Deleted member 5719
The Soviet Union can't work like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sell stuff and recive money. And when they have sold stuff, their computers order new stuff.
Some argue that it would be useful if a computer know if a carpenter in Ukraina is about to run out of nails and order the nail factory in Sibiria to send more nails. However, there is a carpenter in Estonia and Belarus also about to run out of nails and somebody have to decide if the Ukrainian, Estonian or Belarusian carpenter have priority. Or if they should make nail instead of screws, leaving the Kazakstani mechanic named Borat without screws.
I would say an efficient computer system would make allocating resources much easier though. There would still be scarcity, but the planner would analyse his data and suggest retraining the Kazakh carpenter as a television journalist, given his ineffectiveness as a carpenter.
The capitalist system does exactly the same thing using money, the difference being that, under capitalism, the Kazakh carpenter would lose his house before he retrained.