📹 Making the Case for a Planned Economy
Do planned economies work? Have they worked? Should we try to implement it in the 21st century? Patreon: …
Does a command economy reward innovation?
A command economy is a system where a centralized government controls production and output levels, resulting in low levels of inequality and unemployment. This is in contrast to free-market economies where the law of supply and demand dictates output and prices. Advantages of a command economy include less inequality, as the government controls the means of production and determines who works and how much they are paid. However, disadvantages include a lack of innovation and efficiency.
In a free-market economy, the law of supply and demand dictates that workers with unique skills in high-demand fields receive high wages, while low-skill individuals in saturated fields settle for meager wages.
How does creativity contribute in the economy?
The global creative economy is crucial for job creation, growth, innovation, tourism, and cultural promotion. In the U. S., entrepreneurship is a key focus, with the number of businesses employing independent artists, writers, and performers growing by nearly 40% between 2002 and 2012. Artists in the U. S. are 3. 6 times more likely to be self-employed than the rest of the workforce. One-third of Native Americans live below the poverty line, and the arts provide a path out of poverty for many.
Geographic isolation and lack of business experience are the biggest obstacles for self-employed artists and household enterprises. Nonprofit organizations like We Are the Seeds and the Department of Interior’s Indian Arts and Crafts Board are working to close this gap by providing arts education and promotional events.
Why are innovations often discouraged in a command economy?
Command economies are systems where a central government makes all economic decisions, owning land and production means. This authority determines what goods should be produced, how much should be produced, and the prices at which the goods are offered. Command economies, unlike free-market economies, do not allow market forces like supply and demand to determine production or prices. This can stifle innovation and create inefficiencies. Former command economies like China and Russia have become mixed economies by incorporating more free-market forces over time.
Examples of command economies include Belarus, Iran, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. In a modern, centrally planned command economy, the government creates a central economic plan, setting economic and societal goals for every sector and region of the country. Shorter-term plans convert these goals into actionable objectives.
Who benefits from a command economy?
Command economies have advantages such as overcoming market failure, inequality, and maximizing social welfare. They can prevent abuse of monopoly power, mass unemployment, and produce goods that benefit society and ensure everyone has access to basic necessities. Despite being associated with failing inefficient economies like the late Soviet Union and Cuba, the Soviet Union experienced rapid economic growth in the 1920s and 30s.
However, command economies have disadvantages such as poor information about production, centralization, inability to respond to consumer preferences, protection of inefficient firms, threat to democracy and liberty, bureaucracy, and price controls leading to shortages and surpluses.
In the 1980s, many command economies, like the Soviet Union, transitioned to a mixed economy, which involved privatization and price deregulation. This mixed economy combines the benefits of both free market and government intervention, allowing for a more balanced and efficient economy. The transition from command to market economies has been a significant shift in economic development.
What is the incentive problem in a command economy?
Command economies are centrally-planned economies that incorporate elements of market economies, governed by supply and demand laws. They differ from free market economies, which are owned and run by private sector members. In command economies, prices are set by price controls, while in free market economies, they are set through supply and demand. Incentives for business leaders in command economies are minimal, while in free market economies, the profit motive is used as an incentive.
Efficiency is less in command economies, while in free market economies, efficiency is rewarded through profit motives. Levels of equality in command economies can be greater due to more equal resource distribution, but this can be a downside.
Command economies have faced problems such as less choice and freedom, bloated bureaucracy, inefficiency, and the likelihood of shortages and surpluses. In contrast, free market economies have problems such as lack of emphasis on social welfare, wealth and income inequality, and abuse of monopoly power.
Many command economies have transitioned to mixed economies, which are centrally-planned and incorporate elements of market economies. China is a well-known example of this transition, having had a command economy for several decades.
What is the greatest weakness of a command economy?
A command economy is a system where the government plays the primary role in planning and regulating goods and services produced in a country. This system can lead to shortages of goods due to fixed prices and quantity of production, inefficient pricing based on supply and demand, and no response to consumer preferences. Over 2 million professionals use CFI to learn accounting, financial analysis, modeling, and more.
The state authority determines the types of goods and services to be produced, the quantity and prices offered in the marketplace. This centrally planned economy prioritizes social equality and is a significant disadvantage in many countries.
What do command economies suffer from?
In command economies, both unemployment and underemployment are common due to the government’s control and planning of the economy. This can lead to inefficiencies and misallocations of resources. Command economies typically suffer from unemployment, but not underemployment. Unemployment occurs when people are willing and able to work but cannot find jobs, while underemployment occurs when people are employed but their jobs do not utilize their full skills or abilities, or when they are not working enough hours to earn a sustainable income. The government sets goals, targets, and priorities for the economy, making decisions based on these criteria.
What are the 3 major weaknesses of the command economy?
A command economy is characterized by five major weaknesses. Firstly, it ignores consumers’ basic needs. Secondly, it encourages people to fill quotas instead of producing quality products. Thirdly, it requires a large bureaucracy for decision-making. Fourthly, it lacks flexibility for minor problems. Finally, it ignores consumer wants and needs.
Why is there little incentive to be creative in a command economy?
In a command economy, centralized government decisions result in minimal incentives for efficiency and innovation. This is due to the fact that individuals, firms, and the marketplace are not involved in the decision-making process.
📹 Is Jeff Bezos Really That Approachable #wealth #jeffbezos #celebrity #entrepreneur #ceo
Sometimes we wonder if the wealthy people like Jeff Bezos or even the famous ones we only see on TV are really approachable if …
There was a visual fuck-up at 0:22 and 1:21 where the desks are on a layer in front of the text. Oops! The citations are meant to read: (Holt-Giménez, Shattuck, Altieri, Herren, Gliessman. 2012) and (Watkins, et al. 2017) respectively. Full reference list is in the description! And while I’m here, remember to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss my next article 😉
with developing countries going ever further towards the tertiary economy, many people do not need to work in the factories or farms, and now really just work minimal service jobs. i believe we’re at a point and time where capitalism is becoming increasingly useless, and now a point and time where socialism is becoming the obvious answer. no one has to work extreme hours anymore, and now we can focus on stuff we truly love.
tbh dude I live in what you call a “third world country” and ill tell you that bringing the factories to us from europe was the best thing for us. a factory worker might die of pollution in 30 years but a small farmer would die of starvation in a couple of months. Many villages in the countryside depend heavily on factory salaries to educate the young, generations of children were kept uneducated due to a factory shutdown. So its not that factory worker have horrible lives, its that they have less horrible lives than they did before.
As a proponent for mixed economy myself, I have to completely agree that social democracy doesn’t work, nor is it truly a mix. It’s just capitalism with slightly more welfare, usually not value produced by the government but by exploitative corporations with a little bit skimmed off the top whenever the government needs to do something. The end result being that it fails at socialism because it’s reliant on large corporations exploiting the working class, and it fails at capitalism because the corporations do not exist in a free market environment, and are instead heavily influenced by the ‘socialist’ policies introduced to regulate them (that of course do little to truly help the worker.) The solution isn’t to make capitalism slightly more socialist, it’s to have socialism exist primarily independent of the markets, thus crippling the ability of the corporations to exploit the working class. After all, why settle for an unsafe and poorly paid ‘free market’ job when the government can meet your needs if you work in the public sector? Thus the companies can only compete if they, too, meet the needs of the workers. Sorry for the rant I just hate social democracy and how some people consider “capitalism but with more regulations and taxes” to somehow be a reasonable middle ground between capitalism and socialism.
If the means of production were publicly owned not only would workers make much more money, because they would own their own surplus value of labor and then be taxed on that, but they would be far more productive and innovative. The difference between private and public ownership is simply where the surplus value goes. In capitalism it goes to the board of directors and shareholders. Studies confirm again and again that co ops are more productive but less competitive obviously because they have to compete with companies that pay workers starvation wages to undercut competition. Bad mouse productions has an excellent article on co ops you guys should collab
Great article as always, although I feel like I need to criticize you on two things: First, around 7:15 you talk about Russian and Chinese implementation of capitalism being repressive and authoritarian just because people are used to it. This is simply not true and even reeks of orientalism. Not a single person on Earth, from any continent, likes to feel their personal autonomy repressed, Russians and Chinese included. A deeper analysis shows that there just wasn’t an option for a more “peaceful” implementation of socialism – both countries had to go through bloody civil wars and after it had both external (Nazi Germany, USA) as well as internal (right-wing sabotage, terrorism and plans to overthrow the state) real threats. The class struggle never ends when the revolution is over and the existing state is crushed. The proletariat has to seize state power and sometimes resort to authoritarian means as a weapon of class struggle. There are two key differences between an old state and a new, proletarian one. First, the opressed class (bourgeoisie) is now a minority, while the opressor class (proletariat) is now a majority. Second, anyone from the bourgeoisie can lay down their arms peacefully, give away their stolen property and become an honest worker, joining the proletariat in a move that was impossible under the old state (without exploitation of others). The two examples you used of a revolution having a more “human” face are Chile and Burkina Faso, but both of them, despite being a success of socialist economy, raising living standarts for everyone, eventually fell to the remains of the previous opressor class (which was not repressed and still strong), represented by Pinochet in Chile and Compaoré in Burkina Faso.
I know the answer to the “stifles innovation” argument: franchising. Establish regional and local planning cooperatives to coordinate information gathering and resource allocation to local communities, and license enterprises to cooperative groups of citizens to create production infrastructure to meet local or regional needs the central planning commission might be ignorant of.
How to reconcile a price system and a planned economy at the same time? In a planned economy, companies in many areas are controlled by a single central power, thereby eliminating competition and profit-making, which are important things for development. For example, you need to build a bridge, but in the middle of the path there is a mountain. You can bridge over the mountain, around it or inside it. On a system where there are no prices how would you define the best options without the resource allocation parameters? How would the price of these resources be calculated to avoid waste?
Anti-social democracy argument: Social democracies are based on capitalism, but with free social services, paid for by taxes. How can these taxes be enough to pay for these social services? The proletariat is relatively wealthy. Why is it wealthy? The cost of living is relatively low compared to other more fascistic countries like the US and Russia i.e, products are cheap. But how can the bourgeoisie maintain these low prices? Why do they? Why don’t they sell for higher prices? Because they pay their workers a very low wage, so they don’t have to make the products as expensive. But aren’t their workers supposedly rich? No. Their workers do not live in the social democracy. They live in the Global South, where regulation laws are not nearly as strict. This means that in order for some national proletariats to prosper even slightly in the imperialist system, many more have to suffer greatly. This is evident by the conditions which the proletariat of countries like the DRC or Thailand must endure. But why do the bourgeoisie create social democracies? Don’t they simply lose control? No. They yet hold complete control over the economy and therefore the state. Social democracies are created so silence the proletariat of an imperialist nation when it’s class conciousness increases to a dangerous level. It creates an illusion of restriction on the bourgeois part, when there is no real restriction. They yet have free reign. Eventually, when the proletariat has lost it’s class conciousness, the social democracy recedes into regular, liberal imperialism.
You are terribly wrong if you think that gaming consoles have no space in socialism, and that such pleasurers are the reason for having such a bad capitalism system. If you really think so, then you have no idea what socialism could have been today and what truly capitalism is today and how it works and with what goals. You just speak knowledge you do not understand, but have read. The rest you said are exactly right.
Great article except for the “the economic mode of production does not dictate the political structure of the government.” And the reasons you give for why the USSR and PRC were authoritarian is not grounded in any real historical or material fact. As a self-proclaimed orthodox Marxist, these are some wildly unscientific and unmarxist things to say.
I just feel like it would be a worthwhile investment to pay socialists to move to any socialist nation of their choice. Or I guess I can’t really pay them because you don’t want money, but like give something in return for having you move to Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam or even North Korea. It’s obviously great there. I encourage you.
“Rational and Democratic” – you mean only Socialists vote. In all Socialist country, no one votes but Socialists. The One Party State is not democratic. Then you have the Disaster of Central Planning that spends a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what they would know if they had prices in a free Market. Tell me, why has not NO ONE ever made central planning work? Democratizing workers will not help. Some one has to make decisions about the economy.
I think the reason why so many people hang onto capitalism and why it’s so appealing to those folks is because it sells a worldview that’s simple enough to be contained within one life. The goal of “what’s in it for me?” and “how much can I make?” is a lot simpler to figure out than “how can I make what’s required of me to give sufficient aid to my community?”. It takes a lot less brain power to understand and has an immediate, ego-boosting reward for taking part in it, so it’s an ideologically stable system. It may cause pollution, racism, colonialism, human trafficking (slavery), the military industrial complex, reactor meltdowns, global warming, malnutrition, unsafe architecture, food poisoning, addiction, rigged elections, despotism, and practically every other societal problem under the sun, but those things don’t effect you right now, so you don’t care. Even when it kills someone you love, you ultimately think “that’s life” and get back to working to give your life meaning. Even when it could kill you, you think “that’s a long way away” or “my death will only last a moment anyway” and ignore your impending doom with more work. Even when it does kill you, you think nothing. If we want to successfully overtake capitalism, we need to create a system that gives people a reward that they can perceive within their own lives, not just the broad societal stuff we should be doing but the personal stuff we want to do.
Well, that’s true that many people from post soviet countries. I come from Russia. Many if not most people around me want Stalin back. Of course it’s probably because one’s inner circle tends to share thoughts of the individual, thus creating subjective perception of reality. But even if it’s just 10-15% of russians- many russians still love Stalin and want such a leader for modern day Russia.
This article did not make the case for a planned economy, it just recited some old propaganda from the Soviet Union. When you talk zero unemployment, you also have to mention that millions of people were literally required to work themselves to death for peanuts. I do not know much about their homelessness statistics but they do not matter since anybody could be shot at any time for not being a “productive member of society”. I am in favour of free health care but I can not imagine Soviet Union health care being good seeing as they could barely keep heat on in the winter. I do not want to defend US capitalism but comparing the Great Depression, which lasted less than a decade, to some fictional version of the Soviet Union only demonstrates the propagandist nature of this website.
Saddam’s Iraq is sanctioned for a few years, and millions of children die followed by a swift overthrow. Cuba and the DPRK have been sanctioned for 50+ years and not only do they fend off the united states, they have steady population growth without immigration, increasing standards of living, and medical advancements like lung cancer vaccines.
I really like this, but I personally believe there is a little flaw, comrade. The fact that planned economies have mainly been accompanied by authoritarian governments isn’t exactly due to the fact that those countries have had similar autocratic systems in the past. The thing is that the socialism that we see is a strengthened version due to embargoes, sanctions, etc. which have forced these countries to vigour or collapse. The USSR and China adopted these systems. Chile and Burkina Faso didn’t, and that’s why they only lasted 4 years. Communists are the last type of people you would imagine to be anti-gay or whatever. In fact, they aren’t. I would rather say that those repressive systems only show us how bad imperialism and capitalism is, as Chad Guevara said. Of course, anyway, I do believe that this did not justify some of the repressions. Stalin banning homosexuality really was not needed. Of course, I believe that all other repressions like the Holodomor are never justified, but until we establish a World Socialist Republic, they are deemed to happen. The only way to progress forward without a system similar to Maoism would be to mine down the major capitalist powers. If the US became Socialist, everything else would follow.
Are democratic political institutions really the best at making decisions. This seems to be your assertion that democratic action will lead to public benefit and everyone’s needs being fulfilled. But what is your response to Buchanan’s Public Choice Theory and the work of Caplan’s theory of Systemic Bias among voters. The points they raise are as follows; Getting educated about a vote is a cost, the more time you spend getting educated the less you can spend doing something else. Thus if a minority of the citizens stood to gain at the expense of society, but the expense was a cost less than it was worth to be an educated voter. Then people would be rationally ignorant in this circumstance. Because of democracy you can have rational and efficient choices which lead to a worse outcome for society and concentrated benefits.for a few. People are not simply uneducated on a subject, they hold beliefs which are contrary to the facts because the penalty for being wrong is not paid by the individual. The incorrect opinion of the majority is not at the expense of that majority. If the economy is a democracy then it effects everyone. Not to mention a potentially malicious majority which could use total economic control of society to harm a minority group.
There’s just a few things I’d like to 2 Note. In our current economy in the United States you can see how overproduction results in inventory being thrown away. You can also see a lot of greed as you might say from corporations. However I’d have to argue that these things are instituted by the less capitalist side of our economy and the more authoritarian side of our economy. For example, it is the law that companies must throw away excess food. At the end of the day most fast food restaurants are not allowed to distribute the leftover food they have to throw it away. The same thing happens with grocery stores they are not allowed to Simply distribute that food it also has to be thrown away. Also, then need for quotes End quotes infinite growth of capitalism is probably due to the fact that the state is constantly raising property taxes, thus requiring companies to charge more for the same goods and services to pay back their forced government debt. I’d have to argue that the producer attitude of capitalism is most likely to create a post-scarcity society, not a planned economy. The simple reason behind this is in a planned economy you have the ruling class with decides when and how all resources are produced, which ultimately gives them total control over their lives and death of their citizens. They are less accountable because the quality of the product is not relevant because people will have to buy or use that product regardless. The reason for this is that in a capitalist Society we have choices whenever we don’t like a product we can buy something else.
I am living in a country that was a part of the iron curtain. What I heard among the older people(cos I wasn’t alive when the communists ruled) is that, yes everybody had a job on paper but most people didn’t really work. And the planned economy couldn’t adapt fast enough to changes of needs. When someone wanted to build a house it would take 10 and more years because there just wasn’t enough material. If you didn’t have the right friends and connections it was really difficult to gain everything you need for a comfortable life.
Companies cant produce too much, while still making profit. If they make profit it means that their products are wanted enough for them to be so. In the same way that if there was demand for communism, it would be the dominating ideology. Also your point about life being much better in the Sovjet Union in the early 1930´s, completely ignores the millions of lifes lost due to starvation during the Sovjet famine, which was a direct result of the same industrialization you praised. Furthermore I often see socialists use free education, healthcare and no homeless as an argument. Well guess what we have in Denmark, whilst still being capitalist 🙂
Companies do not infinitely aim for higher and higher profits or to consistently generate more than previous years profits. Company executives using financial data and other economic forcasts to create projective earnings which the company tries to meet or exceed that. For example right now with COVID affecting business projections are set lower to a reasonable level. As an investor I see a lot of this first hand so I figured I would share this with you.
I really liked this article and it gave a lot of point about modern society, capitalism, and socialism. But I have a question for you, are you for, or against anarcho communism. I myself am a socialist, and I’m fully against an anarcho government. I see it as being chaotic and impossible to even start. without proper government, supervisors, unions, work formans, or government jobs of authority, I can’t possibly see a successful society.
I very much enjoyed this article! However I feel that the statement “the soviet union didnt have unemployment or homelessness” is a problematic statement (maybe “the soviet did not experience the same kind of problems with unemployment” would have been better), and as the soviet union is the first thing that the capitalists throw in our faces I think we should be careful. First of all i figure that good information on the soviet union is extremely hard to come by as the soviets did not keep the best records and capitalists spreading huge amounts of misinformative propaganda. Second of all the soviet union existed for quite a while and experienced different problems in different phases. And a third point is the use of incarcerated labour. That is actually what made me react to this as I just read the book Russian Prison Tattoos vol.1 wich contains first hand accounts (even though extremely subjective) of this, aswell as stories of unemployment and poverty within the soviet union. Most of all accounts of people fighting ending up with five years sentences doing forced labour. Say what you will about this, the industrial revolution was not kind to workers in any country and the US used slave labour when they laid the foundation for their economy, to put this in context. Again, many fantastic arguments for a planned economy that we desperatly need to solve the coming climate crises, but as Marxists we need to be careful when referencing the USSR. Hope you have a fantastic day ✌
I mean I can’t see governments having this much power as a good thing, corrupt officials are somewhat common and it would only make it increasingly easier for them to benefit themselves with a large government controlling an economy. Beside that putting regulations (to what end they should produce things) on business can cause them to leave the nation and take their money with them. I think solving problems like this around the world is a noble cause but is socialism really the only option here? Btw I fell like the graph with the Soviet Union and the former Soviet Union didn’t prove very much because while it does show a sharp fall, after the market was more certain the former surpassed the Soviet Union at a higher growth rate.
Well done, this article is one of the best about socialism . I just want to respond to the argument about the political system in the soviet union . First : the soviet union never attacked his people, the historical background of the revolution and the later period was full of counter revolution forces, facism 5th collumn, left and right deviations, beaurocratic strata worked against the princibles of socialism . Those are the ones who were chased and hunted by the state body authorities . I know you explain socialism for people who are new to learning about it because they are brain wahsed by capitalist propaganda .
About your comments on Europe using industries in poor countries instead of having factories in their own countries; What about the wood from Sweden/Canada/Finland/Russia, minerals from Australia and Chile and cars from Germany/Japan? We have the technology which enables us to produce way more, and having more countries developed would give us more commodities because more could be produced. Sure, electronics from China, clothes from SEA, oil from MENA and sugar/coffee from south america/africa are cheaply produced, but I don’t see how one country being rich necessitates 5 others being poor.
I’m genuinely just trying to understand but even if companies operate solely for profit they are still producing something of value for people or they would fail as a business so they get a profit but the consumer gets something of value to them in exchange I don’t see anything wrong in that. If companies are regulated in regards to environmental impact, not selling harmful products (Tobacco I’m looking at you) then what’s wrong with a mixed economy? It seems like a good compromise. I don’t understand why GDP and profit has to go up every year. As long as it doesn’t fall too much and stays relatively stable isn’t that enough? I’ll confess I know nothing about economics.
I mean the easiest rebuttal to free-marketiods is China. Chinas entire economic foundation is planned and state owned. Tho mid sized SOEs are partially sold on the stock market, but this is to grow more capital for investment. The state remains as the ultimate leader/shareholder. Also they never describe what a market is and how it is different from a planned economy
6:20 – the main issue was a motivation, because a burocrat supports his own department interest, without carrying of real economical efficiency. The same in lesser way is true for market model- it just assumes that the capitalistical money flow and profit makes the efficiency, however how do you test it that it is true?
I do not necessarily agree with everything this article says but i appreciate the explanation. There are several issues which need addressing such as immutable individual differences between people and the incentive to perform at peak efficiency. Ive worked in environments that contained the three concurrent ideologies of hierarchy, individualism and collectivism. Said company was HIGHLY functional. I agree that rampant consumerism is a problem and there are ways to combat it. Mass production CAN provide many essential products such as food, water, shelter etc. However….there will always be those who exploit the system. Currently the exploiters are wealthy industrialists who seek endless profit. The exploited people are the workers. Under a benevolent redistribution system the exploiters would be the lazy and yet again the exploited would be the workers. Toiling away to feed those who refuse to toil for themselves. A redistributive system could work if those who work are rewarded and those who choose not to work are given nothing that they did not earn. The “distributionism” would be found in the centrally planned services such as health care and infrastricture. This is where a lot of social psychology comes out to play. The best way to harness the “Martial Virtues” of courage, discipline and team work is through warfare or a “man vs man” scenario (in the classic philosophical sense)…however i find war to be unethical and it should be avoided whenever possible unless in a life or death self defense situation.
A new tribe of monkeys occupy just one tree. Eventually, they need another tree due to population, preferably the one right next to their current tree they occupy & rule over. The leader of said tribe says they will take that tree for the tribe. The other monkey wakes up in the middle of the night, wakes up a few other monkeys, & they take that other tree in the night. Why? Bc that monkey decided he wanted his own tree & his own tribe to rule over & claim for his own. In the morning, there is war. Why? Bc it was the nature of both leaders to want the same tree for different reasons. One was thinking abt everyone else & the tribe as a whole. The other was thinking only abt himself & what he wanted. He wanted more in life, so he took it. Why? Bc it was in his nature to want more outta life. Bc it is nature to put ourselves first b4 others. This is human nature, especially in a capitalist culture & a country built on capitalism that prides itself on capitalism & making it work. You cant just up & take away our nice things, tell us we cant have it, & then expect us not to lose our sht to get capitalism back. We’re addicted to capitalism. It’s all we ever known.
How to alocate capital “without capitalists”: 1. Give property rights to the AI. 2. Build strong enough AI. Better a diverse numbers of those. 3. Give that AI some initial capital. 4. Unleash that AI on the market to compete with the human capitalists. 5. It will either start outcompeting human capitalists at the investments it makes or it wont. 6. If it will, you are succesfully replacing human capitalists with artificial capitalists. Artificial acpitalsits don’t consume anything yet they are alocating the capital.
Примерно так идейные коммунисты в советском союзе и видели развитие. Проект ОГАС был разработан ещё в 50-годы.Там было всё от домашних пк и идеи интернета(в 50 годы!) до системы социального кредита. Смысл был в том,что советские экономисты понимали несовершенность системы и губительное влияние коррупции на неё.Суперкомьютеры должны были сделать план максимально эффективным и избавить союз от коррупции. Проблема была только в том,что в высшем руководстве стояли менее идейные товарищи,которые поняли,что в перспективе ОГАС может лишить их должностей и свернули проект,начав преследование кибернетики и генетики. Таким образом союз погубил даже не злой злодей Иосиф Гулагович Сталин,а коррупция. Только вот этого не понял никто и по сей день,а в России теперь правит какая-то банда олигархов во главе с бывшим КГБшником.А ведь в союзе именно чекистов больше всего боялись коррупционеры. Иронично 🙂
How does the guverment in a centraly planed economy know that the idea is a good idea. If there is no democratic free market that decides what ideas that are good. And the idea of collective ownership of the means of production is somthing I always feel is strange. What is the means of production? Is it a computer? So in socialist utopia you are not allowed to own a computer? Ok maby you can own a computer. But if you are a programer and make code a program do you now own that program or is it part of the collective ownership? Can you sell this program? Is a pen means of production? What if you write a book with that pen? Can you sell that book or do you not own it? Can you own a house? If you can can you take the Wood from the house and make it into a wagon? Do you now own that wagon? There are so many things that are used to create other things that are not factory machines? And if I build (not buy) a factory machine at what point does it turn from my own machine to part of the collective? Is it when its used? How about if I only use it for myself and for the people that I want to help? That in return help me with the machines that they them self have built?
Short version: we’re making Nintendo Switch consoles instead of worrying about lack of bread BECAUSE we have capitalist system. Everything around you – including your today’s breakfast, your cloth and the very computer you use to make the article – was made for profit. The article is utterly ridiculous. I lived in a centrally planned economy (Czechoslovakia). It was a complete disaster. Shortages of toilet paper, female hygiene products, meat, yoghurts, ketchup, furniture, bikes, soft drinks… You name it, there were shortages of it. Why? Because the planning committees couldn’t have all the information. The MARKET as a whole however does. If something is in short supply the price goes up, sort of “on its own”, because of the MARKET. That provides incentive for manufacturers to produce more of the product. If there is too much of something the price goes down and manufacturers go to produce something else where they can make more money. The market is SELF-BALANCING on many levels. Check out this lovely article from TV archives of my country. Turn on English subtitles and see. youtube.com/watch?v=OyvJ3CaY3Yc Oh and I see now that you’re presenting “politics from a Marxist perspective”. OK, no more comments, have a good life.
Suppose we judge how good a system is by measuring the happiness of the people living in it. Let’s first write this happiness value as h, which is an output of a function of many variables like h=f(x0, x1, x2 …. xn), those X’s could be, for example, quantities of varies goods productions. Then people might think one day we could use a super powerful computer to calculate a set of X’s, which would maximize the value of h. If this is doable, then yes planned economy is promising. But in reality the problems is 1) We never know how many X’s there are. 2) We never know what this function f is because we don’t even know the X’s. So, basically this is a problems can’t solved by computation.
I think it is possible for socialism and markets/private ownership to coexist during the transition from capitalism to socialism. The focus should be collective private ownership of the means of production independent of the government, more popularly known as worker coops. All “socialist” countries have failed to eliminate the class relationships inherent to capital production. Instead they reproduce these relationships under different titles. But bourgeoisie is bourgeoisie no matter how you dress it.
Simply no. I’m Romanian and yes there are some old people with a nostalgia after the communist era, but most of as are very much happy that the communist regime fell. Our economy is 6 times larger now than it was in 1989, our exports are larger, our agricultural and industrial productions are larger. Those old people tend to forget that during the 80s they were almost starving and were basically freezing in their apartments during winter, beside the fact that there were no democracy, no respect for the basic human rights, and the regime itself had no legitimacy, as it was installed only due to the fact of the Red Army occupied Romania after WW2, as the before that moment the Romanian Communist Party had less than one thousand members and most of them weren’t even Romanians. This is what communism represents now for the most of Romanians and you should be thankful that neither you or your family had to live in such inhuman conditions as we had to.
Hey Azure, I noticed you used the gall-peters projection which, while arguably better for you content than the mercator projection, is still bad for displaying equidistance and conformal information. May I suggest the Winkel tripel projection. It has a compromise between the different variables and is the one adopted by academic sources like the national geographic and others: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winkel_tripel_projection Or if you want to stick to a more socialist theme for your articles the Kavrayskiy VII projection is the second best compromise projection after winkel tripel and was used in the soviet union (it is also my personal favorite map projection): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavrayskiy_VII_projection Also why do you suspect a democratically run economy will suddenly care more about other countries? We can already vote people into power who will give more to the third world, or we can already donate our own money to the third world if we really cared about them, but almost no-one does.Why would it suddenly change when we controlled the economy democratically? It seems this isn’t a fault of a governmental system, but rather a innate human tendency to care more about the close-by ingroup than the far away outgroup.
I dont think people argue that planned economy cant or wont work especially in the modern era, the problem is it is too idealistic capitalism works because of cold hard efficiancy working in tandam with human nature not because it is good for the people, if you put a planned economy like you suggest against an equal capitalist one the capitalist will eventual out produce and out perform the planned and flood its markets even if the average planned economy living standard is higher(least till capitalist reaches critical mass) therefore a planned economy would have too spreed around the superpowers to survive and thats just impractical So thats why i feel planned economy wounldnt work in the modern day, its not brutally efficiant enough to fight other nations
I’m a fan of the idea of a planned economy with workers co-ops making most of the day-to-day workplace decisions while a democratically elected planned system sets long-term goals. However, a planned economy is historically speaking easier to achieve with an authoritarian (or more centrally concentrated) government. And more authoritarian regimes are more likely to abuse that power. I would prefer an economy planned in a more confederal way with a central government keeping track of global trade and ecology but not much else, allowing more local principalities to set their own production goals. I’m not exactly sure how one would work to create such a system in a sustainable way though. Rojava seems to be making a decent go at it but I’m not sure how long they’ll last.
Because of the factories in third world countries, these countries can develop much much faster. The standards of living and the workers’ conditions are terrible, but they are getting much better within short periods of time.(look at china! They were preindustrial 40 years ago and will soon surpass the US) Compareable to our industrial revolution. It just seem like capitalism is the fastes way to lift ppl out of poverty
Although the planet is finite, capitalism can mitigate or altogether resolve problems of scarcity through synthetics, alternatives, renewables, and expansion into untapped resources (think asteroid mining or fracking). Although you usually do have to wait until the problem gets bad enough that company profits are affected for them to innovate.
We’re far from a post-scarcity society lmao. 1:00 The thing is that companies produce nintendos because people are willing to consume. There isn’t an over production of things, simple things are produced because people are willingly able to consume it. That’s why you don’t see VHS todays. People stop consuming them, the same with faxes or typewriters. Another issue us redistribution of wealth, capitalism is not perfect that’s why you see people with no food or water in Africa. But the solution is not a planned economy, the solution is redistribution of wealth by using taxes and a welfare system like most develop countries do. That’s the best model, a mix economy just like Sweden, Norway, Iceland, etc
I had a look at your website, rather sadly for a Marxist you have managed to mis-define the bourgeoisie. It does somewhat undermine the credibility of your arguments. The bourgeoisie are NOT the owners of capital, but never mind (i.e. Molly the horse in animal farm) But anyway, in the spirit of fair play, run me through the list of successful socialist economies again? Your definition: The bourgeoisie is the capitalist class that owns most of society’s wealth and means of production. Synonyms include “the capitalists”, “the upper class”, “the 1%”, “the aristocracy”, “those filthy rich bastards”, etc. The correct definition: belonging to or typical of the middle class (= a social group between the rich and the poor) especially in supporting existing customs and values, or in having a strong interest in money and possessions Sorry about the formatting -I was cutting and pasting
How do you think you can get away with just asserting that the Great Depression is worse than the stuff that happened in Soviet Russia? I’m guessing you think that none of the famines happened and the Gulags didn’t exist, etc., but you don’t get to just put forward a massive conspiracy theory as if it’s noncontroversial.
SO MANY MISTAKES IN THIS article The truth is: 1- The soviet union “industrial growth” was depending on US technologies 2- USSR switched to market economy as a way for trying to save the economy form falling and they failed to switch their economy to market economy due to political reasons 3- the life quality in USSR has always been very poor comparing to the gdp 4- Central planned economy has proven that it a great environment for corruption and political intervention in the economy 5- USSR style economies proved their failure in resource management basically due to lack of pricing mechanism basically because you can’t know what people want by surveys 6- the lack of competition in USSR and the lack of monetary rewards both lead to NO new ideas and no motive to increase the efficiency of the economy
If it’s possible to conceive of a planned economy with all the good (like the good things you listed that happened in the Soviet Union) but without all the bad (like all the bad things that happened with the Soviet Union), why is it that the same can’t be done for other types of economies? For instance, what if Social Democracies didn’t have indefinitely growing profit margins as the driving force behind their production? You can crave economic growth for the right reasons. Wanting to bring yourself good things AND bring others good things are both fine motives (though the first one isn’t if it happens at the great expense of other people). Most small businesses exist primarily to bring income to the owners and workers and to bring products and services to their clients. It’s the giant corporations that, while a major piece of the puzzle in developed economies, are the ones who seem to seek increasing profits no matter what the cost. It’s part of why I largely believe in personal economic freedom and economic freedom for small-to-medium businesses, but not so much for large corporations. It’s those large corporations that hoard ridiculous amounts of wealth at the top, so why not require companies above a certain size to have certain requirements levied on them as to how their resources are used? That way you preserve economic freedom for most people and for those that DO have restrictions put on them, it’s only a cap on how far they can go rather than a complete taking away of their economic freedom.
I think it’s ironic you want more people perusal your article on socialism being better than capitalism. Isn’t the idea of wanting more ‘people’ to watch your article a capitalist ideal? When will be enough people perusal your article be enough, there is only so many views you can get right? But I do thank you for taking the time to explain planned economy. We currently have a government that is run as a majority by a party that says they are democratic socialist but in practise are more social democratic. This was in the past, now with Covid 19 vaccines being mandated to government sectors – like teachers, doctors & nurses and all related staff the balance between social justice within a capitalist framework is being tipped towards totalitarianism. Two classes are being introduced in our country – the vaccinated and the unvaccinated! So the vaccinated will have the benefits of going where they want under the watchful eye of the government but the unvaccinated will be limited and even fined if the disobey the governments rules. The one thing that is fundamentally wrong with socialism is the philosophy that people are ‘good’ and those who are ‘bad’ just need to be rehabilitated and educated to become ‘good’ citizens of the state. But the problem with this ideology is that who is deciding what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’? And on what basis or even science is this proved by? And that’s where it gets real messy and so you get oppressors and dictators and bullies etc, etc. And that’s not freedom of conscience and religious freedom either.
I checked out when your example of a capitalist was “I’m going to start a seal clubbing business.” For one, the Soviets had a truly monstrous whaling industry (fun fact, they purged the decorated founder when he failed to meet his quota one year). Two, capitalist societies tend to outlaw things like animal cruelty. Planned economies don’t seem to need them, due to people eating their pets and breaking into zoos…
Economic recessions and depressions are prolonged by government intervention, aka socialism/public sector. FDRs intervention policies prolonged the Great Depression for more then a decade. 1933-1946. If it was left up to the market the Great Depression would of ended in a year. Same in 2008 financial crash. Which was caused by socialism/public sector. So don’t hate on recessions and depressions when there caused and prolonged by your economic system.
Your ideas are correct and ideally in the perfect world that can happen and strive towards but in reality it doesnt because theres something called human nature aka greed some f’er is gonna want to have more than someone else and throw this utopia setting off its great to strive towards it can never be realised due to one thing the corruptable nature of the human being
i prefer the approach of using Social Democracy as a stepping stone towards socialism, combined with democratic reforms that make it impossible to rig elections and educational reforms to teach history accurately, and as the social democratic capitalist economy begins to break down people will be able to use the easily changed democratic government at their disposal to transistion to socialism.
I disagree with your point that capitalism isn’t democratic and that a capitalist does not have to care about what is necessary for the people. The way a free market works, you will go bankrupt if people don’t spend money on whatever you’re selling. That is, in my mind, extremely democratic. The “voting” is simply done with money instead of ballots But that’s just how I see it personally. Other than that, great article, learned a lot. Sincerely, a Georgist!
Excellent article. I would probably call myself a Social Democrat. I believe capitalism can be reformed. Just so I’m clear, the main points you raised against Social Democracy in this article were that it necessitates continued exploitation of workers (especially in 3rd world countries) and infinite positive economic growth?
“The USSR didn’t HAVE homelessness.” Yeah, except that I had relatives WHO SAW IT FIRST HAND. Another thing was trying to keep country people out of cities and they basically were like ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS living between the lines. EVEN NOW there’s chinese that call themselves “migrant workers” because they moved from the rural areas to one of the cities with a capitalist zone. You REALLY REALLY HAVEN’T researched some stuff very hard AT ALL. Just looked at the textbook definitions. The economy in the USSR FAILED BADLY otherwise it WOULDN’T HAVE ended. It actually started with Brezhnev and his economic stagnation. OIL MONEY was keeping people fed with IMPORTED GRAIN. He dropped the ball but it STAYED TOGETHER using Russian OIL MONEY alone. Then the OIL PRICE dropped to the floor (US$10 a barrel) and ONLY THEN was the party over.
First you have to get people to agree on what they want and how they get it. Even if the mythical world revolution was to happen and succeed, Socialists would have many disagreements on the basics. There will always be differences and disagreement on what Marxist policy should be. The wealthier countries would not want to give up their life style. They poor ones would willingly come and take what they want, but they are weak militarily. You can’t even get Socialist countries to agree looking at how USSR and CCP hated each other. This article ignores basic economics: the study of scare resources that have alternative uses. Some people will fight to get these scarce resources. Socialists will share resources only when they see it in their best interests, and not before.
Yeah, i did find this intresting…so social democracy ain’t the answer ethier…i mean it’s hard to see since Denmark, Finland, Sweden, etc are social democratic countries and doing so well but then you telling me this half-capitalistic half-socialistic system still won’t cut it man i don’t know perhaps democratic socialism that isn’t super authoritarian should be the answer at least for first world countries so far.
Planned economies dont allow for niches like capiatlism does. In a capitalist system, if a potential market exists then a business will be created to fill it no matter how small. Whereas in a planned economy the government would have to decide whether a niche is worth its value. That means less medical research, less alternative solutions to problems, less types of food, article games, tv shows, clothes etc.
Planned economy will never work because nobody can forecast the demands even if you use the most powerful super computer. Planned economy is like doing a planned production in a factory. I have work in factories that use computer to create production plan using historical sales data. The forecast demand is always wrong. The company end up with excess inventory and need to retrench workers due to lost revenue. The company only manage to turn around after abandon the methodology and switch to just-in-time (on demand) manufacturing method. The new method reduce cost and increase profit.
How would a computer quantify human wellbeing? It’s easy (as far as I know) to quantify profit, but human wellbeing is somewhat more difficult to measure. Would you try to aim towards distributing money as evenly as possible, maximising individual incomes compared to inflation? I’m not very well versed in this topic so I’m curious to see if anyone else has any answers.
The grass is always greener on the other side! Truth is most people that imagine a planned economy would work are also unable to effectively plan their own lives. They just know the current system doesn’t work for them. Capitalism enables the competitive nature of mankind, and the results are incredible. There are winners and losers though, which is how competition works. Mixed economies at least make it so the losers are not starving. In my (mixed economy) country people who are overweight,drive quite modern cars, watch bit screen TVs, also call themselves poor!
i don’t mind planned economies but it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest that social democracy can’t function without third world exploitation. unequal exchange only takes up about 3-8% of global gdp, that is a lot, but hardly something that would be considered a necessity from which you can’t recover without it
I agree that trying to increase profit is a horrible thing for the planet, but I don’t think a planned economy brought any welbeing either. I was born in a communist country and I can tell you that people in the Soviet Union, or Cuba, Romania, etc were making big lines just to buy potatoes. I don’t believe either that “elections are rigged in ex communist countries because people wanted communism back”, specially in East Germany, where they had to build a wall to stop people from going to the capitalist West. Can you prove it? I do not believe it. There might be nostalgic minority groups, but that is all. Anothder thing, “fascist Spain”? Spain was never fascist. It was a conservative, authoritarian system, but not fascism. There are many things that are not true in this article…….
Have you ever heard of the saying “All resources are finite, all human wants are infinite”? This is the problem with your solution. If you were to just create just as much as “people need” to live fulfilling lives, who would work and what would their incentive to work be if all other people who doesnt work has enough to go and do whatever they wanted? No one would work because no one wants to work. Everyone wants to do as much as they possible for as little work as possible. “Profit” if necessary! Of course it is. If you dont end up with more money than when you started then you dont have enough money to sustain your life! We need things which we consume, we consume the profits in the form of food or things we buy! Without profits we would all be poor and starve! Which is what happens if you try to impose communism or any centrally planned economy!
Wouldn’t the middle ground be a free market socialism (worker owned factories with a free market), rather than social democracy. Social democracy is still capitalism, just a tad more regulated, the core characteristics of the economic system remain in place (ownership of means of production and redistributions)?
This article has so much desinformation and mistakes. Unfortunately i don’t have the time and motivation to explain why this is so wrong. Anyway, I’m from Argentina. Planned economy is here from the 40’s and it made Argentina poor. Before 40’s, with a free market economy, Argentina was the 5th richest country. Now, with planned economy is the 65th. Planned economies ruin countries. Free market develop them.
The problem is what happens AFTER the redistribution. You will still have to continuously upkeep and replace things so production will have to continue. This is why Venezuela failed. They plundered the wealth of capitalists and showed initial success, but once they reached the faze of upkeeping the capital and replacing worn equipment the economy failed.
Would you have enjoyed living in the Soviet Union? I would not have. Show me the socialist country that supports its people economically and does not oppress its political opponents and I will concede that a planned economy can work. Until then, socialism remains merely a utopia. Dismantle capitalism and we regress back to feudalism, not socialism.