chapotraphouse

Cybersyn is a great tool to have and would have enhanced efficiency of production and distribution but it’s usually overrated by people who don’t actually understand how economies are run, often making the mistake of thinking that the Soviet economy only failed because they couldn’t distribute their goods and services properly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. During Stalin’s era, hundreds of thousands of artels - collectively-owned/cooperative enterprises - flourished and worked closely with state planning agencies. These artels formed the backbone of the USSR’s light industries, often having access to generous funding (low-interest loans from state development banks) and procurement of raw materials. In other words, the state planning commission fully supported the growth of these cooperative enterprises and let people decide what they like to produce.

When Khrushchev came into power, he had this weird fascination with Western consumerism, and vowed to compete with Western capitalist countries by turning the USSR light industries into a centrally planned industry. Starting from 1960, hundreds of thousands of artels that once existed during Stalin’s time were liquidated and were instead consolidated into centrally planned production, which only led to disasters. All the stereotypes about the Soviet Union having food and goods shortage came after such disastrous decisions (and this was by no means the only Khrushchev’s mistake!)

State planning is extremely vital for capital intensive industry, such as heavy industries and high tech R&D, but you literally cannot plan for nor can you predict what people like to consume. The people themselves will decide what they like and will create an economy out of that, under the generous support of the state agencies who actually help the people rather than enriching the interests of the capitalists like they did in the West.