What socialist planning might look like...

The Socialist Workers Party proposes this alternative to market capitalism:

SOCIALIST PLANNING

There are three main prerequisites for genuine socialist planning:

First, as we have seen, the major corporations must be taken into public ownership. Planning cannot work if elected representatives draw up a plan but do not [have] the means to implement it. The requirement for public ownership need not apply to every small business. But socialist planning only requires that the major levers of the economy are in the hand of the representatives of the people. ...We would need to take control of the banks, the major construction companies, the major manufacturing plants currently run by multi-nationals, the food industry and the major supermarket chains.

Second, planning requires that all economic information is available to the public. ... If people are to collectively decide how to allocate resources, commercial secrecy must be abolished. There will be no need for such secrecy in an economy built around co-operation rather than competition. The absurd notion that individuals can hold ‘intellectual property’ over knowledge will also have to be abolished. How can we develop the productive forces of society, if individual scientists ‘own’ the fruits of scientific research and can charge a fee for giving others access to the data?

Third, socialist planning requires a form of economic democracy that goes well beyond the limited political democracy of capitalism. It requires co-ordinating institutions where delegates discuss and deliberate on where the major funds for investment are to be allocated and what type and what quantity of goods are to be produced. To accurately reflect the needs to society, delegates will have to be mandated from gatherings of their constituents and will have to report back regularly. To safeguard against bureaucracy and elitism, there should be a facility to re-call them if they do not carry out their mandate.

What do you think? Could this work? What would be necessary for such a transition to take place? What would be the greatest strength of such an economy? What would be its greatest weakness?

Has the market system failed?

Don Boudreaux says no:

It's become an article of faith among lots of people that recent events prove (or at least suggest) that markets don't work very well.....

The vast majority of market exchanges and relationships work smoothly and to the advantage of all participants. Indeed, the market works so well and so consistently that it creates ever-higher expectations among the broad populace. When these expectations are dashed, if only for a handful of persons and if only rarely, the market is deemed to have failed.

But despite the current downturn, the market continues to work well in its typical silence. Do you have trouble today finding gasoline to buy? Are your local supermarket's shelves not stocked with food, wine, and (watch for it soon!) Easter candy? If your cat eats your socks, will you have trouble buying several new pair? If your car's battery dies this afternoon, must you resort to bicycling or public transportation because you can't replace your dead battery? If you're bored this evening with nothing to do, is there no movie you can go to or no DVD you can rent? If you miss your mom in Minneapolis or your boyfriend in Boston, can you not call them on your cell-phone — or even buy a plane ticket and go visit them?

What do you think? Has the market system failed? Why or why not? What specific characteristic has failed? What is the market system's greatest strength? Its greatest weakness? In what ways might the market system need government involvement?