By shifting from a centrally planned economy to a market-based one, China has fostered growth through decentralization and experimentation.

FORBES: Give China's New Leadership Time to Implement Needed Reforms

Back in the 1960s, Americans feared the "terrifying efficiency" of the centrally planned Soviet economy, to borrow a no-joke famous phrase from the British politician Richard Crossman.

CNN: Is China's rise overrated?

Hungary has made the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, with a per capita income nearly two-thirds that of the EU-25 average.

FORBES: Hungary

Proponents of the centrally planned pump-priming, deficit-spending welfare state see the gold standard as the enemy of a healthy economy.

FORBES: Give The Gold Standard Its Due

An attritional stream of propaganda pours forth from his official media, and he is busily moving the country back to a centrally planned economy, depriving state agencies and companies of most of the autonomy they had gained in the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s.

ECONOMIST: Fidel Castro's permanent revolution marches on