Project Cybersyn: real-time computer control of a planned economy (1970-1973)
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Also..
It took about a year to become operational but it was never completely finished.
and
The software (...) was written by Chilean engineers in consultation with a team of 12 British programmers.
12 developers for a year.. controlling the entire economy?This smells a lot like vaporware, and it was in fact never operational, even though the article makes it sound like the main culprit was the 1973 coup.
AI is effectively replacing free market from inside out not top down like in government attempts to instantiate centrally planned economy.
Yeah, it's called Walmart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#US_involvement
The article argues against the establishment of a Central Pricing Board (advocated by Lange) by highlighting the assiduously dynamic and organic nature of market price-fluctuations, and the benefits of this phenomenon. He asserts that a centrally planned market could never match the efficiency of the open market because any individual knows only a small fraction of all which is known collectively. A decentralized economy thus complements the dispersed nature of information spread throughout society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Society
I'm not an expert, but I feel like a lot of socialism depends on accurate demand forecasting and in the past forecasting models may have failed because of lack of real-time data collection and processing capabilities. As both collection (sensor networks) and processing (CPU) capabilities increase exponentially, perhaps the model can be made more accurate.
Of course, I'm sure socialism as an economic system has other, deeper flaws :-)
Chilean socialism may have been flawed, but it was never really given a fair shot.
It is indeed interesting to speculate whether a command economy could function effectively given modern computer hardware and software.
That's what all failed socialist countries claim (including my own, former East Germany).
The basic principle of socialism, in all its flavours and colours, is based on the idea that some country, idea, person or group needs to be "given" (by whom?) a "fair" shot (well how much do the demanders of the chance "feel" is "fair" and do the givers have a say in it?).
What's interesting is that you never need to ask for chances, favours or a fair shot if you have something very appealing to offer and can point out its benefits (sometimes this is called marketing) in a convincing manner. This site alone is an example of many.
Amusingly enough, if you were a military junta like Alvarado’s in Peru in ~1970, even a leftist military junta, you could pretty much get away with attempted agrarian reform, expropriation of foreign assets, nationalization of major industries, etc., as long as you agreed to fight against isolated communist guerillas in the jungle, and the US would leave you alone. If you were a democratically elected moderate like Belaundé, they’d cut off aid and impose sanctions. If you were a center-left european-style socialist like Allende in Chilé, they’d go all out to destroy your government.
Former East Germany didn't work out for substantially different reasons than Chile. Neither excuse making nor specific domestic policy was really the cause in either case though.
Basically, the "givers", other states, should, according to commonly accepted international laws and norms, only intervene in the operation of other sovereign states in certain limited circumstances, such as for self defense, etc. Deciding you don't like the leaders they elect, even before those leaders have done anything, doesn't cut it as a rationale for toppling a foreign government.
European socialists (outside of Italy where everyone is mad) are generally solid on constitutional matters, including separation of powers. Whereas Allende created the crisis by trying to steamroll the supreme court on separation of powers.
Allende’s politics were much closer to western European socialists than to say, Mao or Lenin. Maybe “center left” is a bad label for being ambiguous; the point is that his goal was not some kind of communist utopia with a completely centrally planned government, &c. &c.
In places where a tiny minority have a chokehold on a country's economy, land reform is a pretty essential prerequisite to general political and social equality. General MacArthur carried out massive land reform in Japan in the late 40s, and few people would call him a leftist, &c.
* * *
But all of that is getting away from the central point, which is that thinking that it was better for U.S. long-term interests to overthrow the government, without any legitimate justification, and replace it with a brutal fascist police state, is the height of hubris, and frankly despicable.
his goal was not some kind of communist utopia with a
completely centrally planned government
In places where a tiny minority have a chokehold
on a country's economy land reform is a pretty
essential prerequisite to general political and
social equality
Chile never underwent that reform, and has for the last twenty years been the most stable elected parliament in the region, with economic growth at all levels of society. The UK has never land reform of this sort either.
... thinking that it was better for U.S. long-term
interests to overthrow the government...
I don't find it surprising that the US took a dim view of Allende. He was supported by his local communist party and was setting up an intelligence relationship with the Soviet Union, and the cold war was on.
But I agree with you that the US would do better by leading by example rather than meddling in the affairs of other states, and that that sort of conduct is the 'right' thing to do.
In 1970-73 Chile had a democratically elected president with a socialist program, not unlike France's Francois Miterrand. He wasn't "given a fair shot" because he was overthrown before the end of his term.
(Edited: no solid evidence that he was murdered.)
Wikipedia is poor resource for recent political history, because people defend their history there. Heavily contested events like this, or The Dismissal in Australia end up with summaries that are sympathetic to the left-wing view of history. That doesn't make it right, it just means that people of that inclination are more interested in contesting the history than their opponents.
You do Miterrand a disservice by comparing his to Allende. Miterrand is an example of a socialist leader who worked within the bounds of his constitution.
Of course, I'm sure socialism as an economic system has other, deeper flaws :-)
:-)
Disclaimer: capitalism is also a planned economy (no there's no army of monkey deciding what to do), and at the top level (US government/financial circles/big companies/media networks) it is even mostly centrally planned... So: same problem...
Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth: http://mises.org/econcalc.asp
There is a very interesting video about the entire project here: http://vimeo.com/8000921
I'm not surprised by such a system, I mean, every big controlling entity (Banks, Wall-Mart) has a something like this but much more modern. The difficult "political" part here, is to make such a information system democratic by opening information to citizens and putting them at the basis of decisions.
Robin Hahnel and Micheal Albert wrote things about that, an economy with decentralized decision taking-process, "Looking Forward: Participatory Economics in the Twenty First Century" is a good intro to that. They include computers to ease decision making.