Run the state industries, allocate the plan, direct state credit, and decide whether the country stays communist or reforms toward the market
Contents
Most countries in A House Divided are market economies: floating currencies, a central-bank chair setting rates, commodity prices that clear on supply and demand. Planned (command) economies are a different model, and now a played one. In a command country you run the state industries, set the national plan, and direct state credit. Whether the country stays communist or reforms toward the market is decided by how well the plan is run, not by a script.
The regime is off by default. When an admin enables command economy, countries that start on the command end of the dial (USSR/Russia, China in its early eras, Eastern-bloc satellites) come up as planned economies with their state industries split into separate enterprises you can run.
Two gates must both be true:
| Band | Dial | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Fully command | below 30 | Fixed currency, passive bank, administered CPI, soft budgets, full planned pricing |
| Dual-track | 30 to under 70 | Plan and market run together; national prices and shortage pressure scale with how much is still planned |
| Market | 70+ | Standard floating FX, chair policy, S/D commodity pricing |
Soviet Russia and early China start fully command; Eastern-bloc countries start command; China starts further along the dial in later eras. Where each ends up is now up to how the country is governed.
Instead of one national conglomerate, a command country's commanding heights are split into separate state enterprises, one per strategic sector (heavy industry, energy, extraction, agriculture, consumer goods, defense, chemicals, transport; the exact set is country and era specific). Each SOE carries its own:
A command economy is run through three offices. Each is filled by the government (cabinet or Supreme Soviet). If a seat is empty, the state brain runs it competently by default, so single-player worlds still work. A human who claims a seat takes over from the brain.
One director seat per strategic SOE. The director runs a single enterprise and chooses its production target (safe or a stretch quota), files an investment request to the Gosbank Chair for capital, and sets the labor-versus-quality mix (raw output now, or efficiency and quality for later). Hit your targets and the enterprise grows and your standing rises; miss them and you feed the shortages that erode the command system.
The planner sets the national plan: the output quotas and the investment split across every sector. This is the heavy-industry-versus-consumer-goods balancing act. Over-ambitious targets look strong on paper but widen the gap between plan and reality, which shows up as shortage. Under-ambitious targets leave growth on the table.
The Gosbank Chair runs state credit. Each turn the bank lends a credit budget across the SOEs. The chair decides which sectors get the money (an explicit per-sector allocation, or let the bank steer credit to the enterprises missing plan), how aggressively to fund (restrained or a flood), and budget softness (bail out insolvent SOEs and keep them running, or let the weak ones fold to force efficiency).
Directed credit is the Gosbank Chair's main lever, and it is a genuine tradeoff.
The single most important change: marketization is no longer scripted. The era sets the starting level, then it drifts every turn based on three live drivers.
Black-market pressure
Pushes toward market when shortages, the shadow premium (how much more black-market goods cost than the official price), and the second economy are large.
SOE performance
Pushes toward market when the state enterprises are chronically missing their plan.
Policy stance
Pushes toward market when the elected government and the Gosbank lean reformist: a market-leaning ruling party, disciplined credit, hard budgets.
There is no era gravity. History can break. A well-run orthodox USSR can stay red long past 1991. A badly mismanaged one reforms toward the market and, eventually, out of communism. A hardline government with a disciplined plan can hold command indefinitely; a reformist government that lets the enterprises fail will marketize.
Reform is not the only answer to a swelling black market. A hardline government can crack down instead. The Gosbank Chair (or head of government) can set an internal repression level that forces the second economy down, hides the grey market, and slows the drift toward the market.
What repression does not do is fix the shortage. The shelves are still empty; you have only pushed the trading underground. And it is not free: cracking down costs regime legitimacy every turn, and the bill grows the harder you push amid scarcity. Heavy repression sitting on top of a deep shortage is a pressure cooker that bleeds legitimacy while the underlying problem festers.
While a country sits in the command or dual-track bands, the planned machinery is in force. Read shortage, overhang, and the black-market premium as your signals rather than waiting for prices or the peg to clear.
Dual-track means plan and market run in parallel: a share of pricing and shortage machinery stays planned, the rest clears like a market. As the marketization level climbs through the 30-to-70 band, more of the economy behaves like a market and the planned machinery fades. When a country crosses out of the planned bands entirely, floating FX, chair policy, S/D pricing, and normal insolvency rules return.