- 09 Jun 2012 17:51
#13981086
The United States in the exact same period operated under a very tightly managed economy as well, and performed far above expectations. It was simply managed by a mixture of large corporate decisionmakers and state planners. There is very little about the US or European economies--both of which function relatively effectively--that is not managed.
Though I would point out that the Soviet policies of forced industrialization worked relatively well. No other society has ever managed industrialization within a single generation; it's not like the Soviet Union started on even remotely the same economic footing that the US was at in 1917. The fact that they were able to make a credible attempt at being a global competitor by 1946--after having been ravaged by two world wars and a long period of civil war--is itself an impressive feat of economic planning.
I mean, the Soviet Union of 1917 was a mostly agrarian country that was undergoing a violent revolution in the midst of a devastating world war--and within 30 years they had industrialized to the point where they were a credible global power that was playing geopolitics with the United States and western Europe. That would be like... well, a bit like Somalia becoming a major world power that was making threats against the US, EU, and China by 2040.
How you can really describe that as a failure of state planning is a mystery. To be sure, the Soviet economy had a lot of problems (like, for example, not producing enough food to feed its people), but that was mainly because the Soviet government at the time (I.E. Stalin) just didn't care about the problem.
ray188 wrote:As the Soviet 10 year (and other numbers) plans clearly shows, managed economies do not function effectively or efficiently. To me, the only involvement that the government should have in the economy is the maintenance of a system in which the free market can flourish. That means do not over-regulate and do not socially engineer through the use of the tax codes and certainly do not disencentivize the quest for profit. Yes, stop "cheating" while remembering that turning a profit in and of itself is not "cheating".
The United States in the exact same period operated under a very tightly managed economy as well, and performed far above expectations. It was simply managed by a mixture of large corporate decisionmakers and state planners. There is very little about the US or European economies--both of which function relatively effectively--that is not managed.
Though I would point out that the Soviet policies of forced industrialization worked relatively well. No other society has ever managed industrialization within a single generation; it's not like the Soviet Union started on even remotely the same economic footing that the US was at in 1917. The fact that they were able to make a credible attempt at being a global competitor by 1946--after having been ravaged by two world wars and a long period of civil war--is itself an impressive feat of economic planning.
I mean, the Soviet Union of 1917 was a mostly agrarian country that was undergoing a violent revolution in the midst of a devastating world war--and within 30 years they had industrialized to the point where they were a credible global power that was playing geopolitics with the United States and western Europe. That would be like... well, a bit like Somalia becoming a major world power that was making threats against the US, EU, and China by 2040.
How you can really describe that as a failure of state planning is a mystery. To be sure, the Soviet economy had a lot of problems (like, for example, not producing enough food to feed its people), but that was mainly because the Soviet government at the time (I.E. Stalin) just didn't care about the problem.