[dauertewigkeit]

The article really wants to drive home how bad "central planning" is, but the problem, as per the article, originates from the fact that the food banks themselves are operating semi-independently from Feeding America. So actually the whole problem originates because you already have decentralization, which is the opposite of central planning. And this is a common situation with a lot of public services when they do a half-assed approach of providing the service publicly. Healthcare is a good example.

As per the article, the issue was that due to the food banks operating independently, the food banks were not relying information about their locally sourced food donations to Feeding America. Their solution is a fake currency, basically a way of rationing food from Feeding America. But of course they wouldn't put it in those terms, because of the socialist connotation of the word, "rationing". Instead they call it "market design". LOL. But the point is, Walmart which is more centralized than this operation, has no problem. So actually central planning isn't the issue here. The issue here is that you have a decentralized operation that necessitates a market mechanism.

Politics informed by ideological economists creates the problem. Economists informed by political ideologies create the solution to the problem that only exists because of their design.

[sparselogic]

Funny to see “rationing” used to describe bidding, instead of the clear rationing approach used first: each food bank got an allocation of all foods based on population served.

Just because the new approach accomplished the goals of the old one better, that doesn’t mean it took the old approach’s name. ;)

[_rpxpx]

Brilliantly put. Also, the very fact that there are millions of underfed people in the richest country in the world, is itself evidence of the economic failure of markets. As Richard Wolff put it: in a milk shortage, markets allocate milk to the people with the most money - i.e. the least need for milk. That's not efficient.

[holbrad]

There generally aren't underfed people in the US. This just simply isn't true.

The opposite is a far bigger issue.