Ignoring for the moment that you're engaging in a false dichotomy, central planning actually worked very well for Russia in the 20th century. Russia had fewer

Ignoring for the moment that you're engaging in a false dichotomy, central planning actually worked very well for Russia in the 20th century. Russia had fewer (if any) recessions compared to Europe and the US and faster economic growth. Now you might say that it is easy to have fast economic growth when you're playing catch up. However, plenty of third world countries demonstrate that it is not easy, and Russia managed to grow faster than capitalist economies with the same starting point. It's true that the results are not as clear for other centrally planned economies. The point is that it's not as simple as "market good, central planning bad".