* From: ravi
To be honest, I do not fully understand the meaning of the term "central planning". Is NASA central planning? What if they sourced their parts and even research from diverse entities? Confusing stuff (to me). ^^^^^ CB: I think it is a metaphor based on the idea that the center of a circle is equidistant from all points on the circle, and therefore the center can be used to represent the whole. In other words, central planning means planning the whole of the economy, coordinating the parts. It doesn't mean planning to totality in its details every last activity of everybody, but rather all the "big" parts, coordinating the big parts that make up the whole economy, all the fundamentals, all the "basic means of production". Specifically, making sure that everybody has the basic necessities. It doesn't rule out small independent enterprises as long as these do not disrupt the larger plan. It doesn't mean that there are no communications and feedback loops between the "parts' and the "center". In other words, it doesn't imply an utterly top down or undemocratic process, as many say. It is economic democratic centralism. It means all the communications from the "parts" are coordinated at the "top", etc. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
