Austrian Economics Forum: livid -

It is rather looking for a right balance between central economy and capitalism, than simply "moving away from command economy".

Capitalism is another extreme, just like completely planned central economy. Both have pros and cons; and i believe that it is quite possible to take good parts from both and leave out the rest.

That is exactly the case if you are looking at each republic of Soviet Union separately; but USSR's economy as a whole was planned according to what each and every republic could produce and consume. Say, Geaorgia had to pursue certain types of agriculture (tea for instance) and another republic would specialize in different agricultural goods. So although Georgia wouldn't consume all the tea it produced, that tea would be distributed in other places in USSR; and in exchange Georgia would recieve grain and whatnot. Same goes to all sorts of industrial production: one piece of a certain machinery could be produced in Georgia, another somewhere nearby moscow, and all of it would be assembled in kazakhstan. Moreover, labour was all planned out as well so that trained specialists would be guaranteed a job but only where they were needed.

I guess it was an attempt to achieve higher efficiency via specialization. That is local regions specialised to achieve economies of scale, so that the Soviet Union as a whole (single entity) could achieve economies of scope.

Also I've got to mention that this sort of planned economy virtually left no space for speculation, which is good in my opinion.




So when the Soviet Union collapsed, it became free-for-all despite the fact that, at that time, former soviet republics depended (and probably still do depend on) that interconnection among each other.

BTW, the article you cite does note that "Over-specialization" , which in my opinion is sort of silly because Georgia suffered from that "Over-specialization" only after it abandoned USSR.

Of course there are cons as well. Imagine being told were to work or what to produce... But don't markets do pretty much the same? And again, you could go to any school for free in the Soviet Union....

Nevertheless, the entire concept of planned economy is pretty solid.

Hey i was thinking that most discussions involve keynesian, neoclassical and monetarist schools. In 4 years of studying economics, my profs never even mentioned any economists or economic works that were not related to these 3 three schools (except for Marx once in a while). Austrian economics and the likes also imply consumerism.

But there are economists that don't see consumerism as a legitimate driving force of the economy. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

That' s not an argument... It's barely a point of view

So far so good



There are still prices in socialist societies. I am not sure how you got to that conclusion.



yepp, pretty much, depending on your interpretation of opportunity cost. Say, do you miss out if you hang out with your friends for a couple hours instead of working for $20/hour?