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POTENTIAL GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: The total output that the economy could produce if resources were at full employment. If the economy is at full employment (a 5 percent unemployment rate) then actual gross domestic product is equal to potential gross domestic product. Of course, if the unemployment rate is greater than 5 percent, then actual production is less potential production. By calculating potential gross domestic product, we can figure out exactly how far below this potential we are. This information then can be used by the pointy-headed government economists to recommend appropriate monetary or fiscal policies.
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                           COMMAND ECONOMY: An economy in which the government uses its coercive powers to answer the three questions of allocation. This is the real world version of the idealized theoretical pure command economy. While in this real world version some allocation decisions are undertaken by markets, the vast majority are made through central planning. A command economy is one in which government commands (directs, orders, or dictates) the vast majority of resource allocation decisions. The contrasting economic system is a market-oriented economy, in which resource allocation decisions are achieved primarily through voluntary market exchanges.To achieve the allocation in absence of market exchanges, command economies make use of central planning. While central planning exists to some degree even in market-oriented capitalist economies, the level of detail needed in command economies is extensive. Every input, every output, every intermediate good, every worker, every resource is allocated based on a predetermined plan. Such planning is inherently less flexible and less efficient than markets. The two most notable command economies of the 20th century were the communist/socialist economic systems of China and the Soviet Union. Other countries in eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America also had various forms of command economies during the mid- to late-1900s. The philosophical basis of 20th century command economies can be found in the works of Karl Marx, including the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. These works presented the economic rationale for the decline of capitalism and the emergence of communism through the dictatorship of the proletariat, with an intermediate stage of socialism. While Marx's ultimate, utopian system of communism is totally devoid of government, the intermediate state of socialism involves extensive government control, hence a command economy. Soviet and Chinese political leaders and revolutionaries who adopted a communistic philosophy never quite made it past the intermediate socialistic, command economy stage.
Recommended Citation:COMMAND ECONOMY, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2010. [Accessed: September 2, 2010].
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State of the ECONOMY
Imports
June 2010
$200.3 billion
Up 3.0% from May 2010: Econ. Stat. Admin.
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BLUE PLACIDOLA
[What's This?]
Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time surfing the Internet looking to buy either a wall poster commemorating Thor Heyerdahl's Pacific crossing aboard the Kon-Tiki or decorative garden figurines. Be on the lookout for crowded shopping malls.
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"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends. " -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman
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AFEA
American Farm Economic Association
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