Thoughts on the Planned Economy

[RedSonRising]

With many competing tendencies and methodologies among the left, the economic practices particular to each obviously differ as well. Do you support a Planned Economy? I appreciate your opinions, so please justify your position.

[Q]

I voted: Yes, but only after a transition from a worker-run economy.

Trotsky nutshelled it well: "Socialism without democracy is like the human body without oxygen". A planned economy can only work with full workers control and management.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Of course a socialist economy requires workers' control. But I prefer this to take the form of control by the entire working class over the entire economy - in other words, a democratic planned economy - as opposed to control by some workers over some parts of the economy (as in an economy of independent workers' cooperatives).

[Nwoye]

there must be a distinction between different formulations of economic planning. for example, there is central planning by bureaucrats and part members (the USSR), and there is cooperation among firms to organize production around worker demand. I would support the latter, but I strongly oppose the former.

[JammyDodger]

I voted yes but with focus de-centralised, option 2 and found myself alone:crying::cool:

Im sort of both in option one and two, with correct organisation and a decent body of statistitions option one is fine but an element of option two will help facilitate option one imho.

The use of the best practices in data collection and thumbing that data is a must though.

[New Tet]

I abstain because there is is no "Yes, but only if its democratic."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Worker run" and "planned economy" aren't contradictions in terms. This poll is bogus.

[Q]

I abstain because there is is no "Yes, but only if its democratic."
I think that there is. But then again, this points out the poll options are too vague.

[RedSonRising]

Excuse me if I made the concepts of worker-run business and a planned economy appear contradictory, I meant in the sense of private cooperatives with workers in a company or factory controlling solely aspects of their production, as opposed to workers having input in the larger sectors of the economy or whole industries, thus allowing a form of competition.

And of course, a planned economy is implied to be democratic.

Sorry if the wording is so confusing, I tried my best to illustrate the different models I was trying to convey within the limit of the options.

[Asoka89]

As much planning as possible (democratic of course) as much market (worker cooperatives with public control of investing) as necessary. i see the consumer goods market largely cooperative driven (workers rent the means of production, not own it from the state pay a taxation rate (rent).)

[RedSonRising]

As much planning as possible (democratic of course) as much market (worker cooperatives with public control of investing) as necessary. i see the consumer goods market largely cooperative driven (workers rent the means of production, not own it from the state pay a taxation rate (rent).)


Sorry, can you clarify your point on the consumer goods market? I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Thanks :)

[More Fire for the People]

During the transitional phase between capitalism and socialism there will be (1) nationalization of large industries; (2) co-operatization of small industries; (3) introduction of municipal and central planning, with an emphasis on the former. This process may be slow or fast and a market economy may prevail for some time but the key factor is that the means of production are owned and controlled by the workers who use them.

[Yazman]

Its not really my preferred system (see my tendency) but I'm not sectarian enough to oppose it, and its still better than a market economy (which I oppose universally) so I voted yes.

[robbo203]

This whole concept of the planned economy is vague and confusing. Even the most laissez Faire version of capitalism has lots of "planning" in it. Capitalist enterprises make and carry out "plans". It is just that the interactions between the thousands of plans that go in capitalism is unplanned- is "spontaneously ordered", in other words.

Unless you propose to have an economy in which the relationships between all these plans are themselves also planned in advance (in terms of the flow of inputs and outputs) - society-wide or central planning as some call it - then inevitably there will be a strong element of spontaneous ordering in any economy - capitalist or socialist. I for one do not believe society-wide planning is even remotely possible. The complexity of modern production today is such that there is no way you can carry out the computations involved - even with the most sophisticated computer technology. There are literally millions of different kinds of factor inputs and it would be literally impossible to arrange them in some kind of gigantic leontief input-output matrix for the very simple reason that the input and output flows are constantly subject to modification. TBecuase of the knock on effects involved this will require the plan to be constantly modified and therefore to bcome literally unusable

The state capitalist regime of the Soviet Union was of course not a planned economy in the sense I have described above. The interactions between the state were not "planned" in that sense. In fact the plans were more or less a farce. Very often they would change midstream during implementation of the plan. Output targets in terms of phsycial quantities would frequently be amended so as to appear that the plan was being fulfilled. Plans were in the main just a vague wish list that did not so much shape reality as were shaped by reality - constantly. Relationships between state enterrpises were market based - production factors were bought and sold as commodities - despite the legal fiction of the state owning everything. And even if this had not been the case, "The Soviet Union Inc. ", to the extent that it was irrevocably embedded in and part of global capitalism, would still have been vulnerable to market forces which would have made a mockery of the notion of a so called planned economy.

Personally, I wish people would stop using the expression of a "planned economy". It is highly misleading and shifts the focus away from the quality of the social relationships that define a social system to the technical question of the desired scale of planning

[Black Sheep]

"Worker run" and "planned economy" aren't contradictions in terms. This poll is bogus.

Exactly.As if whoever will click the pro-planned economy option is a fan of classism.

[RedSonRising]

Exactly.As if whoever will click the pro-planned economy option is a fan of classism.

I did not mean to imply that planning cannot be subject to workers' control, as I have posted above, I was simply trying to distinguish a system of planning of an industry made by the community/workers or their representative VS small cooperatives managed by workers that may compete with other worker-run businesses in a market fashion. Forgive me if using the word "worker-run" to describe cooperatives made it appear I was assuming planning is inherently authoritarian.

[Invariance]

http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Lecture_notes/Planning/plan_Aa_anim.gif

[ckaihatsu]

( Please see my blog entry. )

[nenad krickovich]

i think is self-menaged regionaly planned economy is best way to development industry and increase jobs for people and workers eficiency in jobs.

[Hyacinth]

I for one do not believe society-wide planning is even remotely possible. The complexity of modern production today is such that there is no way you can carry out the computations involved - even with the most sophisticated computer technology. There are literally millions of different kinds of factor inputs and it would be literally impossible to arrange them in some kind of gigantic leontief input-output matrix for the very simple reason that the input and output flows are constantly subject to modification. TBecuase of the knock on effects involved this will require the plan to be constantly modified and therefore to bcome literally unusable
People are prone to gross hyperbole when it comes to discussions of the alleged impossibility of socialist planning, as well they underestimate the great advances made in computing over the last two decades.

Your first objection is that the task of solving the linear equations for a modern economy is computationally insurmountable. While even not too long ago this was certainly true, given that, say, in the early 1990's working with the supercomputers at the time (say, of 500 MFLOPS) to solve, using Gaussian elimination applied to the input-output tables for an economy of, say, 1 million distinct outputs, would have required 50 billion seconds, i.e., 16 thousand years.* Today, in contrast, we're reading with supercomputers in the pentaflop range, with IBM's Roadrunner currently holding the top title at 1.71 PFLOPS. This is a speed increase in the order of approximately 3 million. So we're going from 50 billion seconds to solve the equations, to ~17 thousand seconds, i.e. ~280 minutes, i.e. ~4.5 hours. Much more reasonable, and it makes the problem tractable for the purposes of developing an economy plan. And, if this still isn't fast enough for you, fortunately we just have to wait around a bit thanks to Moore's law.

The second issue that you raise is in terms of data gathering and the corresponding adjustments that would need to be made to any plan given the changes in the world. This I see as a better objection, but, once again, it is a gross exaggeration to say that the problem is insurmountable. We already have the means to keep track of, in real time, of both consumption and production. Such technology is already employed under capitalism by retailers to keep track of stock and consumption patterns, as well, by producers to monitor the production line. And, as for adjusting the plan to correspond to various changes in the world, this could be done through cybernetic control mechanisms that automatically adjust the plan, and inform producers of said adjustments, in order to maintain a certain economic homeostatis. Mechanisms such as this are, once again, employed almost ubiquitously in modern production lines, it would be a matter of extending them to the whole economy. No easy task, to be sure, but the continual adjustment of the economy via cybernetic control mechanisms in order to maintain a homeostatic equalibrium in real time is far from impossible. And continued advances in technology will only make the task easier.

*[Cockshott and Cottrell, in Toward a New Socialism, proposed using successive approximation instead of Gaussian elimination to solve the equations, in order to make the task computationally surmountable at that time, though reading some of Cockshott's more recent works I get the impression that he has moved away from this position, insofar as it is no longer technically required.]

[LOLseph Stalin]

I do support a planned economy, yes, but under certain conditions. It must be worker-controlled and run democratically. The system in the Soviet Union was much too bureaucratic.

[robbo203]

People are prone to gross hyperbole when it comes to discussions of the alleged impossibility of socialist planning, as well they underestimate the great advances made in computing over the last two decades.

Your first objection is that the task of solving the linear equations for a modern economy is computationally insurmountable. While even not too long ago this was certainly true, given that, say, in the early 1990's working with the supercomputers at the time (say, of 500 MFLOPS) to solve, using Gaussian elimination applied to the input-output tables for an economy of, say, 1 million distinct outputs, would have required 50 billion seconds, i.e., 16 thousand years.* Today, in contrast, we're reading with supercomputers in the pentaflop range, with IBM's Roadrunner currently holding the top title at 1.71 PFLOPS. This is a speed increase in the order of approximately 3 million. So we're going from 50 billion seconds to solve the equations, to ~17 thousand seconds, i.e. ~280 minutes, i.e. ~4.5 hours. Much more reasonable, and it makes the problem tractable for the purposes of developing an economy plan. And, if this still isn't fast enough for you, fortunately we just have to wait around a bit thanks to Moore's law.

The second issue that you raise is in terms of data gathering and the corresponding adjustments that would need to be made to any plan given the changes in the world. This I see as a better objection, but, once again, it is a gross exaggeration to say that the problem is insurmountable. We already have the means to keep track of, in real time, of both consumption and production. Such technology is already employed under capitalism by retailers to keep track of stock and consumption patterns, as well, by producers to monitor the production line. And, as for adjusting the plan to correspond to various changes in the world, this could be done through cybernetic control mechanisms that automatically adjust the plan, and inform producers of said adjustments, in order to maintain a certain economic homeostatis. Mechanisms such as this are, once again, employed almost ubiquitously in modern production lines, it would be a matter of extending them to the whole economy. No easy task, to be sure, but the continual adjustment of the economy via cybernetic control mechanisms in order to maintain a homeostatic equalibrium in real time is far from impossible. And continued advances in technology will only make the task easier.

*[Cockshott and Cottrell, in Toward a New Socialism, proposed using successive approximation instead of Gaussian elimination to solve the equations, in order to make the task computationally surmountable at that time, though reading some of Cockshott's more recent works I get the impression that he has moved away from this position, insofar as it is no longer technically required.]

My critique of central planning or "society-wide planning" rests not on the question of whether or not the computational capability exists to make millions of linear equations. I quite happy to go along with the argument that a supercomputer exists that has such a capability. What makes society wide planning completely out of the question for me is the problem of data gathering and information which you contend is "not insurmountable" .

With respect, in saying that the problem is "not insurmountable" this demonstrates that you do not really understand what is meant by central or society wide planning. Central planning is the proposal to replace the millions of plans, that interact with each other spontaneously, with a "single vast plan". Or to put it differently, it is the proposal to plan the interactions between the many plans, to eliminate the way in which they spontanously interact.

You refer to mechanisms whereby economic homeostasis can be achieved such as the monitoring of consumption patterns. I quite agree that such mechanisms exist but what you are proposing here is not central planning as such. Homeostatic mechanisms such as stock control presuppose (relatively) decentralised production - not a single society wide plan

In the soviet state capitalist system, what was called "central planning"was, of sheer necessity, far less centralised than is sometimes imagined by its enthusiasts. State enterprises did indeed have a not insignificant degree of room for manouvere in respect of a host of different things - from the fixing of wage levels to the determination of product mix. The plans handed down after consultation between GOSPLAN and lower levels in the decisionmaking chain (leading to revision and adjustment in the "light of material balances") were all pretty much useless as "plans" go. What normally happened is that the plan would only be made available sometime after the commencement of the implementation period and even then the plan would be subject to constant revision. If the number of tractors produced corresponded to the what appeared in the plan this would only be becuase the target output of tractors had been adjusted upwards or downwards to fit what had happened in reality. But it looks good on paper and for propaganda purposes to declare that the plan had been fulfilled. In fact, never in the entire history of the USSR was a plan strictly "fulfilled" so what exactly was the point of it all. This whole cumbersome bureaucratic process becoming increasingly inefficient as the economy diversified into light manufacturing and tertiary activities making the data gathering process increasingly more problematic from the planners point of view. No wonder the soviet union collapsed; it has become increasingly uncompetitive and economically stagnant in capitalist terms. So the red fat cats in the state apparatus switched to a more profitable ways of doing business and morphed into oligarchs

Central planning - and even the USSR was not strictly speaking a centrally planned economy in that sense - is a non starter. I am not quite sure what form of planning you have in mind - possibly, what is called "indicative" planning - but the homeostatic mechanisms you talk about are emphatically not examples of central planning in its classical sense

[ComradeOm]

...but the homeostatic mechanisms you talk about are emphatically not examples of central planning in its classical senseAs practised where?

[robbo203]

As practised where?


Well Hyacinth gave the answer to this:

" Mechanisms such as this are, once again, employed almost ubiquitously in modern production lines, it would be a matter of extending them to the whole economy"

Except that I am not quite sure what s/he means by "extending them to the whole economy". Homeostasis as I said inevitably implies a degree of decentralisation and the absence of a priori society wide planning whereby the parts of the economy interact with each other spontaneously

Modern supermarket chains are a good example of this. The depletion of stock from the shelves is monitored constantly and this triggers signals or requests to the suppliers further down the production/distribution chain for more stock. The basis on which such a system of stock control operates is calculation in kind (Otto Neurath) which is absolutely indispensable to any modern system of production, including capitalism. Except that capitalism also involves a parallel system of monetary account which socialism would have no need for. However, what socialism will inherit from capitalism and utilise to good effect is a functioning system of stock control which eliminates the need for what is, in any case, a wholly impracticable notion of central planning in the sense of society wide planning

[ckaihatsu]

A few of the "faces" here, and I, have discussed this issue before, on other threads here at RevLeft.

All that I can add to the discussion here is to perhaps point out that it might be helpful to *re-conceptualize* the subject of this discussion -- to look at it from a different perspective.

There seems to be a general agreement here around a post-capitalist 'homeostatic' functioning of a socialist economy, and I would be in agreement with this model -- the writing in my blog entry is oriented along these lines, too.

The only part of this discussion that seems to be unresolved, or uncertain, is about the use and practice of the term 'central planning'. All I can say to address this is to note that, while much of the day-to-day, routine flows of a socialized economy would be more or less automatic, there would be another component to the economy, and that would be the *political* aspect of it.

Since we would be rid of the complications of (strictly-)capital management and the profit motive we would experience a matching up of available supply to actual human need in the most *logistically fluid* of ways, especially by utilizing the existing technologies of stock / inventory control, as others have mentioned here.

In fact we here can all imagine this so clearly that we would seem to have exhausted the topic of a post-capitalist (socialist) economics altogether, except for the outstanding part about 'central planning'. Many severe and contentious ideological schisms have erupted and continue to separate otherwise fairly politically close orientations on the revolutionary left because of this issue.

In the past I've used the blunt, imprecise term of 'federalism' to try to describe this dynamic of retaining local workers' control while attempting to have sound administration over broader, generalized areas so as to realize efficiencies of scale and resource allocation (and consistent policy). But the term 'federalism' is burdened by its bourgeois baggage, besides also intrinsically being a *political* -- not *economic* -- term. Many of us could fairly easily envision a feasible post-capitalist (communist) society that would self-organize into *very* sound and efficient practices after a short or long while.

But this vision also *begs the question* -- shouldn't we be able to *describe* and *plan for* such a worker-based economy, from local to general levels, if we *are* to *self-organize* -- even *before* we have taken hold of the reins of control? Is it acceptable to make the *experiential* argument that we would have to be in the driver's seat *first* to really know what it's like, and *then*, at *that* point we would have the requisite knowledge and experience to do it the right way?

I would *much rather* resolve this issue *ahead* of time, as much as possible, so that we can be in agreement for when capitalism weakens (even further), driving ever more people into the realization of their own class consciousness and self-realized motivations for overthrowing it as part of the world's working class.

So, what then could 'central planning' entail?

In short it could simply be described as all of the bottom-up, emergent, *non-standard* issues that arise in the course of the normal workings of the post-capitalist (socialist) economy. While there would be day-to-day 'homeostasis' for regular economic routines, we couldn't simply run the entire global economy off of one database and walk away.

Worker oversight and administration would be required on an ongoing basis to make sure that 1. homeostasis is indeed in effect, and 2. that there are no unaddressed issues pertaining to the economy (supply and demand) coming from the area administered. There will always be *novel* issues or concerns that come about -- from developments in biotechnology, perhaps, on the supply side, or dealing with the after-effects of a hard-hitting hurricane -- maybe to patch up and reconfigure a local economy's logistics -- on the demand side....

Administration -- especially the kind stemming from an economy that has transcended capitalism and its drive to profit, and run entirely by its workers -- should be one that is set up with the potential to be *benign*. Simply making co-administration a *civic duty* on par with our obligation these days to be good recyclers, means that both the *mystique* and the *drive to power* could readily be *eliminated* from the function of administration. A worker-run society could very well open *many* common civic positions to routine, rotating stints that *everyone* would take a turn at, effectively supporting an almost "automatic", permanent, meta-intelligent institution of mass administration that is based on, yet *transcends*, the participation of all of its position-holders.

Another way of envisioning this, in a less-formal way, is to simply say that the TV news, newspapers, and magazines -- the conventional mass media of the day -- would report on and reflect the major concerns of the day of the *masses of workers*, and the *mass worker administration*, rather than what we have today, which is the reporting on the *elitist concerns* of the major nations and the most influential societal people.

Having the mass media reflect the *social* concerns of the *masses*, on a daily basis, means that -- to put it simply -- everything *except* voluntarism would be excluded, while at the same time enabling everyone through generalized, humane material support from society as a whole.

Those who are naturally news-junkie types or happen to be more interested in daily news events would be more active around the mass administrative issues of the day.

And, on the administrative side, *all* administrative positions would not only be subject to the will of the local workers, *and* short-term and rotating -- so as to eliminate the consolidation of power -- but they would also be *entirely voluntary*, just an aspect of everyone's routine social civic duty.

*Finally*, some concerns, by their nature, will span over *generalized areas*. While they would be open to public discussion, they would have to *draw from* and *interface across* many locales' areas of worker-based production. Some examples might be the allocation of water from a large lake, or the supply of certain safe infant-oriented products as a *standard* policy so as to avoid inconsistencies or pockets of unregulated, sub-standard supplies.

In this sense, this *broadened* territory of administration could be termed 'centralized planning' -- really it would be a *dynamic system* of *nested tiers* of administration, all derived from active workers, and responsible to their respective populations.


Chris








--




--
___

RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162

Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
community.webshots.com/user/ckaihatsu/

3D Design Communications - Let Your Design Do Your Footwork
ckaihatsu.elance.com

MySpace:
myspace.com/ckaihatsu

CouchSurfing:
tinyurl.com/yoh74u


-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[robbo203]

[QUOTE=ckaihatsu;1494034]The only part of this discussion that seems to be unresolved, or uncertain, is about the use and practice of the term 'central planning'. All I can say to address this is to note that, while much of the day-to-day, routine flows of a socialized economy would be more or less automatic, there would be another component to the economy, and that would be the *political* aspect of it.

In this sense, this *broadened* territory of administration could be termed 'centralized planning' -- really it would be a *dynamic system* of *nested tiers* of administration, all derived from active workers, and responsible to their respective populations.
QUOTE]

Any kind of society requires "planning". Capitalism is full of planning. What is at issue is simply the structure of decisionmaking.

Central planning in the sense of society wide planning - one single vast plan for the totality of decisions to be made in a communist society - I think we can all agree is out of the question. Some individuals however still like to talk about central planning although they mean by this something quite different to society wide planning. This is unfortunate. I think the expression central planning should be permitted to die a natural death. It is so misleading

You are right - socialism would be a "dynamic system* of *nested tiers* of administration". In other words a multiplicity of centres operating at different levels - local , regional and global. This complex structure of decisionmaking would co-exist with the normal "day-to-day, routine flows of a socialized economy" which be more or less automatic and self regulating as you say

[TC]

all economies are planned economies because 'private property rights' are state planning policies that recognize one individuals power over other individuals with regard to their behavior towards a given object held out as property. This amounts to central regulation as strict as any other with the full power of state violence behind it. The only reason why this isn't obvious is because private property has been reified as if anyone actually 'owns' something on a metaphysical level beyond the status of 'owning' meaning that one can predict the action of uniformed armed people (cops) according to whom they perceive to 'own' it and what they perceive to be the rules governing their 'ownership' of it. In contrast because no one has lived in a public ownership based economy for multiple generations when the state does not plan the economy according to private interest, the manner in which it does plan it is seen as 'planning' even though its no more or less planned then in a private economy.

[Lynx]

Planned or Planning are not the best words to use to describe an economic model. When we are in the process of designing something, those activities may be considered plan-related. But once established, the structure of an economic model is no longer a plan, it is a cumulative result. Predicting or responding to consumer demand is not an example of 'planning', it is better categorized as an ability.

[Vanguard1917]

A consciously planned, socialist economy requires workers' management. In contrast to capitalist economies, in which economic forces are regulated unconsciously and spontaneously through the market mechanism, a socialist economy is characterised by conscious regulation, and this necessitates the active decision-making of the working class. So, for example, i reject the idea that the economies of Stalinist societies were 'planned', since this implies that there was conscious as opposed to spontaneous regulation of economic forces. In reality, a society can't break free from economic spontaneity and achieve a planned economy without the democratic management of economic forces, which is a precondition for conscious economic planning.

[Hyacinth]

@robbo203: There might be some miscommunication between us. I never specifically spoke of central planning as such, and I'm happy to concede the point that what I, and others, seem to be proposing isn't central planning, but I think it merely a verbal disagreement. The job of the plan and various planning mechanisms is not to hand out orders from above, but to coordinate production of society as a whole so as to maximize the satisfaction of preferences as determined both by tracking consumption patterns, as well as through direct democratic input into the planning process by the populace. When you say that "socialism would be a 'dynamic system' of 'nested tiers' of administration'. In other words a multiplicity of centres operating at different levels - local , regional and global. This complex structure of decision-making would co-exist with the normal 'day-to-day, routine flows of a socialized economy' which be more or less automatic and self regulating as you say," I think that exactly right.

[Hyacinth]

An addendum: On reflection, I do think it misleading to speak of what is being proposed as a planned economy as such, insofar as it is correct to say that planning, and even society-wide coordination, take place in any economic system. What we are really proposing is, as I see it, (a) the democratization of economic decision making, and (b) non-market mechanisms by which to coordinate economic activity. Both are essential.

[leveller]

I vote Yes

But the caveat i'd add is that the people doing the planning need to be democratically accountable.

And that a planned economy should cover the macro economic aims, and leave an element of freedom in smaller economic activities, as nod to the 'association of free producers', and allow the possibility of free production to fill in any gaps left by the plan.

[Misanthrope]

I think a socialist market is necessary after capitalism is obsolete, from there I think a collectivist anarchist or communist system can take over.

[RedSonRising]

I think a socialist market is necessary after capitalism is obsolete, from there I think a collectivist anarchist or communist system can take over.

This is basically how I feel revolutionary economic transition should occur; a seizing of the current production units in place by the labor force of such businesses and several key nationalizations, along with utilization of the advantages of the previous market, until production levels and democratic implementation allows for productive forces to transform into a community-based decision-making process that replaces the market.

[ckaihatsu]

[T]he people doing the planning need to be democratically accountable.


I think just freeing up the political process from the *careerism* and vested, unchanging interests of the propertied class would go a long way towards simply re-orienting the political process towards being one of *issues*, as opposed to elections or head-honcho summit meetings with power politics.

I think the public would find that the prevailing political issues being discussed in the mass media would be about *real issues*, and so would be more grassroots and social-practical in nature, no matter which groups of workers happened to be in the rotation in administrative positions at the moment.

In the absence of private ownership and power politics there could be a universal focus on the *administration of material* in common, instead of a parade of personalities.

I continue to enjoy conceptualizing it as a *future RevLeft*, in which many topics over many geographical areas would be discussed, with an absolute minimum of egoism -- difference is, in the future the discussions would actually *effect policy*.





And that a planned economy should cover the macro economic aims, and leave an element of freedom in smaller economic activities, as nod to the 'association of free producers', and allow the possibility of free production to fill in any gaps left by the plan.


Any issues that are not generalized enough and not catching of the public's attention would, by definition (or by empirical reality) *not* be political / politicized. Some policy items would inevitably *have to* affect everyone -- (and this is where some political disagreements arise) -- but much of the public policy decided by the workers over the collectivized (large-scale) means of industrial mass production would simply *not be applicable* to lower-level, or smaller-scale concerns.

[Paul Cockshott]

*[Cockshott and Cottrell, in Toward a New Socialism, proposed using successive approximation instead of Gaussian elimination to solve the equations, in order to make the task computationally surmountable at that time, though reading some of Cockshott's more recent works I get the impression that he has moved away from this position, insofar as it is no longer technically required.]

No successive approximation is still much better

[JJM 777]

I support central planning. Decentralized planning sounds vague and mysterious to me, I have difficulties trusting that it can produce effective results. I have never seen decentralized planning in action though.

[Psy]

The problem with de-centralization is the fact that capitalism has centralized the means of production, so you have productive forces producing utility that is consumed far away, for example televisions engineered in Japan and manufactured in China are consumed half way around the world.

Yes we can spread it out (and that is probably a good idea) but you can't engineer and produce TVs in every community and would not want to.