Real time price and spending behaviour monitoring?
What’s that thing about capitalism laying the foundation for planned economies? I think it was Lenin
I worked in planning and logistics for consumer goods companies and supermarkets for a while, and the level of control and automation they have to optimize pricing, warehousing, stock and logistics is really something. Tons of it still depends on human decision-making, but even that has been honed into very efficient organizational processes that now only very marginal efficiency gains are possible/what is expected. The only problem is that these systems are set up to maximize profit margins, and to a certain degree other metrics like making sure the shelves are never empty, delivery times, minimizing stock or energy consumption. If you optimized for affordability or eliminating food deserts, the network would follow suit with very little change.
I have always believed that after the revolution, one of the occupations that would be of key priority would be logistics specialists. The capability is there, the only thing that needs to change are the strategic priorities of the system. It’s also an example of allowing flexibility in local decision-making and negotiation between logistical units to handle unforeseen circumstances, while ensuring wider objectives are being tracked and aimed at, without the unwieldiness and slow reaction time of 100% central planning.
Can we have Cybersyn??
No we have Cybersyn at home.
Cybersyn at home:
Well I mean if capitalists are willing to expand the foundations of CyberSyn even more…
something something they will sell us the rope something something
(/hj to this whole comment)
I’m not skilled enough for a thorough analysis but I bet it would be interesting to look at Wal-Mart’s rise to dominance through that lens. One of their big things was capturing and analyzing sales data, and using that to inform planning. Of course we know who that ultimately benefited.
The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski
Haven’t read it (yet) myself, but maybe it’s at least part of that analysis?
Yeah! Essentially all major corporations, using the just-in-time supply chain and lean scheduling, are already centrally planned. Any given Wal-Mart store knows what it needs to stock so that it never runs out and never runs out of space, the exact minimum/maximum number of people it needs to run the store, how to source everything, how much to charge for everything, etc etc.
Seems likely! I’d heard of that book but forgotten about it, thanks for the reminder.
You may wanna check out Paul Cockshott’s Youtube Channel.
Disclaimer: This guy is a TERF. That’s the only thing I wanna change about time If I could. Same with Norm Finkelstein.
U.K. Aldi do this as well.
Aldi does it in
, too. It always seemed like something to help them keep the store running while chronically understaffing.
“If it’s raining outside then we set the price of umbrellas to its maximum, $20.” One analyst said. “As long as there’s an ATM in the store, customers won’t leave when they run out of money.” The analyst goes on to suggest this periodical cash influx is the only way the store is staying afloat, citing poor management and excessive building budget.
I wouldn’t put it past them to eventually do surge pricing, but changing prices is pretty easy without these(and knowing what to surge is easy, that is basically the whole christmas season, halloween season, thanksgiving, summer… you see my point). A big part of how these are used is for online shopping and the “uber drivers of shopping” as these have flashing lights that they can basically follow. I suspect it will probably used (along with other automation and restructuring) as an excuse have less employees and basically turn it into a gig job while any theoretically slightly easier surge pricing is realistically not a major factor.
I think the distinction is going to be the frequency with which they can change prices. They can change dozens of times throughout the day or even based on who is walking past them since they’re using facial recognition to track everyone in their stores anyway.
I think you underestimate how easy it was to change prices before these tags even dozens of times a day, if it was worth it they would have already been doing it as the economics and data have been there. Instead of calling out a problem that doesn’t really exist (or exist as being portrayed, and frankly doesn’t make as sense as so many here seem to think it does) it is better to look at how they are actually being used which is automation and optimizing gigification(which probably makes far more money and screwing workers over more than theoretically changing price of ice cream on a hot day or whatever).
Reminder that these labels, like those awful TV screens on grocery store freezers are expensive and delicate.
That screencap could’ve been better without the added reply. This Taylor person is alright but I wish they could’ve reread the post once again. They are kicking that strawman two feet-first Duke Nukem-style.
