Protip - Don't use Command Economy

[FranklyJustNess]

I had a bug where some buildings were not subsidized (until I triggered it, then it would lock into having to) and built 20 levels of food industries in a state, that really wasn't much different to the state next door, and before I knew it, it was fully employed and making a nice profit. I click that I want to enable subsidies on it and apparently it now needs 10k or it's not gonna be able to pay the workers. So I am really not sure if there isn't some error in calculations there.

So it looks like that comes from difference in building and state priority. A building only tries to pay a good and reasonable wage, that's based on state average wealth. Essentially making sure people living in a state can sustain their wealth level with the wages they are given. Subsidies however work on normal wage, which is an average over all local wages in incorporated state (or maybe the maximum of two). Meaning subsidizing increases the wages and since there's no actual need for it, the industry refuses to do it, but command economy forces you to do, resulting in subsidies on profitable buildings.

Honestly I feel it's pretty redundant mechanic that causes only confusion, as we can set minimal wage and welfare payments via institutions. There's hardly a need to convolute it further with a payment on worker that actually are doing perfectly well.

I could see it being a thing in command economy's ownership method, but only if it paid all that money directly into the government. It makes so little sense a state pays money to workers of a profitable industry run by government bureaucrats, that hoard the profits.

 

[Gui10]

In order to more or less simulate the Soviet planned economy, there must be the following things:

- Profitability as such gone.
- Access of the companies to the required raw materials for free. The state decides which companies get what and how much.
- Consumer access to goods either directly or through wages. Again, the state decides how much and at what price.
- Possibility to limit mobility.
- Possibility of forced labor.
- No unemployment, since indirect work pressure was mandatory.

But most of this is already in-game:
1) Building profitability dissapears. It just doesn't matter anymore, because the state mandates everything is paid for. The only significant deviation is that "state owned" doesn't send the profits (aka "dividents") to the state directly, instead letting the "administrator" pops keep them (which would be kind of ilegal profiteering ). If it worked by sending the profit directly to the state, command economies would have the option to allow cooperatives to keep their own surplus (worker coops), have state monopolize all surplus (state owned) or a mix of both.
2) All companies are, effectively, getting all materials for free. The numbers you get for prices, productivity and the "cost" of subsidies are only indicators for you, as the central planner, to know how efficient is the current economic model. The ability to increase or reduce production in certain factories is already there (with only the exception of city centers), as the ability to build or demolish levels at will, although it will cause discontent to force the workers to learn a new trade, but given you have taken responsibility for designing the entire economy it kind of makes sense they blame you .
3) If you get max level social security, you can greatly reduce all social inequality until you have virtually eliminated wages (since all pops are getting access to the same goods anyway, the only true limitation is what the economy can provide). It takes times for industrial subsidies + wage subsidies to filter through (which makes sense, it takes time to reform a society) and it is not perfect (which makes sense, black markets), but it is quite good.
4) Limited mobility is already in-game, throught the no-migration law. I don't think it is a good idea though. If you fear poaching by still-more-developed capitalist countries, I guess you could take it, but it would be better to either go Isolationist (if you are big enough) or just focus on improving your Standard of Living until you can keep them.
5) Slavery? Opressive societies are already modeled through Outlawed Dissent (literally ilegal to oppose the government) and Secret Police (that sometimes "talks" with groups in opposition), so if all you are looking for is pops that don't benefit from your surpluses to increase their SoL it would be represented through either discrimination laws or slavery.
6) If you are subsidizing everything, this is already the case. Unemployed pops will keep looking for employment even though they could just stay unemployed and enjoy the free time.

Don't look at the cost of subsidies literally when in a command economy. Rather, they represent the current inneficiencies in your economy that you are using state power/redistribution to overcome.