Mixing political and economic systems makes things more complicated. Being told what to produce and consume removes personal initiative and creativity at the execution level. This tends to be less efficient than when personal incentives or autonomous methods are used. The resulting products also tend to lack in quality even if quantit…
Mixing political and economic systems makes things more complicated. Being told what to produce and consume removes personal initiative and creativity at the execution level. This tends to be less efficient than when personal incentives or autonomous methods are used. The resulting products also tend to lack in quality even if quantity goals are met. Take Russian commercial aircraft - you don't see them outside of Russia primarily because of quality. China has many examples as well - cheep Chinese stuff. Note the word cheep vs inexpensive. Cheep has quality implications. Labor rates and production volume makes products less expensive, but at a cost to quality for fear of missing production targets. Production quantity is the primary metric in measuring efficiency (and revenue), especially in a command economy.
The political system is different altogether. Participatory versus Limited Democracy and the distribution of power therein. Russia is a federal, democratic state, but power is concentrated through influence and government channels. I'd characterize Russia more on the limited democracy side. The US is a participatory democracy where the democratically elected leaders gave away their power over the years to form governing bodies that are supposed to over-seen rather than directed. Unfortunately, the overseeing part is failing and highly corrupt. They operate with impunity because oversight is so poor or perverted by special interests. The US is a participatory democracy on paper, but operates as a limited democracy and tending toward a federation of government autocracies that are coordinated in action. Bottom line, the US government is broken and it will take both defensive and offensive actions to resist change.
There are pros and cons to a command economy. Arguably, if WW II had gone on longer, without any sign of winning, the War Production Act would have been subverted, and the few young men left at home would have started a second "black" economy with the many underutilized, man-less women. But in the short term, there was very little "wasted," (read leisure) time. This semblance of efficiency made up the missing entrepreneurial innovations.
At the military end, dedication resulted in a tremendous advance in areas like nuclear technology and radar.
Mixing political and economic systems makes things more complicated. Being told what to produce and consume removes personal initiative and creativity at the execution level. This tends to be less efficient than when personal incentives or autonomous methods are used. The resulting products also tend to lack in quality even if quantity goals are met. Take Russian commercial aircraft - you don't see them outside of Russia primarily because of quality. China has many examples as well - cheep Chinese stuff. Note the word cheep vs inexpensive. Cheep has quality implications. Labor rates and production volume makes products less expensive, but at a cost to quality for fear of missing production targets. Production quantity is the primary metric in measuring efficiency (and revenue), especially in a command economy.
The political system is different altogether. Participatory versus Limited Democracy and the distribution of power therein. Russia is a federal, democratic state, but power is concentrated through influence and government channels. I'd characterize Russia more on the limited democracy side. The US is a participatory democracy where the democratically elected leaders gave away their power over the years to form governing bodies that are supposed to over-seen rather than directed. Unfortunately, the overseeing part is failing and highly corrupt. They operate with impunity because oversight is so poor or perverted by special interests. The US is a participatory democracy on paper, but operates as a limited democracy and tending toward a federation of government autocracies that are coordinated in action. Bottom line, the US government is broken and it will take both defensive and offensive actions to resist change.
There are pros and cons to a command economy. Arguably, if WW II had gone on longer, without any sign of winning, the War Production Act would have been subverted, and the few young men left at home would have started a second "black" economy with the many underutilized, man-less women. But in the short term, there was very little "wasted," (read leisure) time. This semblance of efficiency made up the missing entrepreneurial innovations.
At the military end, dedication resulted in a tremendous advance in areas like nuclear technology and radar.