Planning in capitalist economies: the example of wartime economies
The experience of “planned economies” did not start with the revolution of 1917. An “other” planning, which developed in economies of capitalist nature, was possible. These experiments arose from the First World War. The war presented three models of economic mobilization and therefore of planning. The German model, where institutions are built overhanging society, therefore respond to two other models, that of France’s «concerted planning», where parliamentary control continued to be exercised throughout the period, and that of Russia, where the institutions were the result of a grassroots movement, but in a context of fierce political clashes that translated into a major political crisis. Several solutions were possible, but solutions depended on the history and political culture of each country. These mobilization and planning policies were remarkably efficient economically. It can then be deduced from this that several conditions are necessary for the effective implementation of economic planning measures in wartime. On the one hand, there must be a certain consensus on this issue. On the other hand, it is necessary that there pre - exist institutions capable of carrying a specific organizational culture and of organizing a «memory» of the required institutions, and that these institutions be endowed with a certain legitimacy.