Socialism Has a Future. Central Planning Doesn’t.
Central planners had a rational vision: replace the anarchy of the market with conscious coordination. Vivek Chibber explains why calculation and incentive problems undermined that vision, but a different sort of socialism can still flourish.
Even supercomputers won’t solve the problems inherent to central planning. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to replace capitalism with something better. (Mark Redkin / FotoSoyuz / Getty Images)
Over time, the Soviet Union developed a system of centralized planning that became synonymous with socialism. How did the system work? What did it get right? And why did it ultimately become so associated with shortages and stagnation?
On the latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek discuss the ambitions and challenges of economic planners, and why the defects may be hardwired into the structure of central planning.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here.
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