Re: Centrally planned economy

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

An example that may help to think about the role of computers:

In England there is an amazing centralization of capital in groceries.
Half of all consumption of groceries, (food and household goods)
is sold by just four supermarket chains. In the last 10 years they
have all got computerised check-outs with optical character-reading
of bar codes. "Just-in-time" ordering has put the chains in the best
position to offload fluctuations in purchasing back to the suppliers
who are already dependent.

This provides a model for a significant fraction of the GDP of
an industrialised economy. If the computer networks were unified
under socialism, the system could still be flexible, and responsive
to consumer demand. The system could be guided rather than controlled
(eg to phase out CFC's).

Could this still operate if the capital was totally centralized
in one state monopoly even if there continued to be different outlets.

Consumers would still be free to purchase or not purchase. As workers
they would still be free to offer to sell their labour power to where
ever they could be employed. Commodity exchange would prevail but
the centralisation of capital could be in the state.

Is this possible? Is it what we want? Is it happening now?


Chris


PS the new British lottery claims it has a computer system larger than
the four main high street banks.


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