MIT OCW. Download some textbooks from LibGen. Just determine what you need to know and work through it. It's actually pretty fun once you get going.

...

Austrian economics btfo forever. This is hilarious.

You joke, but that's the crux of Cyber Communism.

Check if you want it straight from the horse's mouth, but I'll give an example. Imagine an economy with 3 workers, who together make goods totalting to 3 labor hours. Remember that in Cybercom, the number of labor vouchers given has to exactly equal the value of the outputs, or you'll get shortages. Ideally in this situation, each worker would do the same level of work and each earn 1 labor voucher, for a total of 3 distributed. If the first worker slacked off, while the second one busted his ass, the labor vouchers could be redistributed so that the first worker earns 0.5 vouchers, the second 1.5 vouchers, and the third 1 voucher.

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Not a big fan of the "A B C" scores. The terminology should be different, since letter grades still imply a ranking from better to worse. Something like "intensive, standard, and casual" is better to get the idea across.
Another problem I have is that these grades are only awarded after a worker has shown their performance. It seems better to me to allow workers to enter them according to their own desire, but to set different standards of them. When someone gets employed at an enterprise they'll get the option to choose their grade. If an "intensive" level doesn't work out for them, they'll be able to either get help to improve their performance (if they are motivated for this), or choose to go for another grade instead. That would cause less resentment among coworkers. The extra pay attached to more intensive work would only be awarded after a trial period, to discourage people lying about their intentions.

Hey lads just dropping in to support the thread.
Maybe one day I can deal with my focus issues and actually contribute in some way or read a book, even though I have a pretty good grasp on most of this stuff due to my programming education / sporadic add hyperfocus.

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(Hopefully this stuff will become much more understandable after I start my masters degree in CS)

>761 pages in Russian
Th-thanks.

its the only one that didn't error out when I was trying to post :🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧((

Bump

I have a question. How such an economy model presented by Cockshott implemented in one country could coexist with other conventional liberal capitalist countries?

Let's say one country decides to adopt this kind of system, their newly elected government follows Cockshott proposals. By using labor tokens/credits instead of money. How the exchange with other countries could be done, or to import/export goods and services?

I know he wrote about this in relation to what to do in regards to hard currency, but it is currently late - so I’ll respond in full tomorrow and also look to see what he says about your question.

TANS chapter 10 covers this. TL;DR:

youtube.com/watch?v=Kyc40bHfx3o

vid about brexit

I wanted to post the program that Richter wrote and Cockshott agrees with so that we can discuss it.

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tl;dr to non-stem faggots?

oof

Its a political program, nothing to do with STEM.

Why oof?

I'm also a non-stem faggot, so heres the tl;dr: (sorry beforehand for bad formatting, im lazily copying and pasting from the program)

1. The ecological reduction of the normal workweek – including time for workplace democracy, workers’
self-management, etc. through workplace committees and assemblies – to a participatory-democratic
maximum of 32 hours or less without loss of pay or benefits.

2. Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of class-strugglist assembly and association for ordinary people, even within the military.

3. The expansion of the ability to bear arms and to general self-defense towards enabling the formation of people’s militias based on free training.

4. The expansion of local autonomy on questions of local development through participatory budgeting and oversight by local assemblies.

5. closed-list, proportionally representative political formation in bourgeois states.

6. The combating of the anti-meritocratic personal inheritances of both poverty by children and ruling-class wealth, with the latter entailing the abolition of all remaining nobilities and the
application of all funds derived from public, anti-inheritance appropriations of not some but all the relevant productive or other non-possessive properties for public use.

7. Socio-income democracy through direct proposals and rejections, at the national level and above, regarding all formal and effective tax rates on all types of income & annual plebiscites with the right to create or raise upper tax rates on a steeply graduated basis.

8. The application of not some but all economic rent of land towards exclusively public purposes – such as the abolition of all indirect and other class-regressive taxation – by first means of land value “taxation”.

9. Direct guarantees of a real livelihood to all workers… including the universalization of annual, non-deflationary adjustments for all non-executive remunerations, pensions, and insurance benefits to at least match rising costs of living.

10. The institution of income-based or preferrably class-based affirmative action.

11. The mandatory private- and public-sector recognition of professional education, other higher
education, and related work experience “from abroad,” along with the transnational standardization
of such education and the institution of other measures to counter the underemployment of educated immigrants.

12. he abolition of all copyright, patent, and other intellectual property laws, as well as of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy.

13. The genuine end of “free markets” – including in unemployment resulting from workplace closures, mass sackings, and mass layoffs – by first means of non-selective encouragement of, and unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for, pre-cooperative worker buyouts of existing
enterprises and enterprise operations.

14. Full independence of the mass media from concentrated private ownership and control by first means of
workplace democracy over mandated balance of content in news and media production, heavy
appropriation of economic rent in the broadcast spectrum, unconditional economic assistance
(both technical and financial) for independent mass media cooperative startups – especially at
more local levels, for purposes of media decentralization – and anti-inheritance transformation of all the relevant mass media properties under private ownership into cooperative property.

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...

?????????

Basically reserving spots in government, industry, education, etc. for people who are either wage-laborers or from working-class families. Essentially people from the income bracket of the poverty level to probably around 50k (though that number can be debated obviously).

You know a country that ran large trade deficits and never tried to address them besides papering it over with oil exports?

Venezuela.

They import literally everything. Trade deficits are indicative of weak national industry.

The fact that Cockshott advocates for trade deficits makes me laugh. I guess he's not as smart as you guys all think he is.

what program is this?

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Trade deficits aren't the reason why Venezuela is in trouble, otherwise the US would be in a crisis as well right now (the US has huge trade deficits at about 0.5 trillion).

Venezuela used high oil prices to pay for increased public spending. Once the oil bubble burst, then they tried to fix the revenue contraction by printing money, which only made the problem worse.

Did you miss the part where I stated that trade deficits were indicative of weak national industry and Venezuela imported literally everything? What do you think happens to socialist states when they have no national industries producing stuff? It's almost like trade deficits are bad if you have nothing to fall back on.

The only reason the US gets away with it is because for whatever reason (petrodollar, status of USD as world reserve currency, etc.) everyone loves buying US debt, thus financing their import purchasing binge. Choosing the premier capitalist world power that is the exception to the rule is not a very good argument.

It’s the Revolutionary Program by J. Richter would I posted in the op. It’s on Cockshott’s reality website.

No, I was referring to the software.

Okay, I concede you're right here. It seems like this would be a problem. I'm interested in further explanation of the pro-trade deficit position.

Oh, it’s adobe in Linux Mint.

REMINDER TO JOIN THE CYBERNETIC GANG DISCORD

discord.gg/h6AGygg

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researchgate.net/publication/299519892_Towards_a_new_socialism_Cockshott_and_Cottrell
You can read why he supports trade deficits over surpluses, he discusses it starting on page 118. He also goes over ways a socialist government could prevent uncertainties in the economy due to imports. It's ridiculous to think a socialist government would forgo all national production in favor of imports in the name of keeping a trade deficit. Nobody is arguing for striving for the highest amount of imports and lowest national production possible, but that a trade deficit can be beneficial to a socialist economy and raise efficiency of labor and therefore lower total social labor cost.

Indicate. Not cause.

And you have to be absolutely retarded to think that getting litterally more stuff than it costs you is a problem for a socialist nation.

From investopedia:
As you see, trade deficits are only detrimental to a capitalist society because they undercut domestic production and thus domestic profit in favour of profit in foreign nations. Since we do not have to compete or make profits in socialism, it makes no sense to try and export our resources, our labour, to capitalist just to keep some numbers on a sheet of paper lower or high.

From TANS:
A trade surplus only serves to increase the profitability of domestic capitalists. A trade deficit can only hurt the worker (by destroying jobs) if you live under a market system. A trade surplus always damages the workers by removing consumption from them to increase profits.

Trade deficits are GOOD.

^These posts happen when you connect a potato to the internet.

But let's run with the idea. Suppose a socialist country amasses a ton of currency from a non-socialist country as a deliberate policy, to have this buffer of foreign cash for bad times. (Spoiler alert: The non-socialist country isn't on the best terms with you.) The bad times happen, and now what? Do you think a whole bloody country can just plan and act like an unimportant individual person? There is no guarantee that the currency you got years ago will get you now what you could get with it years ago, and I'm not only speaking of inflation. Politicians in the other country can enact export tariffs and outright ban exports of certain categories. The foreign money is like a vague promise by somebody who is not your friend, and there is nothing in that you can rely on. Getting things in the here and now means you will have these things, even if the foreign country's policies change after the exchange.

Does cockshott have an opinion on Stalin?

I see. So, basically, Cockshott's argument is that if you apply the labor theory of value to goods flowing in and out of the country, having a trade deficit means your economy grows in goods without having to spend x amount of labor to create those goods.

cybernetic socialist anons, opinions on this?
reuters.com/article/us-blockchain-congo-cobalt-electric/ford-and-ibm-among-quartet-in-congo-cobalt-blockchain-project-idUSKCN1PA0C8

I'm unsure if these applications of blockchain technology require the same amount of energy usage as mining bitcoin, but if not could it be used as a way to calculate inputs in real time?

I actually discussed something like this in an email with him a while back. I was confused how he could use the law of value and labor values in socialism given that they emerged in capitalism as a function of capitalist competition. He said that workers would be judged by against the minimum not the average amount of labor required for production. I'm not sure if that contradicts what he says there, but it seems like it. Let me see if I can get the emails.

In terms of global accounting in a socialist planning system, not every country can have a trade deficit. Someone must be producing this surplus for people to use. and if that's the case, is it just because they're more productive? I would have to imagine they'd insist on some kind of extra recompense in return for this, given the political dynamics involved. We saw these dynamics in Nigeria and Yugoslavia, for example, one region is more productive or contributes more to the country's GDP and this produces intense tension between the ethnic groups which inhabited each respective region.

Here I found them.

See, the issue is that here he implies that as the minimum decreases the average would also decrease, but in the system he describes there there's no material incentive for the top grade of laborers to increase their productivity unless there was some form of discipline or other incentive based on being the top performer.

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mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/qjae7_1_6.pdf?file=1&type=document
reminder that you are just circle jerking in your echo chamber

Reminder that this very paper has been BTFO by multiple people, including Cockshott himself IIRC

I am just having my monthly mental breakdown because I can't have a coherent worldview and I always doubt leftism no matter how much I try to reinforce my leftist beliefs and want to read. Help please

Hello, newfriend. Already read it. Here's Cockshott's response.

Outline of an EU-wide transition to socialism - Cockshott has covered a lot of this stuff in his videos and TANS, but it's an interesting read. Thoughts?

lol

lol
lol
lol

Why is Dickblast so ridiculous when it comes to actual politics?
lol
lol

You have to be seriously retarded to ascribe to DickBlast when it comes to actual politics.

this is the same paradigm he was doing with the USSR originally. He wanted to reform it to what he described in towards a new socialism. Fundamentally, however, i think that view of historical transformation is extremely flawed.

I agree completely. His project – while absolutely enlightening when compared to the total lack of "utopian" thinking – is ultimately flawed, because he never went beyond a reactive politics.

His "direct democracy," for instance, based on ancient-Greek fetishism is a FUCKING JOKE for a proper Marxist.

TL;DR: I have a hate-love relationship towards Dickblast. I can't take him seriously beyond his mechanics (how to plan economics).

Such a fucking shame.

don't stop at just politics, tans (in parts) comes off as a book by someone who has never read the 1844 manuscripts, so the book is still pretty good, it's just that with him its more about how he gets to places, and the reasoning he uses, less than the results, so he comes off as a bruno bauer waiting for a marx to use his tools for actual good theory

I think there's a lot that can be learned from Athens in relation to parallels between a dictatorship of the proletariat. but the key issue is that both situations are the result of their historical contexts, and so will any future communism or revolution. While it's an attractive thought for an academic, you can't expect these top down reforms to actually be realized through the existing institutions. Expecting that throws everything marxists know about historical development out the window.

1. The argument in TANS against a trade surplus was about the socialist region's trade with the non-socialist part of the world. 2. It is possible to have a mutual trade surplus of sorts if different countries use different measures. E. g. if country A and country B have different local labor-time production costs, with either country having higher labor-time costs for some stuff than the other, they can both in a sense obtain more hours than they give (each country measuring the products it exports and imports in terms of its local labor costs).

I'll go over your concerns soon. But does anyone have the works of the Soviet Economist V.S. Dadajan, especially his works on a four department reproduction system. Heres the article / book in German, but i'd like to find an English version. Okonomische Berechnungen nach dem Modell der erweiterten Reproduktion, Berlin 1969. Mandel references it in the preface to Capital Volume 2.

I love TANS as much as anyone here, but how does Cockshott think such a thing can get to power? Through democracy? It's absolutely ridiculous.

Why don't you try killing yourself buddy
Alternatively you could read a fucking book

Through a mass, working-class movement that uses the political state as one tactic amongst others (aka original pre-revolutionary Bolshevism and Kautskyism).

Sorry, meant to say pre-Comintern Bolshevism.

While he doesn't develop it much in TANS, it could ostensibly be based on sound statistical arguments, which I think is Cock's goal. Also, look at Cuba. They have very unusual restrictions on elections to prevent campaigning and actually make it more democratic in the process. And Cuba is still standing.