Scott reviews 'Red Plenty', a book about Soviet economic planning, discussing its initial promise, challenges, and ultimate failure.
Longer summary
Scott reviews the book 'Red Plenty', which explores the history of socialist economic planning in the Soviet Union. The book describes how Soviet leaders and economists believed communism could outperform capitalism in economic growth, and their attempts to implement scientific planning methods. Scott discusses the allocation problems in the Soviet economy, the potential of linear programming and cybernetics to solve these issues, and how political factors ultimately prevented their successful implementation. He reflects on the attractiveness of communism to technically-minded people and the tragedy of its failure in practice.
Shorter summary