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Communist Planning Versus Rationality
Mathematical Economics and the Central Plan in Eastern Europe and China
Editors:
Publisher:
2022
Summary
This volume examines concepts of central planning, a cornerstone of political economy in Soviet-type societies. It revolves around the theory of “optimal planning” which promised a profound modernization of Stalinist-style verbal planning. Encouraged by cybernetic dreams in the 1950s and supporting the strategic goals of communist leaders in the Cold War, optimal planners offered the ruling elites a panacea for the recurrent crises of the planned economy. Simultaneously, their planning projects conveyed the pride of rational management and scientific superiority over the West. The authors trace the rise and fall of the research program in the communist era in eight countries of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, and China, describing why the mission of optimization was doomed to fail and why the failure was nevertheless very slow. The theorists of optimal planning contributed to the rehabilitation of mathematical culture in economic research in the communist countries, and thus, to a neoclassical turn in economics all over the ex-communist world). However, because they have not rejected optimal planning as “computopia,” there is a large space left behind for future generations to experiment with Big Optimal Plans anew—based, at this time, on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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Bibliographic data
Edition
1/2022
Copyright year
2022
ISBN-Print
978-1-7936-3177-0
ISBN-Online
978-1-7936-3178-7
Publisher
Lexington, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
416
Product type
Edited Book
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 18
To Command or to Understand? No access Pages 19 - 54
Quantitative Economics in China No access Pages 55 - 80
Mathematical Economics and Central Planning No access Pages 81 - 108
Theory and Political Economy of Central Planning in East Germany No access Pages 109 - 144
Mathematical Economics Outside the Neoclassical Paradigm? No access Pages 145 - 210
Between Rationality and Reality No access Pages 211 - 226
The Failure of Communist Planning No access Pages 227 - 254
Communism = Soviet Power + Planning No access Pages 255 - 292
Mathematical Economics, Economic Modeling, and Planning in Yugoslavia No access Pages 293 - 318
Conclusion No access Pages 319 - 388
Index No access Pages 389 - 410
About the Editor and Contributors No access Pages 411 - 416
