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Except that planned economies invariably fail to deliver the needed goods and services. There is a reason why overproduction is the foundation of capitalism's s

Except that planned economies invariably fail to deliver the needed goods and services. There is a reason why overproduction is the foundation of capitalism's success. I even recall a paper that demonstrates that the market problem (balancing supply and demand perfectly) is NP-complete.

jeffbee 6y ago
Balancing supply perfectly is certainly not worth doing, but how can you look at the world and say that at least some level of central planning isn’t demonstrably superior to pure free market? The free market very often fails to deliver goods and services, for example electricity in Texas this winter. The point of central planning is to step in and prevent foreseeable market failures, where rational market participants will optimize the wrong thing (price, in the case of Texas electricity, where they should have optimized availability).
- leetcrew 6y ago
  how many energy providers does your average texan have to choose from?
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Is there a number I could throw out that will prevent you from continuing with this predictable "no true Scotsman" argument?
- choeger 6y ago
  It goes without saying that a pure free market is not something to strive for. But it has been proven time and time again that a free market delivers more supply than any centrally planned economy in existence. In fact, each centrally planned economy had historically suffered from undersupply and consequently open up to free markets at least partially. Just one example is Cuba. A highly educated and stable society failed to provide food (especially meat) and consequently had to open up that sector for entrepreneurs. As I initially said, there are clear downsides with that, especially overproduction, environmental concerns, and worker treatment. But ironically, the same problems appeared in centrally planned economies as well. Consequently, people will always choose free market economies over centrally plan ed ones because of the better supply situation. This then leads to a conflict between democracy and economy (see GDR).

jeffbee 6y ago

Balancing supply perfectly is certainly not worth doing, but how can you look at the world and say that at least some level of central planning isn’t demonstrably superior to pure free market? The free market very often fails to deliver goods and services, for example electricity in Texas this winter. The point of central planning is to step in and prevent foreseeable market failures, where rational market participants will optimize the wrong thing (price, in the case of Texas electricity, where they should have optimized availability).

leetcrew 6y ago
how many energy providers does your average texan have to choose from?
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Is there a number I could throw out that will prevent you from continuing with this predictable "no true Scotsman" argument?
choeger 6y ago
It goes without saying that a pure free market is not something to strive for. But it has been proven time and time again that a free market delivers more supply than any centrally planned economy in existence. In fact, each centrally planned economy had historically suffered from undersupply and consequently open up to free markets at least partially. Just one example is Cuba. A highly educated and stable society failed to provide food (especially meat) and consequently had to open up that sector for entrepreneurs. As I initially said, there are clear downsides with that, especially overproduction, environmental concerns, and worker treatment. But ironically, the same problems appeared in centrally planned economies as well. Consequently, people will always choose free market economies over centrally plan ed ones because of the better supply situation. This then leads to a conflict between democracy and economy (see GDR).