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

Two key things communist run industries are hopelessly inefficient, there is zero incentive to produce more and zero incentive to innovate with new methods of production, so the same factories and farms etc. produce less each year and of poor quality. Then some items need to be imported and you need foreign exchange to buy stuff and they had run out of money and no one wanted to buy the poor quality exported goods.