I’ve had this thought in my head for some time and would like to get it out and see what others think of it. It is obvious to me that the true believers in central-planning are humanists and really believe that people would better achieve their own ends in a centrally-planned society, however mistaken this belief may be.
But I think there is a disconnect between proponents and opponents of central-planning. Opponents of central-planning invariably describe it as coercive and impositional. Proponents of central-planning are visibly baffled by this characterization as they mean nothing of the sort.
I think I understand what at least some proponents of central-planning have in mind when they imagine a centrally-planned society. Look at an orchestra or a classical dance act. There is one individual who synchronizes the entire performance, the conductor. Each performer knows his role and performs it precisely and at the specified time. Without a conductor, this would be impossible since every needs a common time-reference. Choreographed performances achieve productions and effects that are impossible through uncoordinated action, yet each participant in the performance is participating willingly, not because the conductor has stuck a gun in his/her back.
I don’t think that central-planning proponents (the true believers, that is) want a 1984 dystopia. They want a society that moves as smoothly as a performance of Swan Lake. And they imagine that if we all just agreed to have one, common reference, i.e. a central-planning agency, to tell us what to do, we could achieve what is impossible through uncoordinated action. Of course, we realize that this is an impossible dream because all the world is not a stage, it’s the world and choreography is only possible because of the capital investment that permits performers and conductors to devote immense amounts of time to training and practicing the same motions over and over until they are perfectly timed, a luxury which could never be applied to the whole economy because we’d all die of starvation while rehearsing our centrally-choreographed economic roles to perfection.
Let me know what you think.
Clayton -