Talk:Three-Year Plan

intro paragraph

State planning at best redirects investment, which itself inherently reduces the rate of economic growth. By the very nature of the free market, a plan can *at best* equal the free market; as such, I find it extremely questionable that superior economic growth can be attributed to this plan. I would argue, especially based on the Soviet experience, that economic growth was happening anyway and in fact would have been higher had the plan not interfered.

As such, this page's argument that the plan was "successful" is incorrect. It attributes to the plan something which would have happened anyway, and in fact, happened to a greater extent.

Toby Douglass 15:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Your revert comment; "(rv, we have neutral (IPN!) sources that the plan was succesfull, we are talking about one Polish plan, not a series of Soviet Union plans)"

If by IPN you mean IPN, they are not exactly respected - there seems to be a fair degree of criticism about their reports, funding and motivations.

The point I am making about the Soviet plans is that the Polish plan was fundamentally identical; State directed development. What holds true for the Soviet plans will hold true for the Polish plans. The Soviet plans were disasters; they retarded economic growth and redirected it into heavy industry. The description of the Polish plan as successful, as far as I understand the wiki page, is due to economic growth occurring during the period of the plan. This is an entirely self-serving criteria, because economic growth would have happened *anyway*, given the cessation of the war and resumption of economic activity from a very low base.

This is obvious, but doesn't seem to have struck any of the page authors, who appear to naively be thinking "plan occurred with the goal of economic development, economic development occurred, plan MUST have been successful".

Toby Douglass 15:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:V and WP:OR. We have (modern, not communist) sources that state this plan was succesfull. Until you can present contradictory evidence, this is the version that should stay. And consider this was not a 'standard Soviet plan', PPS which supported free market had significant influence on it. As for IPN, some popular press criticism is rather irrelevant to an academic research it is performing.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it'd be fair to address the shortcomings in balance/neutrality by adding something along the lines of "...though some economists (sources) argue that a free market might have been even more effective/successful". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.5.209.162 (talk • contribs) 02:48, 9 June 2007

Indeed. We just - at present - don't have any sources critical of the 3YP (and I haven't seen any when I was looking for material for that article). If anybody can find them, they are welcome to expand this article further.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  00:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)