The Communist Mistake

The Communist Mistake is to assume that facts can be known.

Planned economy is a clarifying example. No person or organization can predict the complex interactions between capital, resources, labor, intellectual property, and distribution. Planned economy is a mistake because it assumes that facts about the future can be known.

A market economy isn't planned. It's not based on facts. Technological advancements, and changes in consusumer demands, are met by opportunistic companies. Each individual company has a plan of course. But the market itself doesn't.

Clearly, in many situations, facts can be known. The sun will rise tomorrow and you're reading this paragraph right now. But be aware — looks can be decieving. Newton's law of gravity describes a simple relationship between moving bodies, but a system with more than just two bodies is impossible to analytically predict. What looks simple might not be so.

There's no reason to expect that the universe should behave in an analytically predictable manner. You should expect the opposite. Assume that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Assume that facts can't be known.

Don't make the Communist Mistake.