Communist Planning versus Rationality (eBook, PDF)

Mathematical Economics and the Central Plan in Eastern Europe and China
Redaktion: Kovács, János Mátyás

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

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.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 424
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. April 2022
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781978790230
• Artikelnr.: 74841215

Autorenporträt

János Mátyás Kovács is honorary professor at Eötvös Lorand University, senior member at Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at University of Vienna, permanent fellow emeritus at Institute for Human Sciences, and visiting professor at Central European University.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: Another "Grand Illusion" - Optimizing the Central Plan
Chapter One: To Command or to Understand? Planning Concepts and Economic
Research in Communist Bulgaria
Chapter Two: Quantitative Economics in China. From Planned Economy to
Socialist Market Economy
Chapter Three: Mathematical Economics and Central Planning. Economic
Research in Czechoslovakia under Communism
Chapter Four: Theory and Political Economy of Central Planning in East
Germany
Chapter Five: Mathematical Economics outside the Neoclassical Paradigm?
Evolution of Planning Concepts in Hungary under Communism
Chapter 6: Between Rationality and Reality. Economics and Central Planning
in Poland (1945-1989)
Chapter Seven: The Failure of Communist Planning: A Perspective from
Romania
Chapter Eight: Communism = Soviet Power + Planning. Planning and
Mathematical Economics in the Soviet Union
Chapter Nine: Mathematical Economics, Economic Modeling, and Planning in
Yugoslavia
Conclusion: Rationality Found and Lost? In Search of a New