China can use tech to prove planned economies work

To this day, perceptions of planned economies are shaped by stories of the Soviet Union's economic inefficiencies and distortions, either turning out shoddy goods that nobody wanted or unusable ones, like quantities of unpaired shoes. Among the most sought-after privileges was access to the foreign currency shops that sold the things people actually wished to own.

The obvious lesson from the discredited Soviet model is that bureaucrats are not the best arbiters of what people want or how much they will pay for it. Judgment without good information does not work.