Neither Planned Economy nor Market Economy Is Good

Xuefeng

December 17, 2024

Today’s world primarily relies on two economic models: the planned economy and the market economy. However, neither of these represents a civilized economic model. Instead, they are primitive and barbaric systems.

The Drawbacks of a Planned Economy

Ineffective Planning

Plans devised in offices fail to keep up with the rapidly changing market dynamics, making it impossible to develop practical and effective strategies.

Breeding Bureaucracy and Corruption

Planned economies easily give rise to bureaucracy, speculators, and corrupt individuals.

Flawed Distribution Mechanisms

A planned economy relies on a distribution mechanism. But who decides how resources are distributed? Who enforces the distribution? Unless sages are tasked with designing and implementing this system, anyone wielding the power to allocate resources will inevitably succumb to greed and corruption.

Suppression of Initiative and Creativity

Planned economies stifle individual initiative and creativity, preventing people from fully utilizing their talents. They fail to achieve the ideals of “utilizing everyone’s talents to their fullest” and “making the best use of all resources.”

Loss of Freedom

Planned economies deprive ordinary people of their basic freedom to survive independently, while nurturing a class of self-serving officials.

Expanding Bureaucracy

Government institutions in planned economies become increasingly bloated and complex, leading to unchecked growth in government expenditures and increasing the burden on ordinary people.

Rising Costs and Resource Wastage

Production costs continually escalate, resource waste intensifies, product diversity declines, and data falsification becomes rampant.

Global Incompatibility

Planned economies cannot overcome their contradictions and conflicts with global market systems. This often results in isolationism, restrictions on citizens’ travel abroad, suppression of foreign information, and a societal drift toward extremism, ignorance, and hostility to external influences.

In short, a planned economy inevitably leads to poverty and backwardness.

The Drawbacks of a Market Economy

Widening Inequality

The rich become richer, while the poor become poorer, exacerbating social polarization.

Unrestrained Competition

Barbaric competition exploits resources without regard for the survival of future generations, accelerating the destruction of Earth's ecosystems.

Overregulation and Legal Complexity

To curb monopolies, laws and regulations multiply, paradoxically reducing freedom. This also expands government bureaucracy and increases tax burdens.

Money as the Driving Force

In market economies, money becomes the ultimate pursuit. When profit is placed above all else, legal disputes escalate, human relationships grow cold, and people’s interactions are reduced to financial interests. Compassion and warmth disappear in the face of profit-driven priorities.

Economic Cycles and Crises

Market economies are like balloons being continually inflated—economic depressions are inevitable. Such crises lead to mass unemployment and force many into homelessness.

Materialism and Moral Degradation

In market economies, talented individuals emerge in great numbers, the economy flourishes, wealth grows, and goods become endlessly abundant. However, this abundance causes people to lose sight of life’s original purpose. Entrapped in vicious cycles of intense competition, people become increasingly consumed by greed and boundless material desires, leading to the degradation and corruption of human nature.

Marginalization of the Vulnerable

In a market economy, survival depends on one’s abilities. Those with inherently lower intelligence or skills are marginalized. Welfare systems may allow them to survive, but their dignity is often stripped away.

A Reversal of Humanity’s Ideal Harmony

The market is like the vast African savannah and dense jungle, governed by the law of the jungle, where survival depends on ruthless struggle. The market economy, in essence, mirrors an animalistic jungle economy and runs counter to humanity’s pursuit of an ideal harmonious world.

While market economies foster prosperity, material abundance, and national strength, their pursuit is not justice but self-interest; not the welfare of all humanity but the benefits of individuals, families, or nations; not harmony with nature but confrontation against it.

In short, a market economy destroys natural ecosystems and will ultimately lead to humanity’s extinction.

The Path Forward

Human progress cannot rely on either the planned economy or the market economy. Instead, we must adopt the Heavenly Kingdom Economic System—the Holographic Economy.

The Holographic Economy is the true direction for humanity’s civilized economic development.