I agree that in general, when it comes to utilities and the production of basic goods - such like food, connectors, tools and construction materials, as well when it comes to running an infrastructure, planning is generally a more rational way of doing that than the market.
Nevertheless, there's one problem which I can see with planning.
Planning is not incapable of facilitating innovation, or predicting the future. But planning is also risk-averse, and especially risk-averse to stupid ideas or far-fetched ideas. For example, someone wants to test a new engine which is running on magnetic fields and which superficially reminds of a perpetuum mobile and most likely will never work at all.
But what if it does?
Planners would have to take into account the most realistic and beneficial plans to achieve for example innovation, whereas a group of people or even an individual who are disconnected from the plan but who have resources may do anything that is insane, self-contradictory or appears bonkers or out-of-the-box.
Any kind of new, post-capitalist system we implement would need to take into account that we do not know everything about our reality. People must have the opportunity to explore FTL travel, magnet engines, new materials, energy transmitted through other means or smaller ideas, like bicycles made of dough or cars made of fungus. New areas could be discovered continuously - but it requires multiple venues of research, organisation and innovation, and it also requires waste.
R&D is a thing even in planned economies. One simply needs a method to furnish innovators with the necessary resources, for example Parecon's facilitation boards.
Capitalists are risk averse and typically outsource any actual risk to startups and universities. It comes down to exploration vs exploitation, and as we know capitalism is all about exploitation.
R&D is a thing even in planned economies. One simply needs a method to furnish innovators with the necessary resources, for example Parecon's facilitation boards.
Capitalists are risk averse and typically outsource any actual risk to startups and universities. It comes down to exploration vs exploitation, and as we know capitalism is all about exploitation.
Yes, it is. However, it won't invest any resources or time into "stupid" ideas. But even "stupid" ideas can teach us important knowledge.
Granted, the same problem can be said to exist in market systems. For example, base research are badly accounted for in today's market-driven universities.
I believe it's necessary to have some programs which allow for radically different methods of getting funding, and which can't be vetoed by planners. Say a program which allows potential innovators to receive a contract with funding for their idea given they win a competition, or find a sponsor among a group of experts or otherwise respected individuals, or maybe even some selected totally at random given they meet certain criteria. Something like that.
I believe that in a planned economy there would be space even for small manufacturers who find niches in larger programs and, due to being incorporated into the wider algorithm for distributing resources, allows them a chance to grow bigger.