Central planning does not work, even in the United States
My letter to WSJ columnist Andy Kessler
Andy:
Your column today is one of the most important essays I have read in the WSJ since I began reading the paper in the 1970s. It ranks up there with Peter Drucker's article about nonprofits replacing the welfare state, https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/collection/dac/id/5990.
President Trump and all members of his administration, all members of Congress, Federal Reserve officials and staffers, bureaucrats employed by the alphabet agencies, and Supreme Court justices must read your insightful analysis, namely, central planning is counterproductive. In other words, "top down" economic decision making undermines the goals and desires of both consumers and producers. America's "soft" central planning should be abolished ASAP.
Hayek was a student and colleague of Ludwig von Mises, whose Socialism (1922) was a comprehensive demolition of central planning, https://mises.org/library/book/socialism-economic-and-sociological-analysis.
I am ccing Lew Rockwell, the founder of the Mises Institute, Tom DiLorenzo and other staff members who have been writing in the Misesian and Haykeian tradition at least since the founding of the MI in 1982.
This link to your essay will hopefully trigger an invite by the Institute to speak to supporters and/or students (in 2026 if all speaking slots are unavailable this year) who spend a week to learn about the principles of Austrian Economics, https://mises.org/events/mises-university-2025 and https://mises.org/events/supporters-summit-2025.
Stay well,
Murray
Murray Sabrin, Ph.D.
Associated Scholar, Mises Institute
Emeritus Professor of Finance
Ramapo College of New Jersey
Telling the Real Truth we all need to know on how to deal with Living Th LIES
Central planning never worked for the communist/socialist governments where it is a pillar of their existence. Why would it work here? Central planning is for control freaks, of which all governments are to some degree.
We have to be concerned with the increasing expansion of A/i and its marriage to Palantir as the mother of all data collection agencies and the supreme invader of privacy. Where is this going to lead? Don't tell me it's for our prosperity, protection and safety...that is total government provided garbage.