Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth
by Ludwig von Mises · first published 1990
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…it to the highest bidder. Ex: If copper prices go up, some people - those who can - will substitute away from it, thus allowing the copper to go to it's most valued use. If interested, I recommend 'Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth' by Ludvig Von Mises [http://mises.org/econcalc.asp] Also good is Friedrich Hayek's 'Competition as a Discovery Procedure' [http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_3.pdf]
on “Nevada approves regulations for self-driving cars” ↗This short essay from the 1920's lays out the fundamental flaws of trying to do economic calculations in the socialist state: Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth: http://mises.org/econcalc.asp
on “Project Cybersyn: real-time computer control of a planned economy (1970-1973)” ↗…perhaps the most powerful information system ever invented since it allows people all over the world who have never met and to coordinate their behavior in mutual beneficial ways. A quick easy read is Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (http://mises.org/econcalc.asp) is a clear example of how economic thought can be applied to predict outcomes of various systems, but notice it doesn't say in 10 years X will happen.
In fact you are wrong socialism can never work because it doesn't have proper price signals. There's an excellent paper: Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth that details this problem from the 30s. Also, it is very hard to have a mixed plan because eventually one will exploit the other. Game theory is great and all, but most of the time I don't think it…
on “Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own” ↗…make the impossible assumption that all humans are saints who are genuinely seeking the best possible outcome for their fellow man. The Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises wrote an essay in 1920 called "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" which made the argument that without market pricing, rational economic calculation is impossible. To give an example: say that you had a plot of land to develop in a hypothetical city and wanted to do…
on “Can we make socialism work? [audio]” ↗The subtler arguments against socialism are not amenable to sound bites. The one that was initially penned in the 1920s and has stood the test of time the best is "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth"[1]. This kicked off the Socialist calculation debate[2] which was on-going during the 20th century. It was largely settled in favor of the anti-central planners with the collapse of communism and Deng…
on “How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free” ↗…instead of solely thinking about dictums handed down from ancient books as the religious extremists do. The key question is: what is to stop all this from working? In the 20s, Hayek and Von Mises wrote "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth"[2] and gave a great criticism of Socialism that eventually predicted its collapse. Mainly that planning without prices would be extremely inefficient. There really isn't a good argument that doesn't…
on “China bans 23M from buying travel tickets as part of 'social credit' system” ↗…"profit". Profit would be the surplus employed by workers to create more use value. Goods would be traded "in kind" as is without a lubricant of exchange like money. The canonical argument against this is "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth". There's generally been two ways socialist thinkers have tried to get around this: a) calculation in kind, which essentially reverts us back to unscalable barter where there is no reliable unit of account,…
on “Volkswagen and the Blame the Engineer Game” ↗