I'm just about finished with The People's Republic Of WalMart and it's an excellent read. It investigates economic planning on a massive scale, and points to large corporations as examples of vast planned economies. Amazon and Walmart have bigger economic output than the USSR at its height, and they do so without the price signal. It talks of the hilarious failed experiment of running a market within a business by Sears, which led to its ultimate demise.
In the penultimate chapter (which I just finished), it interrogates the USSR's planned economy. It makes the argument, quite convincingly, that economic planning does not necessitate Authoritarianism, rather, that Authoritarianism undermines planning. They talk of how Soviet specialists were deemed to be wreckers if their economic outlook was not sufficiently optimistic, and also deemed wreckers if they were too optimistic. Farm workers who told the central committee that their quotas were impossible were also deemed wreckers. All of this led to bad information that made any planning impossible! They then talk of the "Kruschev Thaw," in which Nikita Kruschev's administration lessened restrictions on dissent, which resulted in better planning information, which led to better planning.
Anyways, it's a fascinating read, and gives lots of great insight into how a real planned economy could be achieved. It's also a fairly quick read (~200 pages) and doesn't feel like any of it's wasted.
I'm just about finished with The People's Republic Of WalMart and it's an excellent read. It investigates economic planning on a massive scale, and points to large corporations as examples of vast planned economies. Amazon and Walmart have bigger economic output than the USSR at its height, and they do so without the price signal. It talks of the hilarious failed experiment of running a market within a business by Sears, which led to its ultimate demise.
In the penultimate chapter (which I just finished), it interrogates the USSR's planned economy. It makes the argument, quite convincingly, that economic planning does not necessitate Authoritarianism, rather, that Authoritarianism undermines planning. They talk of how Soviet specialists were deemed to be wreckers if their economic outlook was not sufficiently optimistic, and also deemed wreckers if they were too optimistic. Farm workers who told the central committee that their quotas were impossible were also deemed wreckers. All of this led to bad information that made any planning impossible! They then talk of the "Kruschev Thaw," in which Nikita Kruschev's administration lessened restrictions on dissent, which resulted in better planning information, which led to better planning.
Anyways, it's a fascinating read, and gives lots of great insight into how a real planned economy could be achieved. It's also a fairly quick read (~200 pages) and doesn't feel like any of it's wasted.
That sounds really interesting. I’ll check it out.