What caused the shortages of goods in the later days of the Soviet Union?

Question

What caused the shortages of goods in the later days of the Soviet Union?

In: Economics

Answer 1

Brain drain

At the late 80s a lot of technocrats and small bureaucrats knew that their Western counterparts were making much more money than them and it was much easier to flee from Soviet Union at this period of time than in past decades.

Now, for the majority of human history there was no such thing as free market but some sort of centralized planned economy, so saying a shortage of goods is due to a centralized planned economy is no different than saying that American troops in WW2 had shortage of goods because they depended on people in charge of providing goods for them instead of a free market.

The true reason Soviet Union got shortage of goods is because if the technical people and bureaucrats in charge of production of goods were leaving the country due to better salaries elsewhere, there was no way to ramp up production, leaving the country with shortage of goods.