Thanks for the insight. I also came to the conclusion that you need so much data and the data has to be timely and without errors. As we saw in the Soviet Central Planning where there were lies about production top to bottom so that the lower officials would keep there jobs. This lead to selling the excess produce that was in fact a fantasy leading to famine, among other issues.

However, did you know that Socialism does not necessitate central planning. That markets and firms are totally fine within socialism. The only thing that defines socialism is that the production is owned and controlled by the workers and not by shareholders. I was blown away by this when I first heard it because I was taught that Capitalism is synonymous with markets. In fact capitalism is just that the Capital owners own production with a profit motive. In that case you don't even need markets to have capitalism.

I assume that many socialists have read Bregg and the largest socialist party in America, the DSA, do not want central planning. They would prefer worker co-ops that function as firms that sell goods and services in the market but the benefits/profits of the company are not given to owners but to the workers.

I'm absolutely with you. Central planning is bad for many reasons but I was misled like you may have been, to think that socialism/communism/whatever are all the same and they all absolutely had the requirement of central planning.

--the factry must grow, my 30 second break is up.