There is no insitutional fix for socialism (or indeed any other social formation), rather we should be looking for those means which allow the proletariat to excerise its will and that means embracing the full gamat of possiblities.
Crntralizied planning's main damage resulted from it being exalted above every other means rather then being used as just one means amongst many.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: "Joe R. Golowka" <joeG at ieee.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 00:13:48 -0500 Subject: Re: "Central "Planning is really Holistic Planning.
> "Central "Planning is really Holistic Planning.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^
>
> CB: The logical paradox for the anti-centralized planners is as follows.
"Central" planning really means planning the whole thing, holistic planning.
Why on earth would the informational flow or anything else of the WHOLE be
more orderly and coordinated by the interactions of a few PARTS which are
explicitly forbidden to consider the WHOLE , ALL of the parts ? The
communications regarding parts between parts will not miraculously make a
better plan for the whole than an explicit effort to coordinate the
communications of the whole, all the parts.
You can have planning without centralized planning. Decentralized planning like Syndicalism and Parecon are other options, as is a gift economy. A problem with centralized planning is that it puts disproportianate power in the hands of the planners. By spreading decision making power around in a more decentralized model you get better decisions & info on what the different parts want.