The Failure of Automated System of Planning Calculations (ASPC) as Theoretical and Methodological Mistake of the State Planning Committee: Analysis and Conclusions

Abstract

Real economic growth and development is no longer conceivable without digital revolution achievements. However, to this day, introduction of these achievements into the national economy is far from being the easiest task, since its solution entails a number of methodological and conceptual problems. That was also understood in the USSR after the end of the Second World War, when society for the first time in history thought about improving the national economy management based on the latest technological solutions. The project of automating economic planning, officially called the automated system of planning calculations (ASPC) became a new unique solution of that time. Such a system was supposed to bring Soviet planning to a qualitatively higher level, however, due to theoretical and methodological contradictions contained in the concept, the Soviet digitalization project initially went the wrong way and was never brought to its logical conclusion. The question is whether it was possible to implement ASPC with the same capacities, but with the different theoretical and methodological basis.