You’ve probably been told all your life “Centrally planned economies don’t work! They’ve always been a catastrophic failure!” which is simply untrue.
the USSR industrialised at record pace, went from a backwards joke that was jealous of its Western neighbours to the undisputed 2nd-most-powerful country in the world, launched mankind into space, defeated Hitler, electrified and industrialised the whole country
unplanned economies have been disasters: Russia under shock therapy in the 1990s. Thatcher closing down coalmines, GW Bush (and Greenspan) deregulating everything and causing the biggest financial crash in 80 years
Look at the history of Britain’s economy, did great under planning with people like Clement Attlee, worse when the free-market ideology took hold: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=iH6ur0X4wMI (you should watch the whole thing, but from 14:20 has a bit on Britain’s planned economy). War economies are often centrally planned and do in-kind accounting, and war economies stimulate growth.
look at how much better China and Vietnam perform at growth and poverty-alleviation than Friedmanite countries
The boring ‘Walmart’ argument: there are already massive country-sized planned economies with in-kind accounting. Called Amazon and Walmart. Amazon runs an economy the size of Australia (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-tech-giants-worth-compared-economies-countries/) and does it by databases that manage supply-chains, logistics, just-in-time ordering, modelling future demand, etc.
Two caveats –
Marxists don’t “believe in” doing things a certain way, that’s Utopianism. Marxists believe in practice. Various things work at various times in various doses. That includes market mechanisms, like the Chinese economy today, or Vietnam with its Đổi Mới policy. Giving a template and demanding it be followed is anathema to “scientific socialism”
Marxism ≠ centrally planned economies. Marx mostly critiqued how capital was a means of exploitation, and said lets do ‘something else’ that doesn’t rip workers off so much. That leaves room for a lot of noncentrallyplanned methods. Which one is best? A stupid smallminded question. Like asking which food is the best food to eat, or which medicine is the best medicine to take. Depends on the context.
You may say you don’t believe in centrally planned economies. Do you believe in a centrally planned economy to provide tap water? If it works for tap water, why not for other things? It works for public housing too. It works for transport infrastructure. It works for railways. Why is it such a stretch to think that what you probably already believe in for water, railways, roads, education, housing could also run some clothing and furniture factories?
This was kinda written in a hurry, I can add references or answer questions if needed.
I don’t actually know much about day to day life in Vietnam, are their poverty numbers especially low? I’d love to do more research on that.
I think my biggest problem with central economic planning is it seems to take away a lot of perspective, where the people doing the planning might not have a super great understanding of what the people might need on the other side of the country. Does that make sense?
I’m a union autoworker when I’m not weed farming, I actually got quoted a few times by the WSWS in their coverage of my factory’s strike which was a really cool experience. I consider myself a socialist, even. I just think demand driven economics makes more sense to me. I’d love to get persuaded though.
I think it’s important to note that there can be all kinds of planned economies, including capitalist ones even, and ways of doing planning. I (and I would imagine a lot if other Marxists) are in favor of an economy planned according to democratic centralism. Everyone would be contributing in some way to the planning. In Marxist planned economies, it isn’t the top dictating to the bottom. It’s from the bottom to the top and the top to the bottom. An economy run on the mass line
Do you believe in a centrally planned economy to provide tap water? If it works for tap water, why not for other things? It works for public housing too. It works for transport infrastructure. It works for railways. Why is it such a stretch to think that what you probably already believe in for water, railways, roads, education, housing could also run some clothing and furniture factories?
What about the worry of corruption with the central authority?
Corruption is a real concern. No country in the world is free of corruption. Reducing it to the most minimal level requires a multi-pronged approach, including paying civil servants decently, setting a good culture, having oversight where people check other people’s work (anonymously to avoid intimidation or collusion) and lots of other things. It’s not a simple fix.
Corruption is not a curse that is particular to the public-sector. Economies with private ownership are also prone to corruption: Lehman Brothers, Enron, etc.
Sure.
You’ve probably been told all your life “Centrally planned economies don’t work! They’ve always been a catastrophic failure!” which is simply untrue.
the USSR industrialised at record pace, went from a backwards joke that was jealous of its Western neighbours to the undisputed 2nd-most-powerful country in the world, launched mankind into space, defeated Hitler, electrified and industrialised the whole country
unplanned economies have been disasters: Russia under shock therapy in the 1990s. Thatcher closing down coalmines, GW Bush (and Greenspan) deregulating everything and causing the biggest financial crash in 80 years
Look at the history of Britain’s economy, did great under planning with people like Clement Attlee, worse when the free-market ideology took hold: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=iH6ur0X4wMI (you should watch the whole thing, but from 14:20 has a bit on Britain’s planned economy). War economies are often centrally planned and do in-kind accounting, and war economies stimulate growth.
look at how much better China and Vietnam perform at growth and poverty-alleviation than Friedmanite countries
The boring ‘Walmart’ argument: there are already massive country-sized planned economies with in-kind accounting. Called Amazon and Walmart. Amazon runs an economy the size of Australia (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-tech-giants-worth-compared-economies-countries/) and does it by databases that manage supply-chains, logistics, just-in-time ordering, modelling future demand, etc.
Two caveats –
Marxists don’t “believe in” doing things a certain way, that’s Utopianism. Marxists believe in practice. Various things work at various times in various doses. That includes market mechanisms, like the Chinese economy today, or Vietnam with its Đổi Mới policy. Giving a template and demanding it be followed is anathema to “scientific socialism”
Marxism ≠ centrally planned economies. Marx mostly critiqued how capital was a means of exploitation, and said lets do ‘something else’ that doesn’t rip workers off so much. That leaves room for a lot of noncentrallyplanned methods. Which one is best? A stupid smallminded question. Like asking which food is the best food to eat, or which medicine is the best medicine to take. Depends on the context.
You may say you don’t believe in centrally planned economies. Do you believe in a centrally planned economy to provide tap water? If it works for tap water, why not for other things? It works for public housing too. It works for transport infrastructure. It works for railways. Why is it such a stretch to think that what you probably already believe in for water, railways, roads, education, housing could also run some clothing and furniture factories?
This was kinda written in a hurry, I can add references or answer questions if needed.
I don’t actually know much about day to day life in Vietnam, are their poverty numbers especially low? I’d love to do more research on that.
I think my biggest problem with central economic planning is it seems to take away a lot of perspective, where the people doing the planning might not have a super great understanding of what the people might need on the other side of the country. Does that make sense?
I’m a union autoworker when I’m not weed farming, I actually got quoted a few times by the WSWS in their coverage of my factory’s strike which was a really cool experience. I consider myself a socialist, even. I just think demand driven economics makes more sense to me. I’d love to get persuaded though.
“centrally planned” doesn’t mean “not demand driven”
https://hexbear.net/post/282048?scrollToComments=false
I think it’s important to note that there can be all kinds of planned economies, including capitalist ones even, and ways of doing planning. I (and I would imagine a lot if other Marxists) are in favor of an economy planned according to democratic centralism. Everyone would be contributing in some way to the planning. In Marxist planned economies, it isn’t the top dictating to the bottom. It’s from the bottom to the top and the top to the bottom. An economy run on the mass line
Vietnam’s remarkable journey from low to middle-income status lifted 40 million people out of poverty between 1993 and 2014. In that time span, the poverty rate dropped to 14 percent from almost 60 percent. Per capita growth since 1990 has been second only to China’s, averaging 5.6 percent a year as of 2017
Wow that’s incredible!
What about the worry of corruption with the central authority?
Corruption is a real concern. No country in the world is free of corruption. Reducing it to the most minimal level requires a multi-pronged approach, including paying civil servants decently, setting a good culture, having oversight where people check other people’s work (anonymously to avoid intimidation or collusion) and lots of other things. It’s not a simple fix.
Corruption is not a curse that is particular to the public-sector. Economies with private ownership are also prone to corruption: Lehman Brothers, Enron, etc.
Nobody ever talks about corruption in the private sector, and I’m glad you did.
2008 financial crash was a crime committed by a small group of people
You don’t need a central authority to do centralized planning. Nor do all plans need to involve coordinating everyone.
You purge the corrupted officials and revisionists from the government