Problem is the wrong word. It's different. In central planning, the dynamics are different. Whomever influences the planners ultimately makes the decisions. Th

Problem is the wrong word. It's different. In central planning, the dynamics are different. Whomever influences the planners ultimately makes the decisions. The quality of those decisions depends on your perspective and the motivation of the influencers. In a pure capitalist model, you follow the money. Whomever has money influences the decisions. There's no right or wrong answer. Oftentimes valuable things appear as unintended consequences of government or commercial projects. It's hard to declare the internet to not be an example of central planning -- it was built to connect Federally funded labs at universities with Federal dollars. The labs existed to provide (indirectly or directly) research to serve defense and space (which i consider to be a subset of defense) interests. The difference between the French thing and the Internet is that key stakeholders in the government and academia saw the potential of computer networks as a driver of commerce at an opportune time. If that conclusion was made in 1978, we'd have the French thing on a terminal leased from AT&T or a baby bell. Equating a telecom system to a railroad, bridge, road, etc from a government POV was a big leap -- but the timing was probably more important and less obvious.