Economic and industrial production instability

Uncoordinated production planning

Nature

The magnitude and rate of changes due to restructuring of industrial production is not only enormous but largely unplanned, generating a momentum and direction of its own. The internal dynamics of national growth and the international spread of technology are governed by uncoordinated forces, including ad hoc governmental decisions and the dictates of the market; they encourage the perpetuation of the inequitable distribution of the benefits accruing internationally from the present rapid growth of industry and it is unclear whether they are the most efficient means of promoting such growth per se. As stated in the draft of the Lima Plan of Action on Industrial Development and Cooperation, "the unrestricted play of market forces is not the most suitable means of promoting industrialization on a world scale nor of achieving effective international cooperation in the field of industry".

Claim

Instability is the essence of capitalist, laissez-faire markets, the results of which are unemployment, poverty, and disease or hunger for millions. Lack of central planning allows market forces to war on each other. Discord and confusion prevail in the economic and industrial system to the detriment of society and labour, but to the benefit of bankers and the privileged classes who move their capital in response to market forces.

Counter-claim

Economic activity is an expression of human behaviour. As such it is inherently unstable. Were it less so, the fact still remains that food production and many essential commodities (such as wood, wood products and natural fibres) depend on the environment as well as on man's efforts, so that their availability is never certain as to specific quantities at specific times.