A planned economy is an economic system where the state directs production and adjusts output to community needs. In this system, means of production are owned by society itself and utilized in a planned fashion rather than through capital markets.
The Soviet-style planned economy evolved in the wake of World War I war-economy policies known as war communism from 1918 to 1921. Formal consolidation began under Gosplan in 1921 after the New Economic Policy intervened before regular five-year plans started in 1928.
Albert Einstein wrote about his conviction regarding economic systems in the May 1949 issue of Monthly Review titled Why Socialism? He stated there is only one way to eliminate grave evils through the establishment of a socialist economy accompanied by an educational system oriented toward social goals.
In 1971 the socialist Allende administration of Chile launched Project Cybersyn to install telex machines in every corporation for communication of economic data between firms and government. The program was abolished after CIA-backed Augusto Pinochet led a coup in 1973 establishing military dictatorship.
A decentralized-planned economy builds plans through distributed networks of disparate economic agents within mixed economies or post-capitalist systems. This approach implies democratic decision-making processes within firms themselves in form of industrial democracy rather than top-down state direction.