• queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Central planners in the Soviet Union didn’t even have computers and they lacked the level of scientific understanding we have today of the environment, of our resources, and of the limits to growth. We’ve all heard about Mao killing the sparrows in China.

    This isn’t a reason to never try central planning again.

    • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      They absolutely had computers, I have no idea why you would think the second largest economy that produced tremendous technological advances in its time did not have computers.You know Tetris was created by a Soviet programmer, right?

      Planned economies are doomed at this point gecause we aren’t able to predict distasters and the planned economy cannot respond in an efficient manner when things go wrong. Humans aren’t smart enough and we do not have artificial intelligence capable of doing so.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        They had computers towards the end, of course, but they were extremely primitive. The kinds of disaster predictions you can do on a machine built to run Tetris are nothing compared to what can be done with today’s technology.

        Also, it’s not like markets can actually deal with disasters. Without at least some central planning disaster response and relief is impossible.

        • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Planning for relief disaster and a planned economy are incredibly different things. Planned economies do not handle disasters well at all as they didn’t prepare for that disaster in advance (typically because how can you plan for the one in a hundred million chance that x would happen).

          We largely have stuck with market based economies because they currently are much more responsive to changes.

          While computers have gotten more powerful there is zero evidence to support that we have gotten to the point where they could run a planned economy in any fashion.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            7 days ago

            We largely have stuck with market based economies because they currently are much more responsive to changes.

            No, we still have market based economies because they make a few people very very rich.

            We needed markets before computers and instant mass communication. Things are different now

            While computers have gotten more powerful there is zero evidence to support that we have gotten to the point where they could run a planned economy in any fashion.

            What about the fact that market-based responses to COVID were universally worse than centrally planned responses?

                • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 days ago

                  If you don’t understand that microeconomics and macroeconomics are not the same, and you have clearly stated this when you say companies and nation-states function under the same rules, then there isn’t a point in having a further discussion with you because you aren’t coming from an informed position.

                  Im stopping not because if your tone but rather because you have made it clear you don’t really know anything about economics.

      • Muyal_Hix@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Non market economies are never going to work, because you’ll be essentially creating one giant monopoly and leaving people without the possibility of doing things differently

        What happens when you don’t like the product the state offers?

        What if you discover a way of doing things more efficiently?

        What about independent artists and creators?

        And that’s not getting into how unpredictable people are, products that have been predicted to fail end up becoming very successful, and the opposite also happens

      • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        How old are you? Did you go through COVID? Capitalism doesn’t do disasters well at all. Every cost is minimized. So emergency supplies go unmaintained. If it doesn’t help the stock price annually it doesn’t get done.

        • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          50, yes and most nations did poorly the reason for America’s failures have to do with American healthcare as most market economies handled it much better than the planned ones did. China did much worse but that rarely made China’s news.

          • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            American healthcare is capitalist. It’s insurance companies and for profit hospitals. That’s why it’s bad. Healthcare is an inelastic demand.

            China isn’t a Democratic State. I’m not arguing that just having one guy handling all the economic planning is a good idea.

            • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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              7 days ago

              Im well aware of what a planned economy is as I have taken economics courses. Historically speaking planned economies have performed extremely poorly because humans are bad at predicting the future. Until circumstances change to the point where we can reliably predict the future planned economies will always perform poorly compared to market based ones.

              • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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                7 days ago

                I don’t disagree with that. Why leave that to the market which doesn’t optimize for anything other than more money and whos actions are opaque? Happy, healthy, and productive societies cost money, money that can be spent elsewhere. Slavery is efficient and profitable.

                If some organization is going to have the power to make or break me, I want them to be transparent and democratic. Not a rich person who has never worked in their life trying to make more money using whatever means they can get away with.