Calculation and Knowledge

Washington locked up timberland to stop deforestation, while taxing Canadian lumber, which meant felling more American trees. Timothy Terrell on conservation policy, and following the money.

The socialist calculation problem isn't a museum piece from 1920s Moscow. It's the Bureau of Land Management, this year. Timothy Terrell on why bureaucrats are still groping in the dark.

Hayek’s contribution lies not only in defending markets, but in explaining why centralized economic control is epistemologically constrained.

Some economists are claiming that applying AI in energy markets helps to solve the Hayekian knowledge problem. They fail to take into consideration that many of the “cheaper” energy choices are heavily subsidized, thus hiding their real costs.

Government entities like the Postal Service operate in a world of market prices, so they are not fully socialist. However, they still are subject to the limitations of socialist calculation problems.

Bob untangles two arguments that even Austrian economists sometimes conflate: Mises' calculation problem and Hayek's knowledge problem. Then, he explains why the distinction matters, especially in light of recent claims that AI and modern computing could finally make central planning viable.

Dr. Tate Fegley uses Rothbard's theory of demonstrated preference to dismantle the mainstream public goods framework, showing that claims of market failure and welfare improvement by the state have no scientific basis because they contradict what individuals actually reveal through their choices.

Murray Rothbard was born 100 years ago this week and his time on earth was much too short. Yet in that time he was here, he added much to the intellectual foundations of economic thinking.

Dr. Peter Klein explores whether AI can ever replace human entrepreneurs and central planners, arguing from Mises’ calculation problem that even “thinking machines” can only mimic, not originate, the real-world judgment and ownership that markets require.

Today, the term "Austrian economics" is used to designate two very different paradigms.