Yet the problem formulated by S. Okito can be solved if the issue of dividing demographically grounded and degraded parasitic needs is solved. Let us remind you how this problem has been worded: to find and effective way of combining market mechanisms and state planning and regulation in a common algorithms of social self-control. This is so because if the contrary plan is pursued the system of plan-based control will face sabotage at best and at worst — deliberate counter-action.
The point is that generally controlling the multiindustrial production and consumption system on the basis of a plan involves the following: defining targets; distributing investments between industries and regions in compliance with the targets, as well as timing their provision and volume; addressed directive control of state-owned enterprises; working out and granting government contracts to private enterprises, defining policy on taxes, credits, insurance and subsidies connected with government contracts, implementing this policy while fulfilling the plan, etc.
If these heterogeneous means turn out to be in the hands of people, who advocate different conceptions of social order and economy and act at will, according to their moral principles the problem posed by S. Okito would become insoluble.
We must make special emphasis on the need to work out a policy on subsidies, credit and insurance for every planning period. Tariffs on service provided by the so-called «natural monopolies», other rates and prices (including loan interest rate) and rental payments are the basis of price-formation that sets the minimal costs of manufacture for products of all industries. The theory of similarity of production and consumption systems[134] unites those rates and prices in a group called «price list basis». All the other market prices are formed more or less freely by means of balancing active solvent demand and supply if the multiindustrial production and consumption system functions steadily.
Every price has a share which corresponds to tax payments and return of loans and insurance credit. Besides some producers are subsidized because otherwise production would be devastatingly unprofitable or it would be impossible to retain its volume. All these payments that are reflected in price along with the «price list basis» and subsidies to consumers of certain products form a sort of «financial press» which could enable one (if one knows how to adjust it properly) to force the market mechanism of production and consumption system’s self-regulation to give out (deliver) the desired range of production and consumption of final products.
At the same time one should also know that all parameters, which determine the adjustment of «financial press» on delivering a definite range of production, are expressed in equations of interindustry balance. They are heterogeneous items of those equations expressed in value terms and form the price of any products taken into account in the interindustry balance.
If the planned range of production and consumption of products is grounded on demography and includes the products necessary for implementing the state policy different plan targets are defined for every planning period, different both in planned nomenclature and production and consumption volume.
In this connection one should keep in mind that when the society’s nominal paying capacity is always limited and no emission[135] occurs a broader range of consumers can be reached only through expanding production which leads to decline in prices as otherwise sales would be hampered by an unacceptable price.[136]
Within the integrity of the multiindustrial production and consumption system prices function as a means of limiting the consumers’ number after a certain level of production and supply on specialized markets has been attained. Therefore if production volume is sufficient for satisfying the needs of all people then there is no need in price as a means to limit consumption. Price can then be equal to zero if it is not impeded by other factors. In other words when demographically grounded needs are fully and assuredly satisfied — the perspective is zero price.[137]
While such ideal operation of the multiindustrial production and consumption system is being attained prices on some socially necessary products may fall below the level which production is profitable at. This happens because production covers the vital needs of society more fully. In his case it may be feasible (in the long-term historic perspective) to retain the socially necessary volume of production by means of grants and subsidies that are collected from other industries in tax form. This means that profitability factors are redistributed between enterprises, industries and regions.
It follows that in regard to the systemic integrity of multiindustrial production directed towards satisfying the vital needs of all laborers more and more fully the overall profitability of the system taken at historically long time intervals is more important than high profitability of some enterprises when other industries are hampered in their development due to the law of value’s being unchecked. The law of value is far from operating in compliance with a list of demographically grounded needs given in order of priority.[138]
Making this system profitable at historically long time intervals requires every short-term plan to be made up as a stage included into a long-term succession of plans (or one cannot be sure of the plan’s practical consistency). Developing a succession of practically consistent plans is possible only if the system of planning is aimed at the demographically grounded range of needs and operates within the bounds of a demographic policy that is in concord with the biosphere.
It follows from the two above-mentioned circumstances[139] that the tax policy, policy on subsidies, policy on credit and insurance must be worked out and coordinated for every planning period. They should be directed towards forcing the market mechanism by means of the «financial press» to deliver the planned range of production and consumption under the changing circumstances which the production system operates in.
Consumption is to be included into the plan because free price-formation in a society where inhuman psychic types are dominant is such that even if the necessary production level for the socially necessary products is attained their consumption could be blocked. Blocking can be caused by prices that needs to be high for production to be profitable or by the paying capacity being redistributed between the specialized markets, as well as by deliberately buying products up and destroying them to the end of speculating on the rise in prices.
This approach of organizing production and consumption involves applying the theory of control[140] and suggests that production and consumption of products within the demographically grounded range is the «useful signal» of the multiindustrial production and consumption system. On the contrary, production and consumption within the degraded parasitic range is «internal noise» and outside interference which are present in the system but are to be suppressed and excluded by means of self-control thereby allowing for an increase in power and quality of the «useful signal».
The clue to solving the problem posed by S. Okito consists in building a workable methodology of such planning and of state control necessary to carry out those plans. Yet the problem is insoluble if demographically grounded and degraded parasitic needs are not divided and if they are not differentiated in the country’s political practice.
Besides that there is also another crucial question that has to be answered to solve the above-mentioned problem.
How should the state and the society define the notion of «plan»?
— A target set unattainably high which the multiindustrial production and consumption system must reach at the breaking point of its ability?
— A target known to be achievable which sets a level of control indices; the production and consumption system must not operate at a level lower than those indices, yet exceeding them is not only desirable, it is must be guaranteed by the freedom and creativity in science, business and management?