Planned economy is better once highly developed productive forces are achieved, and history shows that planned economies dramatically expanded production as compared to what came before. Rather than underperforming, the USSR was one of the fastest growing economies on the planet during its existence, while never once facing a crisis of overproduction:
The DPRK also outperformed the ROK until the ROK was flooded with western investment, and this was further hampered by the dissolution of the USSR. Today, however, the DPRK is steadily progressing (largely based on increased arms sales, such as to the Russian Federation), while the ROK appears to be in crisis.
Markets serve a progressive role historically when they stitch together disconnected production into production on a national and international scale. However, once they reach the national level, they quickly lose any amount of progressive quality and immediately become an impediment to further progress. At this point, planned economy becomes far better. This isn’t a binary either, socialist countries like China leverage planned economy for their large firms and key industries, and marketize underdeveloped sectors.
Surplus value exploitation is not merely people “skimming.” Capitalist profits come from exploitation of labor, paying workers less than the actual value they create. Ownership does not create value, labor does. Further, the fact that the monopoly stage has been reached does not mean we can work backwards, with monopoly scale comes technologies and productive techniques that can only be employed by monopolies. This is why markets lose their progressive character to planned economy as monopolies form, as planned production can make much better use of the scale developed by markets.
As for the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, it leads to crisis of profitability and economic collapse. This is a key force behind what turns monopoly capitalism into its imperialist stage, as capitalists chase increased absolute profits through market expansion to fight this. If they can establish an absolute monopoly globally, they can then price fix as they please, accelerating enshittification.
Planned economy is better once highly developed productive forces are achieved, and history shows that planned economies dramatically expanded production as compared to what came before. Rather than underperforming, the USSR was one of the fastest growing economies on the planet during its existence, while never once facing a crisis of overproduction:
The DPRK also outperformed the ROK until the ROK was flooded with western investment, and this was further hampered by the dissolution of the USSR. Today, however, the DPRK is steadily progressing (largely based on increased arms sales, such as to the Russian Federation), while the ROK appears to be in crisis.
Markets serve a progressive role historically when they stitch together disconnected production into production on a national and international scale. However, once they reach the national level, they quickly lose any amount of progressive quality and immediately become an impediment to further progress. At this point, planned economy becomes far better. This isn’t a binary either, socialist countries like China leverage planned economy for their large firms and key industries, and marketize underdeveloped sectors.
Surplus value exploitation is not merely people “skimming.” Capitalist profits come from exploitation of labor, paying workers less than the actual value they create. Ownership does not create value, labor does. Further, the fact that the monopoly stage has been reached does not mean we can work backwards, with monopoly scale comes technologies and productive techniques that can only be employed by monopolies. This is why markets lose their progressive character to planned economy as monopolies form, as planned production can make much better use of the scale developed by markets.
As for the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, it leads to crisis of profitability and economic collapse. This is a key force behind what turns monopoly capitalism into its imperialist stage, as capitalists chase increased absolute profits through market expansion to fight this. If they can establish an absolute monopoly globally, they can then price fix as they please, accelerating enshittification.