Economic Calculation, What is at the center?

[DD5]

@filc

He asserts that the focal point of Economic Calculation is that a true socialist common wealth could not plan and complete any project(literally), due to not having economic sanity.

You continue to misrepresent my view over and over again, and frankly, I am quite sick of it. If you think that the focal point of my argument is not the absent of prices, then you’re mad! You’re so distrubd by what I claim is the conclusion of the calculation argument, that that you completely missed the basis for the argument, absent of money prices. I don’t think there was a single post in that thread that I didn’t emphasize the absent of economic calculation due to the absent of money prices.

My argument on the matter was summarized here:https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/healthcare-bill-passed/11864/239 in response to Ensuric:

@DD5

Here is the argument again:

The argument I have made and the argument that I am quite sure Mises is making is that in the socialist commonwealth, assuming no capitalistic entity in its close proximity of space and time, there will be no money prices and therefore, no economic calculations. Such a commonwealth cannot develop an economy based on capital intensive and complex production methods. Such an economy cannot build ships and tractors and a modern pencil… “it is no economy at all” as Mises puts it. Of course, he’s not talking about small primitive barter economies.

Do you agree with the above or not? That is my argument and that is the calculation problem put forward by Mises.

In which Ensuric finally agreed and replied:

@Ensuric

I agree with the position stated above. Socialism is not an actual alternative to capitalism; it is the destruction of the economic system. If a society never develops a functional economic system (what we call “capitalism”), then the production of a warship, or even a pencil for that matter, is indeed impossible. The reason is now obvious, thanks to Mises. This part of the argument is a more general position aimed at the Neo-Marxists, which quickly defeated their nonsensical proposals (Bohm-Bawerk really did this in Positive Theory of Capital). But the controversy didn’t really begin until the Neo-Classical’s joined the fight and argued against the Austrian’s (this part was tricky, and this is where Mises really presents his revolutionary argument).

Socialism explains that an economic system, without capital markets, is no economic system at all (attacking Schumpeter and Lange); rational economic calculation is not solely contingent upon consumer good markets. The neoclassicals believed that you could impute the proper production techniques with the use of economic calculus. Mises explodes this myth (perpetual change, radical subjectivism, uncertainty, and the heterogeneity and complementarity of capital refute this position).

Schumpeter is the great whore of economics. He’s remembered not because of his theories or reasoning abilities, but because he was a “capitalist” who supported the socialists in the economic calculation debates. All the quasi-socialists of today love Schumpeter, and often cite him as a “reasonable capitalist” who was simply unable to completely remedy himself of “capitalist dogma,” blah blah blah.

I don’t think I have much more to add. I think that you have misunderstood the calculation problem. You and a few others keep referring to non-socialist Commonwealth like China and the Soviet Union, not realizing that they had money prices that they could resort to for their calculations. I have made this point perhaps 100 times in the previous thread. In the pure socialist commonwealth, there are no such prices at all.

There will be no economy at all**, as Mises said and meant!**

Of course, as I have also said numerous times in the previous thread, Mises is not talking about simple small barter economies when he refers to “economy”.