The Problem of Social Planning

The past ten years have not been easy for democratic socialist theoreticians. Their economic models, so long shielded from the rough winds of reality, were put to a decisive test during the tenure of the British Labour Government and found to be about as realistic as the systems of their academic colleagues working in the neo-classic tradition. It may not have been a fair test of socialist doctrine (some of the circumstances were distinctly inauspicious), but unfortunately it’s the results that count, and the results were sufficiently disappointing to put socialists on the defensive for a long time to come. In particular, the failure of nationalization of industry to work its expected miracles has left a void which is as much emoti...