Vital needs are the demographically grounded needs. They can be predicted decades in advance; and their being predictable decades in advance makes it possible to control them centuries in advance. Their predictability springs from the fact that by analyzing what the needs depend on they can be distributed between the three following groups:
needs where the volume of production required to satisfy them is proportionate to the number of population in groups formed on the basis of sex and age characteristics (these are — food, clothes, kindergartens, school, universities, jobs, etc.);
needs where the volume of production required to satisfy them is proportionate to the number of families corresponding to how the general number of families is distributed between types of families (single, childless couples, couples having many children; families where more than two generations live together under one roof; those living in town apartments; those living in private houses with allotments etc. — these group of needs includes mainly housing and most home appliances);
needs in infrastructure which are determined by the population’s way of life in the region and the aims of state institution’s activity (these are transport infrastructure, energy supply, information exchange, education and health service, army bases and combat training facilities etc.)
Because the demographically grounded needs of each group are predictable the economy can be adjusted and prepared in advance to the end of their full and assured stable satisfaction from generation to generation.
In this case society’s technological and organizational progress, and most of all its ethic progress contribute to stability of the multiindustrial system of production and consumption operating on a planned basis given that the state (viewed as a system of professional control of social life) executes a policy beneficial to the whole of society.
Yet an irreversible implementation of this scheme of operation in the economy and state control system will require quite a long time period. At best it will take up one generation’s active lifetime if this is a thinking generation, living in good conscience and developing their morality and ethics according to a world understanding that follows their conscience.
A plan in general , a plan as such, consists of the following:
a set of defined objectives and indices that are subject to objective control and that define each of the objectives and can reveal deviations in the process of implementation if such occur;[127]
a complex of actions (a scenario, perhaps a multi-choice one) which consist in utilizing various resources (discovered and defined) and means to complete the objectives chosen (there may be a certain order of succession due to different levels of priority of the objectives and the limited nature of available resources and means).
This definition is also applicable to plans of social and economic development. This is a very useful definition that explains what the plan is in essence. This definition makes clear that:
a plan of economic and social development is a set of objectives for production and product distribution and a scenario according to which the multiindustrial production and consumption system is controlled (control always has objectives because it is impossible without distinctly defined objectives);
and the market mechanism is one of the possible means by which the multiindustrial production and consumption system can be self-regulated. This means can be adjusted (if one knows how to do it) to completing certain objectives of production and distribution that have been recognized and set.
In other words when speaking generally some plans (scenarios) of the social and economic nature can include applying market mechanism for completing the chosen objectives, and other plans (scenarios) of the social and economic nature can exclude or ban self-regulation of multiindustrial production and consumption either completely or partially in some of its aspects.[128]
For Russia at the beginning of the 21st century (first of all) and other states of the former USSR this means that the cult opposition (since 1985 and until now[129]) of the so-called «planned economy» and «market economy» which have been considered to be two mutually excluding alternatives results from the superficial attitude, ignorance and folly of «economists» and parrot-like «analytic» journalists» who have made such statements before and continue making them now.
All this time intelligent people who are aware of the problem’s essence have held a different opinion.[130] For example A. Epstein in his article “More dangerous than an enemy”[131] published in the “Economicheskaya gazeta” (№ 41 (210), October 1998) quotes an interview with Saburo Okita, one of the «founding fathers» of the Japanese «economical miracle», given shortly before his death to professor A. Dinkevich:
«One often hears that the transition to market mechanism proclaimed there (in the former USSR and Eastern Europe — A.E.) is convincing proof for the market-oriented economy being superior to the centrally planned one. I think it is a mistake... The problem lies in CONNECTING, CO-ORDINATING, COMBINING THE PRINCIPLE OF THE TWO SYSTEMS IN A SINGLE MECHANISM.[132] (put in capitals by A.A.), finding a way of combining market mechanisms and government planning and regulation».
In order to apply the last sentence of the quotation to the global economy of mankind one needs to change it the following way:
To connect, co-ordinate, combine the principles of these two systems in a common algorithms of social self-government, to find a effective method of combining market mechanisms, national and global planning and regulation to the end of providing every person with a chance of living a life a human being is worthy of (deserves).[133]
Planning of economic development is performed after interindustry proportions and links are discovered, this has been mentioned before. Because it requires to develop productive capacities in compliance with pre-set figures of final product output in each of the industries (in other words it requires having pre-defined objectives and is impossible without the process of setting targets) theoretic and practical planning and control on a planned basis at the very start face the problem of determining needs and the consequences of their satisfaction. In the course of time as one gets a richer experience one inevitable comes to an understanding that all of the needs society has must be divided into demographically grounded ones and degraded parasitic ones.
The needs, which have been discovered and included in the plan, must be divided between the two classes every time a new project plan is being drawn for the upcoming period. The way this issue is dealt with determines where the plan’s control indices come from and what they are.
Earlier we pointed out that the many-sided issue of defining targets in its most aspects lies outside the mechanism of market self-regulation. Yet for same reasons it lies outside the methodology of mathematic modeling and plan optimization, as well as outside the methodology of implementing plans of economic and social development.
One and the same methods (algorithms) of making and optimizing plans, as well as identical control structures and procedures in certain cases can be used for achieving mutually exclusive objectives included in different plans. This is what those prejudiced against planned economy should be aware of.