Chapters * Title * Contents * Introduction * Place * System * Design * Using * Future * Bibliography
Sections
* Using * Composite_Story * Behavior * Supply_and_Demand * Trade * Central * Externalities * Chicken * Monopolies * Geography * Money
Central Planning
What about central planning? A wide array of people have been seduced by the idea that the very real waste present in market
economies could be made to go away by having things centrally directed. Players can see that it would be most efficient in the
MarketPlace economy if someone just assigned all the production roles. ("You make food over here, I'll make energy over
there, ...") I've talked to players about this observation and discussed ways in which differences between the MarketPlace
world and the real world might explain the observed poor performance of real-world central planning. The most convincing
culprit seems to be the much higher number of products in the real world, and the overwhelming number of choices that have to
be made about how to produce them. Players also worry about how they would divide up the benefits.
It is interesting that the MarketPlace toy economy seems to be a powerful argument against central planning. At first glance it
seems that it should be quite the opposite. After all, the MarketPlace world could quite conceivably be planned. Because
players can see that it only can be planned because it is very simple, it serves as a counter-example when they imagine scaling
up the model (and the corresponding planning mechanism) to the level of the real world. This opportunity for insight owes much
to the transparency of the MarketPlace formal model.
Greg Kimberly/gregkimb@gak.com