bogey780
join:2004-03-19
Here
| reply to kapil
Re: O RLY?
Clearly you slept through clas the day they taught market economics ad why the USSR had no choice and outstripped demand.
By having central planning dictate what would be produced and for how much it would be sold for, there ended up being a glut of cheap poorly made products on the market. But because that's all people could get they'd always be a high demand because central planners would almost always fail to predict demand because of naive notions on politics and economics.
It had nothing to do with monpolistic practices. Unless you consider the USSRs monopoly on force as counting.
So why you think central plannig can fix this is anyone's guess. |
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grandpinaple
join:2006-01-03
New York, NY
1 edit | Actually central economic planning is a rather successful method of running the government and there have been multiple examples of this in the past (most of them aren't PC though). The real downfall of the USSR was caused by the lack of incentive because everyone paid according to their need and ability rather than being paid according to what the market decides, that is the socialist/communist versus capitalist philosophy. Also the USSR cared more about buying weapons than caring for its people. So you have pig farms, but no ham, instead you have pig farms and AK47's are what make it to market. |
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bogey780
join:2004-03-19
Here | Outside of a small commune I don't see where you could find successful central planning. |
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grandpinaple
join:2006-01-03
New York, NY | The third Reich, China, Japan... |
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bogey780
join:2004-03-19
Here
| Hey now..to be fair they weren't exactly the same. Those were more fascist/socialist in that the state and industry worked together. China less so... but when it was a strong central planner it stunk. Remember all that wasted Chinese steel from the GLF? |
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grandpinaple
join:2006-01-03
New York, NY
| True, but what does it really mean to be a fascist/socialist state. I mean political ideology is separate from economic planning to a certain extent. On some levels fascism promoting national unity may have been helpful, but on the other hand human evolutionary psychology would indicate that humans don't give a rats ass beyond their immediate social circle. Then we have the Japanese example as well to consider, which makes Weimar Germany a valid example.
The Chinese steel example makes sense, but we can offer equal anecdotal evidence against non centrally planned capitalist states (bridges to no where, franchise agreements, etc?). We are also talking about a China that isn't plagued by overly nationalistic ambitions (China in the status quo). Certainly under Mao you could say central planning was a failure. Capitalism was a failure under certain African states. In reality those failures were a result of political climate. |
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emptywig
Huh? What?
Premium
join:2002-08-05
Pasadena, TX | reply to grandpinaple
Seems to me the Third Reich's planning sucked pretty bad.
wig |
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