Why does socialism cause shortages?

[xslavearcx]

Total simplification obviously but isn't it just the case that market economies regulate shortages through the price mechanism through supply and demand whereas command economies do so with ques and what not? That is both have shortages but are just regulated differently ?

 

[weltweit]

Total simplification obviously but isn't it just the case that market economies regulate shortages through the price mechanism through supply and demand whereas command economies do so with ques and what not? That is both have shortages but are just regulated differently ?

I think Britain could have the best of both worlds, for many items, such as consumer products, the closer you can get to an economists perfect market, the better for maintaining supply and keeping prices under control. Then for national things which might anyhow tend to monopolies, health, public transportation, education, the armed forces, and which arguably don't need short term reactions of a perfect market, a managed public sector. The so called mixed economy.

And on the perfect market idea, with the mass of information available today because of the internet and online shopping, we are arguably closer to the economists ideal than we have ever been.

 

[stuff_it]

Because we used up all the oak trees during the 1st Elizabeth's reign.

 

[likesfish]

because a centrally planned economy is top down and inflexible and shit happens

 

[ManchesterBeth]

because a centrally planned economy is top down and inflexible and shit happens

USSR wasn't centrally planned. If it was then the bureaucratic class would have been able to properly appropriate and circulate surplus product. You've swallowed too much soviet propaganda.

Plans never followed the central organs. They were always revised, modified, statistics were always inflated, downplayed, rewritten, etc.

 

[terapija]

someone could also ask himself why are means of distribution in capitalism so shit; and why so much goods produced/manufactured go to waste and how that effects the price of labor, taxes, distribution of profit, enviroment, politics........and so on

 

[dylanredefined]

Because we used up all the oak trees during the 1st Elizabeth's reign.

More like the georgian time HMS victory took 4000 alone and we had more ships like that than anyone else combined.

 

[ska invita]

What went wrong with Venezuelan economy? Was it as simple as the change in oil price?

 

[trabuquera]

The Venezuelan economy has never been right. It's far too complicated to explain - and under any sort of ideological regime (from robber capitalist or boli-bourgeois) it has historically been honeycombed with rent-seekers, bribe-takers, hoarders, profiteers and outright villains. The oil price fall has been a massive blow, but distorted exchange rates, capital controls, direct government interference in private commerce (i.e. setting prices for basic goods, choking life out of import/exporter etc) have played a part as well.

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

As if it hasn't been explained enough above already. The USSR was never a socialist state, it was a communist state with many powerful western 'enemies'.They had/have the power to impoverish any country they choose. Another example: Vietnam and Ho Chi Min never had aspirations to become a communist state/society they simply wanted they're country back and whole after decades of imperialist rule. In the end they ally themselves with communist states to fight a war and win they're independence.

 

[seventh bullet]

As if it hasn't been explained enough above already. The USSR was never a socialist state, it was a communist state with many powerful western 'enemies'.They had/have the power to impoverish any country they choose. Another example: Vietnam and Ho Chi Min never had aspirations to become a communist state/society they simply wanted they're country back and whole after decades of imperialist rule. In the end they ally themselves with communist states to fight a war and win they're independence.

They were Stalinists committed to the creation of a socialist (then worldwide communist) society. That had to be achieved through national liberation by waging Chinese-derived People's War, creatively adapting Marxist-Leninist (Stalinist) doctrine to achieve it. They came up with an ideologically unique understanding of the DRV and the further tasks of national liberation within that doctrine, blending both Soviet and Chinese 1940s reformulations of intermediate organisation and policy in countries where Communist-controlled governments had power, calling it a 'people's national democratic revolution.' Something that took into account the revised 'socialist' content of the DRV, and the completion of national liberation by defeating American 'neo-colonialism' in the south.