American economists have an implied or crypto theory of centralized planning by all the debate on federal government fiscal and monetary policies that are best for "the" economy. The whole nine yards of arguments about Keynesian stimulus, the federal budget, the federal debt and deficit, quantitative easing, trickle down, etc, etc, imply that actions by the _central_ government are critical in performance of the whole economy. These are de facto debates about planning the whole economy. It renders hypocritical all the criticism of Soviet centralized planning by Hayek and everybody else. It is a tacit admission that this is not a "free" market economy. Of course, this planning is crude, indirect and much less rational than the much more direct, honest and open planning policy of the Soviet Union. References to "the":economy, rife in the media, are references from a "central" viewpoint, or references to the _whole_ economy. This is an example of proto-socialist institutions or practices arising within a capitalist system like socialized medicine in Britain, France and Canada. In resolving the general crisis of capitalism, capitalists resort to proto-capitalist rationalizations of the system. This is an uneven process of course. For example , privatization, which is rife under so-called neo-liberalism, reverses to some extent proto-socialist institutions such as public works enterprises in government run water and sewerage departments, garbage pickup or public transportation; although the continuing government monopoly retains some of the socialistic or centralized character of the enterprise.
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