The Fundamental Problem of Command: Plan and Compliance in a Partially Centralized Economy

Mark Harrison ()

Chapter 10 in The Economics of Coercion and Conflict, 2014, pp 305-323 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: In The Economics of Soviet Planning Abram Bergson (1964: 327–9) distinguished between the economic merit and the rationality of socialism. The merit of socialism was to be gauged by the efficiency with which it satisfied consumer welfare. Its rationality could be measured not only against consumer welfare but also in relation to “planners' preferences”. Rationality in either sense, he suggested, is best measured by ‘the degree to which conduct conforms to the material ends sought.… We are thus led to ask, in respect to Soviet conduct regarding resource use, the cardinal question that arises in respect to economic conduct generally: In terms of what material ends and to what extent is such behavior economically rational?’…

Keywords: Defence; Dictatorship; Coercion; Conflict; Procurement; Mobilization; Political Economy; Repression; War (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Journal Article: The Fundamental Problem of Command: Plan and Compliance in a Partially Centralised Economy (2005)
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