Even where prices are fixed, or non-existent, isn’t it possible to calculate the level of demand for certain goods? For example, a baker only need count the number of people asking for bread each day, to determine its level of demand. No?
But when you dont have to pay for things or you pay an artificial price the demand is not real, since people act different when they have to pay for things than when they get it fro free or at a fixed artificial price.
Right. The baker counting how much bread people want doesn’t answer the question of how much bread do they want considering the resources that must be diverted to produce the bread.
That’s the real question, right? What capital goods and land should be used to produce bread compared to other uses?
Demand for all products is potentially infinite if not placed in the framework of relative scarcity.
For consumer goods, yes. But that’s not the biggest problem.
See Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises (71 pages).
What people ask for is of no use for economic calculation, but only what they are ready to pay for.
Not completely relevant to the question, but just wanted to post this wonderful quote by Mises:
"Socialism cannot be realized because it is beyond human power to establish it
as a social system. The choice is between capitalism and chaos. A man who
chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium
cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and
death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose
between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the
disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an
alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. To stress
this point is the task of economics as it is the task of biology and chemistry to
teach that potassium cyanide is not a nutriment but deadly poison."
–Human Action
However, such is not the alternative.
Socialism cannot be realized because it is beyond human power to establish it
as a social system. The choice is between capitalism and chaos. A man who
chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium
cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and
death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose
between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the
disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an
alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. To stress
this point is the task of economics as it is the task of biology and chemistry to
teach that potassium cyanide is not a nutriment but deadly poison.
You are giving the fallacy of the “democrat”, note the small d the USA Democrat is something worse. That is that you can determine individual behavior in using scarce resources by consolidating votes on the subject. This is just silly. I can vote that health care is so important that people should get it before they get say a TV set but that does not make health care less scarce and it does not change the healthy or not so healthy persons valuation of the TV set over health care. It gets even more convoluted as you get into subjective valuations. For example air and water are more valuable than gold yet gold is $1200 per ounce and water from the City of Cincinnati is $1 for 720 gallons. In a conveinence store it is $1.5 per pint.
No person, or group of persons, or computer, or group of computers, or group of persons and group of computers, etc is smart enough to figure out this puzzle. On a price system can give suppliers the information they need to make sense of what consumers desire.
“Demand” has two meanings. You seem to be using one meaning, which is “how many people want it?” And the answer is “Everyone.” Everyone wants free bread, why not? Who would refuse? And the more the merrier. I can feed my ducks with it, have breadfights with my friends with it, give it to my kiddies to carve into toys for the day, and why not fill up my freezer while I’m at it? Who knows when it will be in short supply?
Which is basically what happened with Medicaid. When the doctor is free, why not visit him every day, play some checkers with him, after all the govt is paying for his time, not me.