I’ve never been much of a one for Five Year Plans. Delusions in the putrid minds of early Soviet bolsheviks. Who thought they could control everything. And became queer quinquennial quirks.
I recall the “Parable of the Nail”. Soviet industry needed a certain millions of nails. So decreed these New Soviet Planners.
So delivered were the certain millions of nails. Only problem: they were all tiny tacks. The smallest size a nail could be while still being a nail and not a pin.
The clever apparatchiks now decreed the Nail-makers had to produce a certain minimum tonnage. Result: a “NAIL”. The size of a a ballistic misslile on the back of a flat bed. Command obeyed, Comrade.
You get the picture. Planning can never do the job as well as market prices. At allocating scarce resources in the way people want, at the time they want and at a price they’re happy to pay.
But, I’ll go along with David Dodwell for now. In the hope that he’s right. That this Five-Year Plan for Hong Kong, the first such for “The World’s Freest Economy” will be no more than a broad strategy.
And if it doesn’t work, let’s remain the pragmatic economy and society we are, and abolish it.
Meanwhile…
