You would think that by now the general consensus might be that central planning does not work all that well. Of course, if you are of a dictatorial bent then central planning is the method of choice since under most other systems of governing the governed wind up with more participation in the process of selecting the social and legal procedures under which their society operates.
In some cases, the negative results of oppressive manipulation of the proletariat are easily discernible. Russia, China, Cuba and other communist nations generally tend to experience economic instability and a restrictive social environment that enables the political elite and their sycophants to limit freedom and opportunity for the masses. At the extreme examples of dictatorial rule, the brutal regimes such as Russia under Stalin. Germany under Hitler, the murderous rampage of Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the suffocating restrictions imposed by Kim Jun Un upon the population of North Korea stand out.
One might argue that oligarchies and monarchies have successfully employed central planning to provide livable conditions for their subjects and to a certain extent that was often true until a supportive administrative cadre consisting of varying mixes of family members, nobles, clergy, and hangers-on siphoned off an unbearable share of the national wealth.
Perhaps the most influential event leading to the current disarray of western civilization might well be attributed to the French revolution occurring from 1789 – 1799. Dissatisfaction with the reigning King, Louis XVI, and his repressive social, economic and legal policies abetted by France’s Estate General which included members of the clergy, nobility, and a “middle class” (consisting mainly of merchants and other businessmen), plus several years burdened by poor harvests, drought, cattle disease, and skyrocketing bread prices, set the scene for revolt among the peasants and the urban poor. It does not pay to infuriate the “lower classes”.
Growing public dissent in May 1789 led to the conversion of the Estates General into a National Assembly, which introduced several radical changes to include the abolition of feudalism, state control over the Catholic Church in France and a declaration of rights. A struggle for political control ensued and following the insurrection of August 1792 the monarchy was abolished and in September was replaced by the French First Republic. The execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793 was soon followed by another revolution during which political power was seized by the ironically titled Committee of Public Safety which launched the Reign of Terror and engineered the execution of over 16,000 people before ending in 1974.
That “Magnificent Revolution” turned into a massive bloodbath under the slogan of “Equality, Liberty, and Fraternity” with the goal of creating a “new revolutionary race”. And to remake the people, the revolutionary parliamentarian Boissy d’Anglas insisted that the state should become the monitor of all individual activities, “including one’s inner and private behavior”. A Frenchman could no longer address someone as monsieur or madame , but only as a fellow “citizen”. Robespierre insisted that “The Republic is the eradication of everything that opposes it”. Hanriot, Commander of the National Guard, insisted that the libraries should be burned, “for only the history of the revolution and (its) laws will be needed”.
It takes not a grand leap to equate the horrible chaos and excesses of the French Revolution to the emergence of the totalitarian governments of the last couple of centuries and the gradual mutation of communism into socialism and its gradual and carefully planned infestation of Europe, the Americas and even Canada, along with the weakening of global prosperity and political health as a result of devotion to the acquisition of power.
History has much to teach us and of course that is why we currently face the “revolutionary” efforts of the Left to remake the history of our country and society through the reeducation of our students and of the public in general. Central planning is of the essence in order to control the governed and even a cursory examination reveals that our current administrative state is well on the way to achieving the power its members desire.
Now what? 