[dragonwriter]

> Historically that has been true, but couldn't technology help?

No, it's a fundamental structure problem, not a technology (aside from the sense in which an economic system is itself a social technology) problem.

> Like, issuing everyone a smartphone and having them register all demand and make all purchases through it.

From a utility signalling perspective, that's not significantly different in the information it provides than just retaining currency for consumer purchases, which state socialism generally has.

[AstralStorm]

Or shouldn't be impossible to devise a robust decision and optimization algorithm against missing, wrong or inaccurate input. That said, linear programming is not it and the problem is extremely slippery.

The trouble with governments as it is is that they make decisions In an extremely non-robust way...

The robust way is supposed to work like a many-worlds predictor- corrector pattern and that's just one way. It is an order of magnitude or two more computationally intensive. (Think robust weather predictions and modelling.)

[utexaspunk]

I think it would pretty much require taking humans out of the decision-making process as much as possible, and maximal transparency where they are involved. Humans provide input as far as what they want and what they are willing to pay for it, and everything else is algorithms.