Talking to Walls: The Socialist Calculation Debate that Never Really Was One
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52195/pm.v15i2.56Abstract
In his book «Socialism, Economic calculation and Entrepreneur-ship» Dr. Jesus Huerta de Soto (2010) gives an account of the his-tory of the socialist calculation debate, in which he shows very clearly why the political left today still believes a socialist econ-omy is possible. The popular wisdom in those circles, namely, is that in 1936, Oskar Lange (Lange, October 1936: 53–71 & February 1937) succeeded in refuting Mises’ claim that central planning could not work because the information that is needed to draw up such plans can only be generated in a free market. This paper wants to show that nothing could be further from the truth: Lange never answered Mises’ fundamental challenge, nor was there any other socialist economist that has been able to refute his central argument. A lot of straw men died, but Mises’ funda-mental argument lives.
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