Imperfect competition and decentralized planning

✍ Scribed by Peter Wiles

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1964
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 760 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-9414
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00353559

✦ Synopsis

This article contrasts two myths: perfect competition throughout a whole economy x and "perfect computation"-a computation so detailed and quick that it would achieve the same allocation of resources. It maintains that the former is in some respects as centralized as the latter, and that decentralized computation, the only kind possible, resembles in many important respects imperfect competition. It follows that subordinate planning authorities are an evil, if a necessary one. Since the existence of separate Communist countries also decentralizes computation some gloomy conclusions are drawn for national sovereignty. The whole article is a draft of a chapter in a forthcoming book; I publish it in this, the most suitable of all journals, on the suspicion that a lot of mathematics beyond my competence is implied.

PERFECT COMPETITION AND PERFECT COMPUTATION Wiles, ibid., p. 18.