Economic Calculation In The Socialist Society

Dr. Hoff's 1938 book and Professor Vaughn's important introduction establish the theoretical impossibility of socialism: a system empirically in ruins but still advocated by many.

This is the essay that overthrew the socialist paradigm in economics, and provided the foundation for modern Austrian price theory. When it first appeared in 1920, Mises was alone in challenging the socialists to explain how their pricing system would actually work in practice. Mises proved that socialism could not work because it could not distinguish more or less valuable uses of social resources, and predicted the system would end in chaos. The result of his proof was the two-decade-long "socialist calculation" debate. This new edition contains an afterword by Joseph Salerno, who applies the calculation argument to contemporary problems like environmentalism and business regulation. "The significance of Misess 1920 article extends far beyond its devastating demonstration of the impossibility of socialist economy and society. It provides the rationale for the price system, purely free markets, the security of private property against all encroachments, and sound money. Its thesis will continue to be relevant as long as economists and policy-makers want to understand why even minor government economic interventions consistently fail to achieve socially beneficial results. "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" surely ranks among the most important economic articles written this century." -Joseph T. Salerno, from the afterword

In 1920, Ludwig von Mises proclaimed that all attempts to establish socialism would come to grief, for reasons of informational efficiency. At first, socialists and economists took Mises's argument seriously, but by the end of the Second World War, a consensus prevailed that Mises had been discredited. More recently, that consensus has been rapidly reversed: it is now widely agreed that 'Mises was right'. Yet the momentous implications of the Mises argument - for economics, politics, culture, and philosophy - remain largely unexplored. From Marx to Mises is a clear, penetrating exposition of the economic calculation debate, and a scrutiny of some of the broader issues it raises.

This set contains the material necessary for a full understanding of the Socialist Calculation debate, as well as giving critical insight into the relative merits of Capitalism, Socialism and the alternative Market Socialism.