An element worth commenting on is that the capitalist economy over-produces
whether planned or not.  That is rooted in its structure: PROFIT extracts
so much (sometimes as with NIKE almost everything excepting advertising)
so much that workers cannot purchase the goods produced, over-production knocks
on the door.
wcm
>
> You, Bill Bartlett, wrote:
>
> >What kind of structures do you think is necessary to overcome the "usual
> >objections"?
> First, it is true that capitalist economies don't practice what they
> preach regarding freedom from government intervention. We read Chomsky so
> no additional evidence is necessary on that point. Nonetheless, there's a
> world of difference between the capitalist version of a planned economy
> and a socialist one, as I think you would also agree. Certainly
> capitalists recognize it, which is why they generally avoid the latter
> like the plague. (Cuba's current experience provides an interesting
> counterpoint to that statement, however. Did you read The Atlantic's, I
> think, November article on Cuba's perestroika? Surprisingly sympathetic
> article, considering that Cuba is admantly trying to hang on to socialist
> principles while attracting capitalist investment.) Without getting too
> pedantic about it, the main difference is that a capitalist planned
> economy generally doesn't try to micromanage prices and output; it sets
> the conditions (interest rate, government spending, subsidies, labor
> laws, etc.) but then lets market forces operate from there. I know, I
> know: Chrysler, Amtrak, Citibank, and so on. There are exceptions, but
> they prove the rule, which is that companies are free to do and make what
> they want, under the best conditions they can obtain from the market.
>
> To cut to your question. To me a main liability of a socialist planned
> economy is its sluggishness. Capitalist economist extol the genius of
> market signals in efficiently allocating resources among competing
> industries; with allowances made for their obvious biases, I still think
> they are basically right. At the same time, of course, these signals are
> only incidentally related to satisfying human needs. Still, especially as
> the post-industrial revolution evolves and efficiency becomes more a
> matter of perfect information flow than meeting production targets, the
> relative weakness of conventional socialist planning becomes more and
> more glaring. So, the first weakness a planned economy would have to
> overcome is, ironically, rigidity.
>
> At the same time, the main weakness of capitalism--its obliviousness
> towards transcendent human needs--has yet to really reach crisis. Right
> now it's operating on borrowed time, as it gobbles up new sources of
> cheap labor and as-yet-untapped, non-renewable resources. Once those
> luxuries are gone, one of two things happens: either we start exploiting
> outer space (and hope we find some unskilled aliens willing to make
> Nike's in return for a McDonald's franchise on Alpha Centauri), or the
> residents of planet Earth assert control of the monster that threatens to
> devour them. But doing so will have to exploit what I hope will be a
> fully developed, anarchic, cybernetic system that somehow avoids the
> Scylla of top-down state planning and the Charybidis of blind market
> signals in making investment decisions. What shape that society will take
> is beyond my event horizon, however.
>
> _________
> Tresy Kilbourne, Seattle WA
> "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be
> one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of
> blind-folded fear." --Thomas Jefferson, Letter, 10 Aug. 1787
>