>What do you mean by "never really tried it"? This was a state that set production quotas, dictated prices, and set priorities in 5 year intervals. What more could they have done?
Obviously: not have different political factions and concerns from individual officials to "look good" affect the content of those plans, nor have the same factions and concerns distort the reports about the state of production and the results of said plans.
And instead to try what they purported to be doing but didn't do: plan solely based on optimization concerns, and get back non purposefully-distorted reports so that they can re-plan and course-correct as needed.
Btw, those "five year plans" are not what people think, which usually involves a mental picture of someone calculating the amount of desired production of X or Y product for the next five years and setting some prices in stone.
They rather were sets of goals and associated organized efforts on multiple fronts to meet them. Like "let's industrialize that province" or "let's build transport infrastructure", etc.
Like current multi-year "initiatives" or often still call "plans" like "The Biden- Harris Plan to Revitalize American Manufacturing and Secure Critical Supply Chains in 2022"
I think it's much simpler than that. Instead of factories self-reporting, you have rivals report on each other, as well as client and suppliers report on what went in and out of the factory in a given time period.
It wouldn't be a perfect system, but like capitalism the competition would force everyone into relative honesty. It is pretty weird they didn't do that at the time though, considering the KGB kinda had that sort of setup with respect to everyone individually being required to snitch on each other.
Obviously: not have different political factions and concerns from individual officials to "look good" affect the content of those plans, nor have the same factions and concerns distort the reports about the state of production and the results of said plans.
And instead to try what they purported to be doing but didn't do: plan solely based on optimization concerns, and get back non purposefully-distorted reports so that they can re-plan and course-correct as needed.
Btw, those "five year plans" are not what people think, which usually involves a mental picture of someone calculating the amount of desired production of X or Y product for the next five years and setting some prices in stone.
They rather were sets of goals and associated organized efforts on multiple fronts to meet them. Like "let's industrialize that province" or "let's build transport infrastructure", etc.
Like current multi-year "initiatives" or often still call "plans" like "The Biden- Harris Plan to Revitalize American Manufacturing and Secure Critical Supply Chains in 2022"
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
or those regarding broadband access, or the federal plan to "land a man on the moon" back in 1960.