My father insists that the productivity failures of the late Union were due to large-scale theft, corruption, and lack of accountability on the part of... Pretty much everyone in the supply chain. Even if some factory director were doing a good job, there were a million and one reasons outside of his control that impacted his productivity. A third of the GDP going towards the Red Army did not help.
If that is indeed an accurate assessment of the situation, then computer-driven planning would not have done one whit to fix it. You can't fix these kinds of institutional problems, without changing the management culture - as anyone who has worked on a 'agile-in-name-only' team could attest to.
Anecdote of the theft: My mother's uncle was some regional agricultural inspector/manager/auditor. Didn't actually do any farm work himself. Every year, around harvest time, he would, for a few weeks would come back from work with a trunk loaded with fresh produce, meat, etc.
Now, consider that, and extrapolate it to the entire country. Yes, things got done, but not as well as they could have. Corruption is a huge tax on the economy.
And the incentives spiral downwards. If everyone cheats, the only sensible course of action is to also cheat.
This is exacerbated in communist countries (like North Korea) that don't provide their people with enough via legit means. If you are hungry, and your standard rations aren't enough, cheating to get enough becomes vital, which encourages more cheating and even less given away freely and the race to the bottom starts.
If that is indeed an accurate assessment of the situation, then computer-driven planning would not have done one whit to fix it. You can't fix these kinds of institutional problems, without changing the management culture - as anyone who has worked on a 'agile-in-name-only' team could attest to.
Anecdote of the theft: My mother's uncle was some regional agricultural inspector/manager/auditor. Didn't actually do any farm work himself. Every year, around harvest time, he would, for a few weeks would come back from work with a trunk loaded with fresh produce, meat, etc.
Now, consider that, and extrapolate it to the entire country. Yes, things got done, but not as well as they could have. Corruption is a huge tax on the economy.