The Red Plenty was a great book and is highly recommended reading.
I'm reading a book right now called "Why Nations Fail" (a little drier but definitely worth the read) and it argues that part of the reason why strongly centralized economies fail is that politics gets in the way of optimizing for growth.
E.g. maybe USSR communism could have worked better if there wasn't, say, the coal minister standing in the way of moving resources away from coal to a better use of capital.
I'm reading a book right now called "Why Nations Fail" (a little drier but definitely worth the read) and it argues that part of the reason why strongly centralized economies fail is that politics gets in the way of optimizing for growth.
E.g. maybe USSR communism could have worked better if there wasn't, say, the coal minister standing in the way of moving resources away from coal to a better use of capital.