Lenin's form of Marxism/Communism as applied to the Russian economy backfired. Why? What happened? What went wrong that he and other Marxists/Communists did not anticipate?
Of course, Lenin wanted to improve productivity and use this improvement as a means to create and uphold operations of Lenin's version of a Marxist economy. Lenin attempted to take classes of people and improve the economy even though the first World War was causing problems. They tried the War Communism approach. However, it did not go well because Lenin did not accurately guage the level of Russia's economic problems. In addition, Lenin pushed too hard and two soon into full-fledged Communism and the country was simply not ready for that yet. He also tried the NEP, confiscation of a portion of business products and so forth and that equally failed.
Lenin coined the phrase, "Commanding Heights" to describe the system that managed the economy after the overthrow of the Czar by the Bolsheviks. What did the "Commanding Heights" represent? Why do you believe it was later adopted by India, China, much of Latin America and even Great Britain?
In the case of Lenin, it meant that the government as defined by Lenin would have complete command and control over the political process. This, by extension,...
Of course, India, China, Latin America and Great Britain also did this in their own ways either now or in the past. Great Britain used to control much of the world and they were extremely dominating and over-regulating of religion and commerce. This in large part led to the United States' formation when they got sick of itjust as one example. Similar upheavals (or at least attempts) have been made against India and China as well.
3) Central planning was the primary platform of a commanding heights type of economy. What are the pros and cons of a centrally planned economy? Would it work in the U.S.
Central planning is when the government controls (or at least tries) the output and production of an economy. Planning for production and such would help control, in theory, employment, GDP and economic growth. However, the cons is that are that it is nearly impossible to truly handle the reins of an economy like that and artificially tinkering with any economy is just a bad idea. It would absolutely not work in the United States because it goes against the ingrained ideas about free enterprise and freedom in general. Businesses in the United States would (and have)…
