In every country that has moved toward socialism, the phase of the development in which socialism becomes a determining influence on politics has been preceded by a period during which socialist ideals governed the thinking of the more active intellectuals.
It is always a challenge for entrepreneurs to try and predict what customers will want in the future. But now things are even more unpredictable. And government regulations aren't helping either.
If time preference is genetically built into humans, are they double discounting future goods? Does this mean people should stop trying to weigh time in their calculations?
Firms, like other organizations, are unable to substitute the market in coordinating their economic plans. If they ever tried to eliminate the market creating them, they would face the same problems that all planned economies do.
Prices determined in the marketplace are absolutely essential to a functioning economic system. This is no less true if today's property was redistributed unjustly in the past. Market prices today are the path to recovery.
Winning narratives shape market prices until their victory is confirmed by the facts or they are discredited by facts and replaced by new narratives.
In a world of scarcity, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
If we're serious about maximizing the resources needed to combat COVID-19, we need an economy that is deregulated and flexible.
Ryan McMaken and Jeff Deist tackle Part Five of Human Action, delving into Mises's brilliant and radical view on socialism.
