Why did Marxists think central planning would make for a thriving economy?

Question

Why did Marxists think that a centrally planned economy would function well? I don't mean to be judgemental, but how could otherwise intelligent people think that a thriving industrial economy could just be planned into existence by a few technocrats?

Answer 1

It is being judgemental because you are applying 21st century thought to a concept developed in the 19th century and applied in the 20th century. Inquiries into history ought to be neutral.

Before the mid 19th century the concept that people could beneficially govern themselves and pln their destinies was not subscribed to to the extent that it is today. As that thought became more widespread, people began to feel that through reason and science, they could ameliorate the problems that beset them. It is no accident that the revolutions of 1848 occured when they did. People began to realise that the government was to work for them, rather than them working for the government.

This also extended to the economy. As pointed out above, the economy was a plutocracy. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a relative few and the people were being exploited. The laws of capitalism ran faster than the legal framework which could contain it. Who was the thriving industrial economy benefitting? As a result of these abuses, people thought that a scientifically devised method of planning and controlling the economy could do a better job than free market forces. They thought it could better serve the people when centrally planned.

Also remember that the concepts involving free market principles, though in practice continually, were not enumerated until 1776 by Smith. Before Smith's views were embraced, Mercnatilism and closed markets dominated Europe, policies which we can see today are just as trouble-prone as marxism.

Answer 2

It's not intuitively obvious that a centrally planned economy wouldn't work. Central planning works for lots of things. For example, if you pit a centrally controlled army against a bunch of uncoordinated platoons with equal numbers and equal armaments on both sides, the army would win.

The problem with a centrally planned economy is that the planners can't know all the information that's ordinarily conveyed by market prices. That problem is obvious and well known to us today, but would you know it if you hadn't had the opportunity to learn from the past? Most likely not. Even if you managed to figure out that there would be a problem, you might well underestimate its severity.

It should also be noted that the world is much more industrialized today than it was in Marx's, time. The economy is much more complex now, and that makes central planning even more difficult than it would have been in Marx's day.

Answer 3

In their view, a decentralized economy did not function well. The capatalist economy of the early 20th Century, late 19th Century required that nearly every worker (which in turn, was a huge portion of the actual population) be exploited to a crazy extent. One could argue that such a system was not sustainable. Marx did, in fact, and predicted such a system would result in revolution...which it sort of did in Russia. Corrupt leaders took it from there, making the resulting system, which would already have been very difficult to maintain (if at all), doomed to failure.

In the U.S., government regulations and controls were installed, removing (mostly) the almost certain prospects of death and poverty that every average worker faced. We have a certain amount of central planning our economy, and it seems to have averted all out revolution. Workers' unions effected change somewhat more peacefully. Somewhat.

Answer 4

you always have to view Marx in context - England under industrial revolution gone wild. Put into that Victorian context, the idea, while perhaps not rational or workable, is not nearly as patently absurd

Answer 5

They're idiotic tyrants who misuse the term revolution, workers, class etc. 1 thing's for sure, Theyre idiots.

Answer 6

beacuse they are stupid if it works the hole world would be following that