The interview is interesting from the perspective of economic history because it reveals the prevailing thinking of the era; namely that capitalism leads to "anarchy" in production. What Stalin and others did not appreciate is that the free market produces a "hidden order", which was understood by many 18th and 19th century economists. Another major error of the era was the belief that central planning of an economy - socialism - could replace capitalism. There was a major debate at the time, now known as the economic calculation debate[1], between socialist economists Harold Laski and Oscar Lange on the one hand and liberal economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek on the other. In the 20's Mises had made the stunning argument that allocation of capital was impossible without the price function that is inherent to the capitalist system[2]. Laski and Lange obviously disagreed and provided the socialist counter argument. It was many years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that socialist philosopher and historian Robert Heilbroner admitted in the New Yorker "It turns out, of course, that Mises was right. The Soviet system has long been dogged by a method of pricing that produced grotesque misallocations of effort".[3] Still, many do not understand or appreciate the importance of economic calculation and the price function in the rational allocation of capital, which has implications not only for states, but for corporations[4].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
[2] https://mises.org/econcalc.asp
[3] Reflections after communism, Robert Heilbroner (apologies to those without a subscription) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_T...