In his lecture entitled Harnessing the Market Ash Milton highlights several things that – especially after COVID-19 and the fact that planning is back in fashion – have once again become a part of the common social imaginary. If in the 20th century the failed communist attempts at central planning led to the conclusion that the market is the best, or rather the most efficient method for social allocation and information selection, it seems that in the 21st century big data and increasingly sophisticated technology have caused the relation between central planning and markets – or between centralisation and decentralisation – to become much more complex. In his video, Milton argues that countries and big corporations, such as Amazon, do not compete with markets, but rather methodically create them, by which they acquire otherwise inaccessible information and even in centralised instances ensure an efficient and competition-oriented dynamics through time.
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