you are mixing different concepts: 'commitment to long-term plans and their execution' vs 'planned economy and centralized control'. that's a common logical error people make.
I am not conflating the two, if that is what you thought.
I fully understand the conceptual and philosophical differences between centralized planning and setting long term goals, but I am associating them together because I also understand human nature well enough.
Just about all of us work for and inside organizations at one time or another. Organizations have hierarchies, needs, goals that are short and long terms, priorities, resources of all types, and worst of all -- conflicting desires. It would be great if everyone have the same emotional and psychological responses every time the leader expressed and set forth a goal for the organization, whether that goal is to create a microwave oven or a rubber ducky. But since not everyone are the same in terms of heights and weights which affects ergonomics, not the same in terms of intelligence and education which affects creativity and problem solving, not the same in terms personal lives which affects scheduling of shifts and meetings, etc...etc..., conflicts inevitably arises. So in order to meet the goal of designing the microwave oven and mass production of the same, rules are created and enforced to govern everyone's behaviors to reduce the quantity of conflicts, or mitigate their effects, or hopefully eliminate the environment that fosters conflicts.
If I want to work for Acme Microwave Oven Corporation (AMOC), a closed system, I have to accept certain conditions that will be in conflict with my personal desires and I have to place those conditions at a higher priority than my own desires. AMOC in turn will pay me for my services and compromises I made. As I work for AMOC, my position inside this organization places constraints on my freedom. Obviously, as a production worker, I cannot just simply walk into R/D and start working there. Does AMOC need to explicitly state that only scientists and engineers can work in the R/D labs ? Or does everyone have enough common sense to know their own limitations to stay out of the R/D labs unless he/she have legitimate business in there ?
AMOC can further reduce the possibilities of conflicts by clearly stating that if someone want to work in the R/D labs, certain time in service must be there, certain level of education must be verifiable, and the candidate must prove manual dexterity with hand tools. Departments like Finance, Facilities Maintenance, Production Control, or Executive have their own criteria. I may have a great idea on how to make a better microwave oven, but since there are rules in place to maintain order and discipline, those rules also limit freedoms of expression, which in my case is my great idea on how to make a better microwave oven. On the other hand, the scientists and engineers inside the R/D labs have much greater freedoms of expressions available to them.
The problem with human nature is that once we see how closed systems succeeded, we tend to believe, or rather delude ourselves, that we can control all variables and their effects regardless of whether the system is closed or not. The world have seen the disastrous experiment that was communism, when long term plans and goals meshed with the human desire for control. Just as we have seen how bad decisions ruined a car company versus good decisions profited another car company, we saw how bad decisions made inferior one country to another, all because the leaderships of companies or countries believed they can control everything and that they must control everything in order to meet those long term goals.
You said...
...incentives to motivate people towards goals.
What are those incentives ?
AMOC pay me to work for the company to build microwave ovens. Is the US government going to pay me and to do what ? Propaganda ? Sorry, but that is not going to put food on my table. Take this argument to greater scope. Is the government going to set long term goals and engage captains of industries who then will direct their companies, whether to make microwave ovens or cars or cell phones, so that the country can meet certain economic milestones ? We have that -- fascism.
Under fascism, there can still be the creativity that is necessary in the 'creative destruction' theme that is the foundation of capitalism and free market system, but in lesser degree. Like it or not, China have most, if not all, the characteristics of fascism, and it is understandable that China need to adopt fascism in order lift herself out of the disaster that is communism.
Can the iPhone came from a fascist system ? Possibly, but not likely. Can the microwave oven came from a fascist system ? No, or far far less likely than the iPhone.
The iPhone is an iteration of a communication device, meaning the iPhone have a predecessor -- the telephone. On the other hand, the microwave oven is a standalone invention, meaning someone, be it a person or an organization, analyzed the behaviors of EM radiation, characters of materials such as metals and glass, and the labor intensiveness of cooking, and created the microwave oven.
Whatever the motivation, reasoning, and/or justifications for constraints, the more constraints there are upon the individuals inside the system, open or closed, the less likely the chance for a spark of creativity to be caught and developed. The Soviets beat the world in having the world's first satellite. That was a spark of creativity. What happened to that spark ? The American response may have been out of military paranoia, but it was the American people who developed that spark and made the satellite a much more useful communication device, starting with voice, then video, and to all the conveniences that we see today. Political oppression in the Soviet system did not merely constrained but effectively snuffed out sparks of creativity that could have exploited the satellite.
Modern day China is somewhere in the middle between the Soviet tightly controlled system and the US capitalist free market system. The captains of industries under past fascist Germany worked very closely with the German government to create and meet long term economic goals, just like how China is doing today. But if the Industrial Revolution is used as the starting point for when any country and its political and economic system can be measured against, the capitalist free market system is supreme in terms of allowing the creative spark to be captured and developed with complete disregard for whatever long term goals there might be from the government.
can long-term, centralized planning fail or be used to do evil? yes, of course. but who decides what's good and evil? no one has the answer. the political correct answer is 'the people', but most of 'the people' tend to be short-sighted (think about environment protection, drug abuse, and climate change). I'm leaning towards meritocracy and elitism.
Yes...You seek the mythical 'benevolent dictatorship'.
and when you're talking about 'the benefits' in your last sentence, since you talk about Arthur Clark and GPS, I think you actually mean 'scientific and technological progress' (mixing concepts again). for a lot of Chinese, alleviating quality of life is definitely 'benefit'.
What I meant was that only in an unconstrained system can someone like Clarke can come up with an idea like GPS, have it realized by someone else, and others copied it.
