> Modifying this metaphor a bit, more like central planning was
> a motorcycle in comparison with a market economy bicycle,
> since the Soviet initial industrial growth was much faster
> than that of the industrialized bicyclists had been.
Charles, there is no doubt in my mind that planned economy was a splendid solution to the multiple problems Russia faced - but let's not get carried away. There were serious internal problems that did them in, not their enemies. We've been on that road many times, so let's not repeat ourselves.
Far more important is a broader point, raised inter alia by Gramsci and Polanyi, that the organization of the economy is not everything, you also need civil society. Russia lacked the latter, Trotsky recognized that and hoped that the proletariat would step up to the plate and fill in the void by self-organization. Maybe he was right maybe he wasn't, but we have no way of knowing because another path was chosen by Lenin and Stalin - one that filled that void in with the state. The fact that this solution worked for a while - and worked quite well indeed - does not mean that the lack of civil society was not important. Actually it was - it was did the USSR when central controls were dropped by Gorbachev.
But even within the central planning there serious problems with information flow. The system needed good information to function efficiently, but did not have the apparatus to procure such information. It relied on reporting by plant managers and local authorities - and these in the good old Russian fashion pilfered whatever goodies they could and wrote false reports to cover that up. This is a well known thing not the US propaganda, that resulted in the so-called "taut planning" which introduced another systematic error into the planning process. The planners knew that plant managers were intentionally providing false reports and they tried to correct that by "guestimating" their actual capacity and needs.
Another systemic problem was the informal economy - the pre-modern social relations carried over to the industrial age that sabotaged all rational planning by nepotism, under the table deals, informal barters, theft or informal "privatization" of public resources from widely spread shirking to bribery and to theft. Then there was the idiocy of the rural life - drunken stupor, herd mentality, and mindless violence - carried over to factories and urban life. For a glimpse, check out Venedikt Yerofeev, _M-oscow Stations_ http://www.ukauthors.com/article2090.html- a harrowing description of the "ordinary" life in x-USSR. Toward the end, it was not planning anymore at that point but a guesswork and shadow economy all over.
We do not know how well central planning would function in a society that actually had a functioning civil society that would keep these social dysfunctionalities under control. If Japan is any indication (actually they have something quite close to central planning) - I would imagine that the US would be a Soviet republic today. But it did not happen this way, and that is a reminder that economic system is not enough.
Wojtek