I think that a non-Hegelian view of knowledge and reality, as advanced by Roy Bhaskar (and Marx himself for that matter), obviates an alleged equation of planning with the presumption of "complete or perfect" knowledge (which I don't think Charles is presuming in any case, I may add). One doesn't have to be a post-structuralist or a Freudian/Hayekian to argue against the presumption of "complete or perfect" knowledge in planning. (Is Angela familiar with Bhaskar's work? I'd be interested in her response to Bhaskar, since I have not come across any post-structuralist reply to Bhaskar and the Critical Realist trend.) If anyone is interested in Bhaskar's work, I recommend _Reclaiming Reality_ and his entries in _A Dictionary of Marxist Thought_ (ed. Tom Bottomore) as the most readable among his works. Also, Martha Gimenez has offered an Althusserian structuralist view modified through a marxist-feminist perspective on the subject of knowledge and reality. Those who are interested in her view should consult "The Oppression of Women: a Structuralist Marxist View" (originally published in 1978, now anthologized in _Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives_, eds. Rosemary Hennessy & Chrys Ingraham, Routledge, 1997)
On the subject of knowledge and planning, the starting point of any debate ought to assume "(always) incomplete" (i.e. non-perfect) knowledge (and this "incompleteness" is self-evidently inherent in all human endeavors, not just in socialist planning). If anything, the premise of "incomplete" knowledge is *an argument against all utopian socialist blueprints (a la market socialism and participatory democracy, for instance)*, not against the necessity of planning, socialist or otherwise. In planning, I think we should aim for effectiveness (an effective satisfaction of most human wants), which is not only not the same as the idea of perfection, but is *in fact opposed to it*. It is unnecessary and impossible to anticipate _all_ possible wants that human beings may develop; but historical materialist analysis may allow us to determine relatively well (i.e. better than capitalism and utopian socialist/anarchist blueprints) how we may go about satisfying existing ones that socialism must provide for (while creating room for further free development of each individual), through a critique of capitalism and examination of existing possibilities for socialization brought about by the very same capitalism.
That said, at this point in history, we might spend more time than we do now upon thinking what _not_ to be planned by the State. In abortion threads on lbo, m-fem, and pen-l, I have argued against population control discourse and for reproductive rights and services (to be _socially provided for_ but _individually made use of_). I think of such negative criticisms as of importance to marxist-feminist struggles.
Last but not the least, whatever body or bodies may do socialist planning in the future, the key must be how we may incorporate both democratic participation and efficiency/effectiveness. For instance, though Slavenka Drakulic is an anticommunist, we may still learn from some of her essays. She speaks, for instance, what the non-provision of tampons in many a socialist country pointed to: disregard (or severely inadequate regard) for many of women's needs and desires, actual or possible. And this disregard (of needs and desires of women that fell beyond pro-natalist policies and efforts toward quantitatively gender-equal labor participation, which are not to be underestimated), I argue, was caused by the lack of democratic participation by women beyond tokenism, which in turn was caused by the retreat on the part of communist parties on the question of women's emancipation and sexual liberation. I agree with those male Marxists who try to encourage us to think of this retreat as caused by capitalist encirclement, pre-existing underdevelopment, and so forth, but such a perspective, though necessary, cannot fully explain the causes of the retreat.
Yoshie