Originally published at: https://www.indep.network/aaron-benanav-proposes-a-multi-criterial-socialist-economy-in-new-left-review/
Aaron Benanav, a professor at Cornell University, just published the article Beyond Capitalism—1 in issue 153 of the New Left Review. The article critically evaluates visions of socialism, the Soviet Union, the socialist calculation debate, and Keynesian social democracy in order to develop the theoretical foundations of a multi-criterial socialist economy. This is the first…
While Benanav writes well as always, his line of argument fails to take note that Soviet-type planning actually suffered from trying to incorporate “multiple criteria”!
can you please elaborate?
Soviet planning initially used a very large number of ‘plan indicators’, embodying multiple criteria. These were near impossible to use together and had to be drastically reduced in number by the 1960s. Similar problems were reported by Hungarian planners.
1 Like
but I understood from Benanav is that the decision making in the soviet planning was absent from democratic process. At the end of the day what was actually done was the criterium of the bureaucrat which was the single-goal of maximising output.
1 Like