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It's not like those are the only alternatives.

We should try communism with modern IT infrastructure and AI. The big problem with many command economies was the inability to collect and act on the data. Call it a "just-in-time command economy" if you prefer.

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Ultimately those systems will have to be run by people, and all the same perverse incentives will apply.

Corporations become corrupt too, but there is more than one and you can start new ones. In a command economy like you allude to there is only one corporation and if it becomes corrupt there is no recourse.

That's the exact point that applies to federal government programs vs state.

If you're interested in this, you may want to read Red Plenty, which describes the invention of linear programming and the subsequent Soviet attempt at doing just this.

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