this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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It was also an example of centralized economic planning and administration, too.
Read the damn book. Sometimes it is in fact necessary to read more than a sentence from wikipedia to understand a new idea. This one's worth it.
Edit: nvm. The Wikipedia initial blurb also mentions devolving decision making in the main thing. Didn't even read that much.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
Have you actually read anything about this topic? Besides the Wikipedia page you're contradicting?
Yes, I have. I am not contradicting it, information was sent to the central level and decisions sent back based on those inputs, typically aided by cybernetic algorithms.
Central planning.
I wasn't actually the one advocating specifically that program, and I'm not interested in arguing a Wikipedia article with somebody who's never actually read the literature and understands none of the underlying concepts.
You're reading to confirm what you believe, looking for key words, not to acquire new information. Thats how Hitler said to read in his book. I urge you to better reading material.
If you're too addled by the 20s to make it through a doorstopper pike 'brain of the firm'¹ there was a podcast called 'general intellect unit' where a couple Marxists explored the concepts and went over the key points. Listen to most of that at minimum.
¹not a dig at you; I probably couldn't at this point. Shit's fucked. Kind of afraid to check.
I'm well aware already, I've read about cybernetics, I haven't read Brain of the Firm specifically but have done other reading on the subject, including how to calculate prices, and how to move beyond price. I don't just read to confirm what I believe, I became a Marxist-Leninist after changing my mind from an anarchist because I read to challenge my existing understanding and deepen it. You insult me with no actual knowledge of me, nor what I've read. It's shallow.
Nope, it was decentralized. Read up on the theory, dawg.
If you call that system centralized, then most anarchists want to establish a centralized system.
seems pretty centralized to me dawg
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don't worry.
As @Horse@lemmygrad.ml already replied to you:
Like shit you have if you don't recognize the title "brain of the firm" being written by the fucking architect of Cybersyn.
Where did I say I didn't recognize it? My point about Cybersyn is that it's an example of economic planning driven centrally with bottom-up input, it's pretty standard Marxist economics.
The bullshit about it being "first pioneered by the soviets". Stafford Beer wasn't a Soviet.
Soviet experiments in cybernetics predates Beer.