Calculation and Knowledge

An economy cannot be successfully planned with computers and technicians. Mises and Hayek proved this decades ago, writes Nicolás Cachanosky.

The problem is a confused reading of how markets work, and how governments continue with deficit spending in the service of favored interest groups.

Booms and busts are brewing in the real economy, but computers that can quickly solve math problems won’t tell you much about how business cycles w

The Haven has posted the following poll question:

Non-monetary calculation of the environmental effects of action runs into the same problems of in natural calculation and commonly owned means of production. 

This paper documents and articulates Murray N. Rothbard’s contribution to our understanding of the theory and practice of socialism.

The standard view of the socialist calculation debate is that Mises and Hayek at best demonstrated the  practical impossibility of socialist economy,

The problem of cost is the cornerstone of economic calculation.  Entrepreneurs act upon the cost implications of their decisions and depend on cost data that represent the actual pattern of resource consumption.

Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises demonstrated that central planners will be unable to manage an economy rationally due to the problems of dispersed knowledge and the impossibility of economic calculation

The article is a much needed and long overdue acknowledgement and appreciation of Rothbard’s contributions to the theory, including the calculation debate, and practice of socialism.